The bridal of Vaumond :: :: University of Virginia Library

Light turn'd the Baron on his heel,
And taunting shook his glittering steel,
As thus in scorn he cried:
“A soldier's faith is his bounding blood,
A soldier's sign is his broadsword good;
Mine honour and my life I plight,
Sole umpires of the truth of knight.”—
—“Swear!”—cried the starting conclave,—“swear!—
Or now our pendent sentence hear,
That gives thy castles to the flame,
To deathless infamy thy name,
Thy life—to yon broad spreading bough,
Thyself to the vulture and the crow,
Thy soul—to the fire that fiends prepare,—
Knight! yield thee now—or kneel and swear!”