Dan Tabour

Only by dark he went abroad,

Armed with his keen blade and his grief.

Never a knight had such a sword

Nor such belief.

Only by dusk would Death ride out,

Whishing the marsh-grass by the river;

This was the foe Dan Tabour sought,

His nerves aquiver:

Sought to take vengeance for a deed

Never forgotten, never forgiven;

Sought with a blind unreasoning need,

And by need driven.

Under a warm star-splintered sky

Each night he strode along the bank,

His moon-bright, chiseled head held high,

Sword at his flank,

Calling aloud her stately name,

Quietly calling it over and over,

One who had taken without shame

A blinded lover.

Then he would lash at the soft dark air

And cry his challenge with hurried breath.

With sharpened steel and eyes aglare

He hunted Death.

But when at last rode out from the night

One who was dark-cloaked, stately and tall,

There was a brief unequal fight,

A gallant fall!

Sarah Litsey

IN THE HOUR