Miscellanies (Thoreau)/The Black Knight

by Henry David Thoreau

THE BLACK KNIGHT

Be sure your fate
Doth keep apart its state,
Not linked with any band,
Even the nobles of the land;
In tented fields with cloth of gold
No place doth hold
But is more chivalrous than they are,
And sigheth for a nobler war;
A finer strain its trumpet sings,
A brighter gleam its armor flings.
The life that I aspire to live
No man proposeth me;
Only the promise of my heart
Wears its emblazonry.