The finest and the fattest is for their board,
But she would rather take refuge in a convent.
Moved to compassion by the anxiety,
His levity and petulance,
       perpetually breaking out.

Exhausted with his various exertions,
He resolved to trust to the sagacity of his horse.
And she would have compassion upon them
   into a dingle,
with proud humility,
   afraid to refuse,
bound by the ordinary rules
of exuberant hospitality of their nation.

All forlorn travelers
Must become extravagant when a figure in white
appears like something unreal
at either end of the hall.
Illuminated in brilliant patches,
standing carelessly at the door,
She points to him with the malignant envy
   of a hedge-priest.

“Sleep in paradise!”
she said in a voice in which all three emotions
were blended.

“Cast away these riches!
And exchange my long-desired batoon
   for a sceptre!”

Alas!
It was but a dream,
   An empty vision of the night.

Nathaniel P. Mahar is a writer and meandering soul from Kent, England. All of the phrases in this poem were taken at random from Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. Not necessarily in this order.