Classic Poem

Pale she was as the bramble blooms
That fill the long fields with their faint perfumes,
And her cheek each year was paler and thinner,
And white as the pearl that was hung at her ear,
As her sad heart sicken'd and pined within her,
And fail'd and fainted from year to year.
So that the Seneschal, rough and gray,
Said, as he look'd in her face one day,
“St. Catherine save all good souls I pray,
For the sweetest Christian soul, I ween,
Day by day is dying away
In the saddest eyes were ever seen.
O the Saints,” he said, smiling bitter and grim,
“Know she's too fair and too good for him!”