Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=360805" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Staff and Scrip</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Who rules these lands?” the Pilgrim said.<br>“Stranger, Queen Blanchelys.”<br>“And who has thus harried them?” he said.<br>“It was Duke Luke did this:<br>God's ban be his!”<br>The Pilgrim said: “Where is your house?<br>I'll rest there, with your will.”<br>“You've but to climb these blackened boughs<br>And you'll see it over the hill,<br>For it burns still.”<br>“Which road, to seek your Queen?” said he.<br>“Nay, nay, but with some wound<br>You'll fly back hither, it may be,<br>And by your blood i' the ground<br>My place be found.”<br>“Friend, stay in peace. God keep your head,<br>And mine, where I will go;<br>For He is here and there,” he said.<br>He passed the hill-side, slow.<br>And stood below.<br>The Queen sat idle by her loom;<br>She heard the arras stir,<br>And looked up sadly: through the room<br>The sweetness sickened her<br>Of musk and myrrh.<br>Her women, standing two and two,<br>In silence combed the fleece.<br>The Pilgrim said, “Peace be with you,<br>Lady;” and bent his knees.<br>She answered, “Peace.”<br>Her eyes were like the wave within;<br>Like water-reed the poise<br>Of her soft body, dainty thin;<br>And like the water's noise<br>Her plaintive voice.<br>For him, the stream had never well'd<br>In desert tracts malign<br>So sweet; nor had he ever felt<br>So faint in the sunshine<br>Of Palestine.<br>Right so, he knew that he saw weep<br>Each night through every dream<br>The Queen's own face, confused in sleep<br>With visages supreme<br>Not known to him.<br>“Lady,” he said, “your lands lie burnt<br>And waste: to meet your foe<br>All fear: this I have seen and learnt.<br>Say that it shall be so,<br>And I will go.”<br>She gazed at him. “Your cause is just,<br>For I have heard the same,”<br>He said: “God's strength shall be my trust.<br>Fall it to good or grame,<br>'Tis in His name.”<br>“Sir, you are thanked. My cause is dead.<br>Why should you toil to break<br>A grave, and fall therein?” she said.<br>He did not pause but spake:<br>“For my vow's sake.”<br>“Can such vows be, Sir—to God's ear,<br>Not to God's will?” “My vow<br>Remains: God heard me there as here,”<br>He said with reverent brow,<br>“Both then and now.”<br>They gazed together, he and she,<br>The minute while he spoke;<br>And when he ceased, she suddenly<br>Looked round upon her folk<br>As though she woke.<br>“Fight, Sir,” she said; “my prayers in pain<br>Shall be your fellowship.”<br>He whispered one among her train,—<br>“To-morrow bid her keep<br>This staff and scrip.”<br>She sent him a sharp sword, whose belt<br>About his body there<br>As sweet as her own arms he felt.<br>He kissed its blade, all bare,<br>Instead of her.<br>She sent him a green banner wrought<br>With one white lily stem,<br>To bind his lance with when he fought.<br>He writ upon the same<br>And kissed her name.<br>She sent him a white shield, whereon<br>She bade that he should trace<br>His will. He blent fair hues that shone,<br>And in a golden space<br>He kissed her face.<br>Born of the day that died, that eve<br>Now dying sank to rest;<br>As he, in likewise taking leave,<br>Once with a heaving breast<br>Looked to the west.<br>And there the sunset skies unseal'd,<br>Like lands he never knew,<br>Beyond to-morrow's battle-field<br>Lay open out of view<br>To ride into.<br>Next day till dark the women pray'd:<br>Nor any might know there<br>How the fight went: the Queen has bade<br>That there do come to her<br>No messenger.<br>The Queen is pale, her maidens ail;<br>And to the organ-tones<br>They sing but faintly, who sang well<br>The matin-orisons,<br>The lauds and nones.<br>Lo, Father, is thine ear inclin'd,<br>And hath thine angel pass'd?<br>For these thy watchers now are blind<br>With vigil, and at last<br>Dizzy with fast.