Lewis Worthington Smith

AGLAVAINE came to the inn:

They gave him the foulest room.

He, with a heart to win

Love like the rose for bloom,

Slept with the rustling straw for bed

And cobwebbed rafters overhead.

Aglavaine’s red-faced host

Kept revel all night long.

The bar-maid was their toast,

The devil’s flings their song.

Still through the noise he heard the leaves

Tossed in the wind against the eaves.

Aglavaine heard the choir

Chant in the church unseen,

Then, with a heart of fire

For beauty fine and clean,

Ate where a clown might loathe to dine,

While all his fellows reeled with wine.

Aglavaine came to the inn:

Short was their speech and curt.

He of the tender chin,

Lonely and worn and hurt,

Saw through his window-round of sky

God’s pageantry of stars go by.

Aglavaine sang in the sun,

Taking the morning road.

His was the course begun,

His but the firstling load.

They travel far and sup with sin

Who find good quarters at an inn.