Love will make our cottage pleasant,

And I love thee more than life.” They by parks and lodges going

See the lordly castles stand:
Summer woods, about them blowing,

Made a murmur in the land.
From deep thought himself he rouses,

Says to her that loves him well,
“Let us see these handsome houses

Where the wealthy nobles dwell.” So she goes by him attended,

Hears him lovingly converse, Sees whatever fair and splendid

Lay betwixt his home and hers; Parks with oak and chestnut shady,

Parks and ordered gardens great, Ancient homes of lord and laily,

Built for pleasure and for state. All he shows her makes him dearer :

Evermore she seems to gaze On that cottage growing nearer,

Where they twain will spend their days. O but she will love him truly !

He shall have a cheerful home; She will order all things duly,

When beneath his roof they come. Thus her heart rejoices greatly,

Till a gateway she discerns With armorial bearings stately,

And beneath the gate she turns ; Sees a mansion more majestic

Than all those she saw before ; Many a gallant gay domestic

Bows before him at the door. And they speak in gentle murmur,

When they answer to his call, While he treads with footstep firmer,

Leading on from hall to hall.

And, while now she wonders blindly,

Nor the meaning can divine, Proudly turns he round and kindly,

6. All of this is mine and thine." Here he lives in state and bounty,

Lord of Burleigh, fair and free, Not a lord in all the county

Is so great a lord as he. All at once the color flushes

Her sweet face from brow to chin: As it were with shame she blushes,

And her spirit changed within. Then her countenance all over

Pale again as death did prove : But he clasped her like a lover,

And he cheered her soul with love. So she strove against her weakness,

Though at times her spirit sank: Shaped her heart with woman's meekness

To all duties of her rank: And a gentle consort made he,

And her gentle mind was such That she grew a noble lady,

And the people loved her much. But a trouble weighed upon her,

And perplexed her, night and morn, With the burthen of an honor

Unto which she was not born. Faint she grew, and ever fainter,

As she murmured, “ O, that he Were once more that landscape-painter,

Which did win my heart from me!” So she drooped and drooped before him,

Fading slowly from his side:
Three fair children first she bore him,

Then before her time she died.
Weeping, weeping late and early,

Walking up and pacing down,

244 SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE.

Deeply mourned the Lord of Burleigh,

Burleigh-house by Stamford town.
And he came to look upon her,

And he looked at her and said,
“Bring the dress, and put it on her,

That she wore when she was wed."
Then her people, softly treading,

Bore to carth her body, drest
In the dress that she was wed in,

That her spirit might have rest.

SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINE

VERE.

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 elm tree gathered green

From draughts of balmy air.
Sometimes the linnet piped his song:
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong:
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheeled along,
Ilushed all the groves from fear of wrong:

By grassy capes with fuller sound
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:
А 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 rivalet,
In mosses mixt with violet,
Her creain-white mule his pastern set:

And fleeter now 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.
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 : Barefooted 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!”