<br>Weak now to them the voice o' the priest<br>As any trance affords;<br>And when each anthem failed and ceas'd,<br>It seemed that the last chords<br>Still sang the words.<br>“Oh what is the light that shines so red?<br>'Tis long since the sun set;”<br>Quoth the youngest to the eldest maid:<br>“'Twas dim but now, and yet<br>The light is great.”<br>Quoth the other: “'Tis our sight is dazed<br>That we see flame i' the air.”<br>But the Queen held her brows and gazed,<br>And said, “It is the glare<br>Of torches there.”<br>“Oh what are the sounds that rise and spread?<br>All day it was so still;”<br>Quoth the youngest to the eldest maid:<br>“Unto the furthest hill<br>The air they fill.”<br>Quoth the other: “'Tis our sense is blurr'd<br>With all the chants gone by.”<br>But the Queen held her breath and heard,<br>And said, “It is the cry<br>Of Victory.”<br>The first of all the rout was sound,<br>The next were dust and flame,<br>And then the horses shook the ground:<br>And in the thick of them<br>A still band came.<br>“Oh what do ye bring out of the fight,<br>Thus hid beneath these boughs?”<br>“Thy conquering guest returns to-night,<br>And yet shall not carouse,<br>Queen, in thy house.”<br>“Uncover ye his face,” she said.<br>“O changed in little space!”<br>She cried, “O pale that was so red!<br>O God, O God of grace!<br>Cover his face.”<br>His sword was broken in his hand<br>Where he had kissed the blade.<br>“O soft steel that could not withstand!<br>O my hard heart unstayed,<br>That prayed and prayed!”<br>His bloodied banner crossed his mouth<br>Where he had kissed her name.<br>“O east, and west, and north, and south,<br>Fair flew my web, for shame,<br>To guide Death's aim!”<br>The tints were shredded from his shield<br>Where he had kissed her face.<br>“Oh, of all gifts that I could yield,<br>Death only keeps its place,<br>My gift and grace!”<br>Then stepped a damsel to her side,<br>And spoke, and needs must weep:<br>“For his sake, lady, if he died,<br>He prayed of thee to keep<br>This staff and scrip.”<br>That night they hung above her bed,<br>Till morning wet with tears.<br>Year after year above her head<br>Her bed his token wears,<br>Five years, ten years.<br>That night the passion of her grief<br>Shook them as there they hung.<br>Each year the wind that shed the leaf<br>Shook them and in its tongue<br>A message flung.<br>And once she woke with a clear mind<br>That letters writ to calm<br>Her soul lay in the scrip; to find<br>Only a torpid balm<br>And dust of palm.<br>They shook far off with palace sport<br>When joust and dance were rife;<br>And the hunt shook them from the court;<br>For hers, in peace or strife,<br>Was a Queen's life.<br>A Queen's death now: as now they shake<br>To gusts in chapel dim,—<br>Hung where she sleeps, not seen to wake,<br>(Carved lovely white and slim),<br>With them by him.<br>Stand up to-day, still armed, with her,<br>Good knight, before His brow<br>Who then as now was here and there,<br>Who had in mind thy vow<br>Then even as now.<br>The lists are set in Heaven to-day,<br>The bright pavilions shine;<br>Fair hangs thy shield, and none gainsay;<br>The trumpets sound in sign<br>That she is thine.<br>Not tithed with days' and years' decease<br>He pays thy wage He owed,<br>But with imperishable peace<br>Here in His own abode<br>Thy jealous God.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Dante+Gabriel+Rossetti">Dante Gabriel Rossetti</a><div class=q>
<img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share">
<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=360805" data-title="The Staff and Scrip de Dante Gabriel Rossetti" data-description="“Who rules these lands?” the Pilgrim said.
“Stranger, Queen Blanchelys.”
“And who has thus harried them?” he said.
“It was Duke Luke did this:
God's ban be his!”
The Pilgrim said: “Where is your house?
I'll rest there, with your ..."></div>
</div>
</div>