"We shall have done with Love, and Death be king
And turn our nimble bodies carrion,
Our red lips dusty;--yet our live lips cling
Despite that age-long severance and are one
Despite the grave and the vain grief thereof,--
Which we will baffle, if in Death's domain
Fond memories may enter, and we twain
May dream a little, and rehearse again
In that unending sleep our present love.
"Speed forth to her in halting unison,
My rhymes: and say no hindrance may restrain
Love from his aim when Love is bent thereon;
And that were love at my disposal lain--
All mine to take!--and Death had said, 'Refrain,
Lest I, even I, exact the cost thereof,'
I know that even as the weather-vane
Follows the wind so would I follow Love."
Sire Edward put aside the lute. "Thus ends the Song of Service," he
said, "which was made not by the King of England but by Edward
Plantagenet--hot-blooded and desirous man!--in honor of the one woman
who within more years than I care to think of has at all considered
Edward Plantagenet.
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