Brake up their sports, then slowly to her

bower

Parted, and in her bosom pain was lord.

And little Dagonet on the morrow

morn,

High over all the yellowing Autumn-tide, Danced like a wither'd leaf before the hall.

Then Tristram saying, 'Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?'

Wheel'd round on either heel, Dagonet replied,

'Belike for lack of wiser company;

Or being fool, and seeing too much wit Makes the world rotten, why belike I skip To know myself the wisest knight of all.' Ay, fool,' said Tristram, but 'tis eating dry

To dance without a catch, a roundelay To dance to.' Then he twangled on his harp,

And while he twangled little Dagonet stood

Quiet as any water-sodden log Stay'd in the wandering warble of a brook;

But when the twangling ended, skipt again;

And being ask'd, 'Why skipt ye not, Sir Fool?'

Lent to the King, and Innocence the King Ga e for a prize- and one of those white slips

Handed her cup and piped, the pretty one, "Drink, drink, Sir Fool," and thereupon I drank,

Spat pish the cup was gold, the draught was mud.'

Down from the causeway heavily to the swamp

Fall, as the crest of some slow-arching

wave,

Heard in dead night along that tableshore,

Drops flat, and after the great waters break

Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves,

Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud,

From less and less to nothing; thus he fell

Head-heavy; then the knights, who watch'd him, roar'd

And shouted and leapt down upon the fall'n;

There trampled out his face from being known,

And sank his head in mire, and slimed themselves:

Nor heard the King for their own cries, but sprang

Thro' open doors, and swording right and left

Men, women, on their sodden faces, hurl'd

The tables over and the wines, and slew Till all the rafters rang with woman-yells, And all the pavement stream'd with