Robin Hood's Flight

Robin Hood's mother, these twelve years now,
   Has been gone from her earthly home;
And Robin has paid, he scarce knew how,
   A sum for a noble tomb.

The church-yard lies on a woody hill,
   But open to sun and air:
It seems as if the heaven still
   Were looking and smiling there.

Often when Robin looked that way,
   He looked through a sweet thin tear;
But he looked in a different manner, they say,
   Towards the Abbey of Vere.

He cared not for its ill-got wealth,
   He felt not for his pride;
He had youth, and strength, and health,
   And enough for one beside.

But he thought of his gentle mother's cheek
   How it sunk away,
And how she used to grow more weak
   And weary every day;

And how, when trying a hymn, her voice
   At evening would expire,
How unlike it was the arrogant noise
   Of the hard throats in the quire:

And Robin thought too of the poor,
   How they toiled without their share,
And how the alms at the abbey-door
   But kept them as they were:

And he thought him then of the friars again,
   Who rode jingling up and down
With their trappings and things as fine as the king's,
   Though they wore but a shaven crown.

And then bold Robin he thought of the king,
   How he got all his forests and deer,
And how he made the hungry swing
   If they killed but one in a year.

And thinking thus, as Robin stood,
   Digging his bow in the ground,
He was aware in Gamelyn Wood,
   Of one who looked around.

"And what is Will doing," said Robin then,
   "That he looks so fearful and wan?"
"Oh my dear master that should have been,
   I am a weary man."

"A weary man," said Will Scarlet, "am I;
   For unless I pilfer this wood
To sell to the fletchers, for want I shall die
   Here in this forest so good.

"Here in this forest where I have been
   So happy and so stout,
And like a palfrey on the green
   Have carried you about."

"And why, Will Scarlet, not come to me?
   Why not to Robin, Will?
For I remember thy love and thy glee,
   And the scar that marks thee still;

"And not a soul of my uncle's men
   To such a pass should come,
While Robin can find in his pocket or bin
   A penny or a crumb.

"Stay thee, Will Scarlet, man, stay awhile;
   And kindle a fire for me."
And into the wood for half a mile,
   He has vanished instantly.

Robin Hood, with his cheek on fire,
   Has drawn his bow so stern,
And a leaping deer, with one leap higher,
   Lies motionless in the fern.

Robin, like a proper knight
   As he should have been,
Carved a part of the shoulder right,
   And bore off a portion clean.

"Oh, what hast thou done, dear master mine!
   What hast thou done for me?"
"Roast it, Will, for excepting wine,
   Thou shalt feast thee royally."

And Scarlet took and half roasted it,
   Blubbering with blinding tears,
And ere he had eaten a second bit,
   A trampling came to their ears.

They heard the tramp of a horse's feet,
   And they listened and kept still,
For Will was feeble and knelt by the meat;
   And Robin he stood by Will.

"Seize him, seize him!" the Abbot cried
   With his fat voice through the trees;
Robin a smooth arrow felt and eyed,
   And Will jumped stout with his knees.

"Seize him, seize him!" and now they appear
   The Abbot and foresters three.
"'Twas I," cried Will Scarlet, "that killed the deer."
   Says Robin, "Now let not a man come near,
Or he's dead as dead can be."

But on they came, and with an embrace
   The first one the arrow met;
And he came pitching forward and fell on his face,
   Like a stumbler in the street.

The others turned to that Abbot vain,
   But "seize him!" still he cried,
And as the second turned again,
   An arrow was in his side.

"Seize him, seize him still, I say,"
   Cried the Abbot in furious chafe,
"Or these dogs will grow so bold some day,
   Even priests will not be safe."

A fatal word! for as he sat
   Urging the sword to cut,
An arrow stuck in his paunch so fat,
   As in a leathern butt,

As in a leathern butt of wine;
   Or dough, a household lump;
Or a pumpkin; or a good beef chine,
   Stuck that arrow with a dump.

"Truly," said Robin without fear,
   Sm