"Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise
To warn a King of his enemies?
A guard was set that he might not flee--
A score of bayonets ringed the tree.

"The peach-bloom fell in showers of snow,
When he shook at his death as he looked below.
By the power of God, who alone is great,
Till the seventh day he fought with his fate.

"Then madness took him, and men declare
He mowed in the branches as ape and bear,
And last as a sloth, ere his body failed,
And he hung as a bat in the forks, and wailed,
And sleep the cord of his hands untied,
And he fell, and was caught on the points and died.

"Heart of my heart, is it meet or wise
To warn a King of his enemies?
We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,
But no man knoweth the mind of the King.

"Of the gray-coat coming who can say?
When the night is gathering all is gray.

"To things greater than all things are,
The first is Love, and the second War.

"And since we know not how War may prove,