Eleanor Crosses: Lincoln

Though we had not yet slept since arriving in Nottingham and leaving Nottingham
My master bids me watch his wife, the dry flesh of his wife,
while he busies himself with I don't know what.
His wife, the lady Eleanor, is in a box, a rich box, her smooth bosom flat and her chest extinguished -
I watch her through the wood, the carvings of saints and a goddess,
To send my lady to heaven.
While I watch the box and the lady resting under a lantern in this back road town,
The town on this route, the place where we must sleep,
My master walks through the streets and in his quiet voice
He asks, can anyone help him?
The stone is heavy and his Lady wife must have the best stone
She must not go to purgatory.
His arm aches near the top as he and others work and
He must be reminded of how his Eleanor
In battle near borders, placed a hand over his warrior mouth
And without breath drew poison from his wound -
Her teeth, her lips no stronger than a spider to the dead fly.
As I watch my lady, he begins her death; her end
is shaped in a thousand mason's taken grief
(they don't know her! he knew what they all said.)
Twelve strikes, at each one my master drops to his knees
as if he can do no more.
The best stone was used.

My lady lies resting under flat wood and the best stone in Westminster.
Her hair would be greying, her bosom falling,
Instead she is golden
From these two candles burning.