to eye.

Low on the border of her couch they sat Stammering and staring. It was their last hour,

A madness of farewells. And Modred brought

His creatures to the basement of the tower For testimony; and crying with full voice Traitor, come out, ye are trapt at last,'

aroused

Lancelot, who rushing outward lionlike Leapt on him, and hurl'd him headlong, and he fell

Stunn'd, and his creatures took and bare him off,

And all was still: then she, 'The end is come,

And I am shamed for ever;' and he said, Mine be the shame; mine was the sin: but rise,

And fly to my strong castle overseas: There will I hide thee, till my life shall end, There hold thee with my life against the world.'

She answer'd, 'Lancelot, wilt thou hold me so?

Nay, friend, for we have taken our farewells.

Would God that thou couldst hide me

Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen, Back to his land; but she to Almesbury Fled all night long by glimmering waste and weald,

And heard the Spirits of the waste and weald

Moan as she fled, or thought she heard them moan:

And in herself she moan'd, 'Too late, too late!'

Till in the cold wind that foreruns the morn,

A blot in heaven, the Raven, flying high, Croak'd, and she thought, 'He spies a field of death;

For now the Heathen of the Northern Sea, Lured by the crimes and frailties of the

With what a hate the people and the King

Must hate me,' and bow'd down upon her hands

Silent, until the little maid, who brook'd No silence, brake it, uttering, 'Late! so late!

'What hour, I wonder, now?' and when she drew

No answer, by and by began to hum An air the nuns had taught her, 'Late, so late!'

Which when she heard, the Queen look'd up, and said,

'O maiden, if indeed ye list to sing, Sing, and unbind my heart that I may weep.'

Whereat full willingly sang the little maid.

'Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill!

Late, late, so late! but we can enter still. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.

'No light had we: for that we do repent;

And learning this, the bridegroom will

relent.

Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.

'No light so late! and dark and chill the night!

O let us in, that we may find the light! Too late, too late: ye cannot enter now.

'Have we not heard the bridegroom is So sweet?

O let us in, tho' late, to kiss his feet! No, no, too late! ye cannot enter now.'

So sang the novice, while full passionately,

Her head upon her hands, remembering Her thought when first she came, wept the sad Queen.

Then said the little novice prattling to her,

O pray you, noble lady, weep no

more;

But let my words, the words of one so small,

Next morning, while he passed the dimlit woods,

Himself beheld three spirits mad with joy Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower,

That shook beneath them, as the thistle shakes

When three gray linnets wrangle for the seed:

And still at evenings on before his horse The flickering fairy-circle wheel'd and broke

Flying, and link'd again, and wheel'd and broke

Flying, for all the land was full of life.
And when at last he came to Camelot,
A wreath of airy dancers hand-in-hand
Swung round the lighted lantern of the
hall;

And in the hall itself was such a feast
As never man had dream'd; for every
knight

Had whatsoever meat he long'd for served By hands unseen; and even as he said Down in the cellars merry bloated things Shoulder'd the spigot, straddling on the butts

While the wine ran: so glad were spirits and men

Before the coming of the sinful Queen.'

But after tempest, when the long wave broke

All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos,

There came a day as still as heaven, and then

They found a naked child upon the sands
Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea;
And that was Arthur; and they foster'd
him

Till he by miracle was approven King:
And that his grave should be a mystery
From all men, like his birth; and could
he find

A woman in her womanhood as great
As he was in his manhood, then, he

sang,

The twain together well might change the world.

But even in the middle of his song

He falter'd, and his hand fell from the harp,

And pale he turn'd, and reel'd, and would have fall'n,

But that they stay'd him up; nor would he tell

His vision; but what doubt that he fore

saw

This evil work of Lancelot and the Queen?'

Then thought the Queen, Lo! they have set her on,

Our simple-seeming Abbess and her nuns,

'Sir Lancelot, as became a noble knight, Was gracious to all ladies, and the same In open battle or the tilting-field Forbore his own advantage, and the King In open battle or the tilting-field Forbore his own advantage, and these

two

Were the most nobly-manner'd men of all;

For manners are not idle, but the fruit Of loyal nature, and of noble mind.'

'Yea,' said the maid, 'be manners such

fair fruit?

Then Lancelot's needs must be a thousand-fold

Less noble, being, as all rumour runs,
The most disloyal friend in all the world.'

To which a mournful answer made the
Queen:

'O closed about by narrowing nunnery. walls,

And I have sworn never to see him more, To see him more.'

And ev'n in saying this, Her memory from old habit of the mind Went slipping back upon the golden days

In which she saw him first, when Lancelot came,

Reputed the best knight and goodliest man,

Ambassador, to lead her to his lord Arthur, and led her forth, and far ahead Of his and her retinue moving, they, Rapt in sweet talk or lively, all on love And sport and tilts and pleasure, (for the time

Was maytime, and as yet no sin was dream'd,)

Rode under groves that look'd a paradise
Of blossom, over sheets of hyacinth
That seem'd the heavens upbreaking thro'
the earth,

And on from hill to hill, and every day
Beheld at noon in some delicious dale
The silk pavilions of King Arthur raised
For brief repast or afternoon repose
By couriers gone before; and on again,
Till yet once more ere set of sun they

saw

The Dragon of the great Pendragonship, That crown'd the state pavilion of the King,

Blaze by the rushing brook or silent well.

But when the Queen immersed in such

a trance,

And moving thro' the past unconsciously, Came to that point where first she saw the King

Ride toward her from the city, sigh'd to find

Her journey done, glanced at him, thought him cold,

High, self-contain'd, and passionless, not like him,

'Not like my Lancelot'- while she

brooded thus

And grew half-guilty in her thoughts again,

There rode an armed warrior to the doors. A murmuring whisper thro' the nunnery

ran,