Thomas Hardy — The Duel

     "I am here to time, you see; The glade is well-screened—eh?—against alarm;     Fit place to vindicate by my arm     The honour of my spotless wife,     Who scorns your libel upon her life         In boasting intimacy!     "'All hush-offerings you'll spurn, My husband. Two must come; one only go,' She said. 'That he'll be you I know; To faith like ours Heaven will be just, And I shall abide in fullest trust         Your speedy glad return.'"     "Good. Here am also I; And we'll proceed without more waste of words     To warm your cockpit. Of the swords     Take you your choice. I shall thereby     Feel that on me no blame can lie,         Whatever Fate accords."     So stripped they there, and fought, And the swords clicked and scraped, and the onsets sped;     Till the husband fell; and his shirt was red      With streams from his heart's hot cistern. Nought     Could save him now; and the other, wrought         Maybe to pity, said:     "Why did you urge on this? Your wife assured you; and 't had better been     That you had let things pass, serene     In confidence of long-tried bliss,     Holding there could be nought amiss         In what my words might mean."     Then, seeing nor ruth nor rage Could move his foeman more—now Death's deaf thrall -     He wiped his steel, and, with a call     Like turtledove to dove, swift broke     Into the copse, where under an oak         His horse cropt, held by a page.     "All's over, Sweet," he cried To the wife, thus guised; for the young page was she.     "'Tis as we hoped and said 't would be.     He never guessed . . . We mount and ride     To where our love can reign uneyed.         He's clay, and we are free."