All at once the colour flushes Her sweet face from brow to chin: As it were with shame she blushes, Pale again as death did prove: 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, Weeping, weeping late and early, Deeply mourn'd the Lord of Burleigh, 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, 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 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: In curves the yellowing river ran, Then, in the boyhood of the year, 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, 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 As she fled fast thro' sun and shade, The rein with dainty finger-tips, A man had given all other bliss, |