Classic Poem

But what from the tower? There was a man shut there,
Vainglorious he may have been, stiff-necked;
His stars conspired together to deject
Him from conspicuous glories; he lived on air
And would not taste earth's sweetness; great and spare
And pale, his ghost still haunted the slight girl
Who, husbanded now with her fair lord the churl,
Must run away to the gloom of the tower stair.

Paul took his wine and slept, and his thought swirled
From dream to dream through Christendom. But Paul's bride
Climbed up, with a great rat scampering at her side,
Reached the top step of Abbott's Northern tower
And listening at his door, at the very hour
Heard bitter doctrine descending on the world.