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All at once the colour 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 clasp'd her like a lover,

And he cheer'd her soul with love.

So she strove against her weakness, Though at times her spirits 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 weigh'd upon her,

And perplex'd her, night and morn,

With the burthen of an honour

Unto which she was not born.

Faint she grew, and ever fainter,

As she murmur'd, "Oh, that he

Were once more that landscape-painter,

Which did win my heart from me!" So she droop'd and droop'd 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,

Deeply mourn'd the Lord of Burleigh,
Burleigh-house by Stamford-town.

And he came to look upon her,

And he look'd 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 earth her body, drest

In the dress that she was wed in,

That her spirit might have rest.

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 sunlit fall of rain.

In crystal vapour everywhere

Blue isles of Heaven laugh'd between,

And, far in forest-deeps unseen,

The topmost linden gather'd green

From draughts of balmy air.

Sometimes the linnet piped his song:

Sometimes the throstle whistled strong:

SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE. 207

Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along,

Hush'd 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 thro' the coverts of the deer,

With blissful treble ringing clear.

She seem'd 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 skimm'd the plains

208 SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE.

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 thro' sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her play'd,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid:
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd

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.

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