.
"Mightier than marble is my song!" Ah, did the poet
Know why little Lalage was mightier even so?

III

_Dulce ridentem_,--through all the years that sever,
Clear as o'er yon hawthorn hedge we heard her passing by,--
_Lalagen amabo_,--a song may live for ever
_Dulce loquentem_,--but Lalage must die.

"I'd like to learn that rhyme," the sexton said.
"I've a fine memory too. You start me now,
I'd keep it up all night with ancient ballads."
And then--a strange thing happened. I saw John Ford
"With folded arms and melancholy hat"
(As in our Mermaid jest he still would sit)
Watching old Scarlet like a man in trance.
The sexton gulped his ale and smacked his lips,
Then croaked again--"O, ay, there's work to spare,
We fills 'em faster than the spades can dig,"
And, all at once, the lights burned low and blue.
Ford leaned right forward, with his grim black eyes
Widening.

"Why, that's a marvellous ring!" he said,
And pointed to the sexton's gnarled old hand
Spread on the black oak-table like the claw
Of some great bird of prey. "A ruby worth
The ransom of a queen!" The fire leapt up!
The sexton stared at him;
Then stretched his hand out, with its blue-black nails,
Full in the light, a grim earth-coloured hand,
But bare as it was born.

"There was a ring!
I could have sworn it! Red as blood!" cried Ford.
And Ben and Lodge and Drummond of Hawthornden
All stared at him. For such a silent soul
Was master Ford that, when he suddenly spake,
It struck the rest as dumb as if the Sphinx
Had opened its cold stone lips. He would sit mute
Brooding, aloof, for hours, his cloak around him,
A staff between his knees, as if prepared
For a long journey, a lonely pilgrimage
To some dark tomb; a strange and sorrowful soul,
Yet not--as many thought him--harsh or hard,
But of a most kind patience. Though he wrote
In blood, they say, the blood came from his heart;
And all the sufferings of this world he took
To his own soul, and bade them pasture there:
Till out of his compassion, he became
A monument of bitterness. He rebelled;
And so fell short of that celestial height
Whereto the greatest only climb, who stand
By Shakespeare, and accept the Eternal Law.
These find, in law, firm footi