Page:Joan of Arc - Southey (1796).djvu/79

But such as we poor men earn with hard toil:
In faith ye are welcome to it. I do love
A soldier, my old heart seems young again.475
Poor and decrepit as I am, my arm
Once grasp'd the sword full firmly, and my limbs
Were strong as thine, Sir Warrior! God be with thee
And send thee better fortune than old Bertram!
I would that I were young again to meet480
These haughty English in the field of fight.
Such as I was when on the fatal plain
Of Azincour I met them."
"Wert thou then
A sharer in that dreadful day's defeat?"
Exclaim'd the Bastard, "didst thou know the chief485
Of Orleans?"
"Know him! the old veteran cried,
I saw him ere the bloody fight began
Riding from rank to rank, his beaver up,
The long lance quivering in his mighty grasp.
Full was his eye and fierce, yet beaming still490