SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE. Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong : By grassy capes with fuller sound In curves the yellowing river ran, To spread into the perfect fan, 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 Now on some twisted ivy-net, On mosses thick with violet, Her cream-white mule his pastern set: 207 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, A FAREWELL. FLOW down, cold rivulet, to the sea, Thy tribute wave deliver : No more by thee my steps shall be, For ever and for ever. Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, A rivulet then a river: No where by thee my steps shall be, For ever and for ever. VOL. II. But here will sigh thine alder tree, And here by thee will hum the bee, For ever and for ever. P A thousand suns will stream on thee, A thousand moons will quiver; But not by thee my steps shall be, 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, One praised her ancles, one her eyes, One her dark hair and lovesome mien. |