SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE.

A FRAGMENT.

LIKE souls that balance joy and pain,
With tears and smiles from heaven again

The maiden Spring upon the plain
Came in a sun-lit fall of rain.

In crystal vapor everywhere

Blue isles of heaven laughed between,
And, far in forest-deeps unseen,
The topmost linden gathered green
From draughts of balmy air.

Sometimes the linnet piped his song:
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong:
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheeled along,
Hushed all the groves from fear of wrong:
By grassy capes with fuller sound

SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE. 127

In curves the yellowing river ran,
And drooping chestnut-buds began
To spread into the perfect fan,

Above the teeming ground.

Then, in the boyhood of the year,
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
Rode through the coverts of the deer,
With blissful treble ringing clear.

She seemed a part of joyous Spring:

A gown of grass-green silk she wore,
Buckled with golden clasps before;
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore
Closed in a golden ring.

Now on some twisted ivy-net,

Now by some tinkling rivulet,

On mosses thick with violet,

Her cream-white mule his pastern set :

And now more fleet she skimmed the plains

Than she whose elfin prancer springs
By night to eery warblings,

When all the glimmering moorland rings
With jingling bridle-reins.

128

SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE.

As she fled fast through sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her played,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid :
She looked so lovely, as she swayed
The rein with dainty finger-tips,

A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.

A FAREWELL.

FLOW down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:

No more by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:

Nowhere by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree,
And here thine aspen shiver;

And here by thee will hum the bee,
Forever and forever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee, A thousand moons will quiver; But not by thee my steps shall be, Forever and forever.

THE BEGGAR MAID.

Her arms across her breast she laid;

She was more fair than words can say: Bare-footed came the beggar maid Before the King Cophetua. In robe and crown the king stept down, To meet and greet her on her way; "It is no wonder," said the lords, "She is more beautiful than day."

As shines the moon in clouded skies,
She in her poor attire was seen :
One praised her ankles, one her eyes,
One her dark hair and lovesome mien.
So sweet a face, such angel grace,
In all that land had never been:

Cophetua sware a royal oath:

"This beggar maid shall be my queen!"