III

    Back, she spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
    With the white road smoking behind her and her knife brandished high!
    Blood-red were her spurs i’ the golden noon; dark-stained her velvet coat,
    When they shot her down on the highway,
                      Down like a dog on the highway,
    And she lay in her blood on the highway, with the string of silver ’round her throat.

                                                   IV

    When they seized her injured body, she did not try to fight.
    With tears streaking down her face, she allowed the judge to write
    "Guilty of rape and treason. Sentenced to burning at the stake."
    She was chained in the dankest dungeon,
                     Trapped in the deepest dungeon,
    Pointlessly restrained in the cell, for she saw no reason to escape.

                                                   V

    That noon the sun shone fatefully, its pounding rays harsh and bright.
    She was bound to the pole in the center, while townsfolk laughed with delight.
    The saint withheld a smile, maintained her dignified air,
    Somber as lemons are sweet,
                     The bard’s thoughts far from were sweet,
    As she readied to die, far from the moon, under the sun’s cold glare.

                                                 VI

    They scattered the oil about her; the fire had its own hungry gleam,
    The singer writhed agony, her voice now a fractured scream.
    Suddenly the sky blackened, the sun had been eclipsed!
    The townsfolk joined her screaming,
                     Even the moon was screaming,
    As she died in the inferno screaming, "Spencer!" was wrenched from her lips.

                        *           *           *           *           *           *

                                                VII

    And still of a autumn’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
    When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
    When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
    A heretic bard comes riding—
                      Riding—riding—
    A heretic bard comes riding, up to the cathedral door.

                                                VIII

    Over the cobbles she clatters and clangs in the cathedral yard;
    She taps with her flute on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
    She sings tenderly to the window, and who should be waiting there
    But the bishop’s blue-eyed daughter,
                      Spencer, the archbishop’s daughter,
    Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her dusk gold hair.