The Blind Harper

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And thus it came my feet were led
  To wizard walls that hairy hung
  Old as their rock the moss made dead;
  And, like a ditch of fire flung
  Around it, uncouth flowers red
  Thrust spur and fang and tongue.

  And here I harped. Did dead men list?
  Or was it hollow hinges gnarred
  Huge, iron scorn in donjon-twist?
  And when I thought a face sword-scarred
  Would curse me, lo! a woman kissed
  At me hands ringed and starred.

  And so I sang; for she had leaned
  Rare beauty to me, dark and tall;
  I sang of Love, whose Court is queened
  Of Aliénor the virginal,
  Nor saw how rolled on me a fiend
  Wolf-eyeballs from the wall.

  Oh, how I sang! until she laughed
  Red lips that made lute harmony;
  I sang of knights who fought and quaffed
  To Love's own paragon, Marie--
  Nor saw the suzerain whose shaft
  Was bowed and bent on me.

  And I had harped until she wept;
  But when I sang of Ermengarde
  Of Anjou,--where her Court is kept
  By brave, by beauty, and by bard,--
  She turned a raven there and swept
  Me, like a fury, 'ward.

  A bleeding beak had pierced my sight;
  A crimson claw each cheek had lined;
  One glimpse: wild walls of threatening night
  Heaped raven battlements behind
  A moat of blazing serpents bright--
  And then I wandered blind.

© Madison Julius Cawein