• The Prince that was and the King to come,
• There in an instant gone to his doom . ,

• Despite of all England's bended knee
• And maugre the Norman fealty!

• He was a Prince of lust and pride;
• 140He showed no grace till the hour he died.

• When he should be King, he oft would vow,
• He'd yoke the peasant to his own plough.
• O'er him the ships score their furrows now.

• God only knows where his soul did wake,
• But I saw him die for his sister's sake.

• By none but me can the tale be told,
• The butcher of Rouen, poor Berold.
• ( Lands are swayed by a King on a throne.)
• 'Twas a royal train put forth to sea,
• 150Yet the tale can be told by none but me.
• ( The sea hath no King but God alone.)

• And now the end came o'er the waters' womb
• Like the last great Day that's yet to come.

• With prayers in vain and curses in vain,
• The White Ship sundered on the mid-main:

• And what were men and what was a ship
• Were toys and splinters in the sea's grip.

• At last the morning rose on the sea
• Like an angel's wing that beat tow'rds me.

• Sore numbed I was in my sheepskin coat;
• Half dead I hung, and might nothing note,
• Till I woke sun-warmed in a fisher-boat.

• The sun was high o'er the eastern brim
• As I praised God and gave thanks to Him.

• 210That day I told my tale to a priest,
• Who charged me, till the shrift were releas'd,
• That I should keep it in mine own breast ! .

• And with the priest I thence did fare
• To King Henry's court at Winchester.

• We spoke with the King's high chamberlain,
• And he wept and mourned again and again,
• As if his own son had been slain:

• And round us ever there crowded fast
• Great men with faces all aghast:

• 220And who so bold that might tell the thing
• Which now they knew to their lord the King?
• Much woe I learnt in their communing.

• The King had watched with a heart sore stirred
• For two whole days, and this was the third:

• And still to all his court would he say,
• “What keeps my son so long away?”