140

Then Nina, stooping down, embraced,
With tenderness and mild emotion,
The Damsel, in that trance embound;
And, while she raised her from the
ground,

And in the pearly shallop placed,
Sleep fell upon the air, and stilled the ocean.

The turmoil hushed, celestial springs Of music opened, and there came a blending

Of fragrance, underived from earth, With gleams that owed not to the sun their birth,

And that soft rustling of invisible wings Which Angels make, on works of love descending.

And Nina heard a sweeter voice

150

Than if the Goddess of the flower had spoken:

"Thou hast achieved, fair Dame! what

none

Awe-stricken stood both Knights and
Dames

Ere on firm ground the car alighted;
Eftsoons astonishment was past,
For in that face they saw the last,
Last lingering look of clay, that tames
Il pride; by which all happiness is blighted.

200

Said Merlin, “Mighty King, fair Lords,
Away with feast and tilt and tourney !
Ye saw, throughout this royal House,
Ye heard, a rocking marvellous
Of turrets, and a clash of swords
elf-shaken, as I closed my airy journey.

Lo! by a destiny well known
To mortals, joy is turned to sorrow;
This is the wished-for Bride, the Maid
Of Egypt, from a rock conveyed
Where she by shipwreck had been thrown,
1 sight! but grief may vanish ere the
morrow."

210

For late, as near a murmuring stream He rested 'mid an arbour green and s Nina, the good Enchantress, shed A light around his mossy bed; And, at her call, a waking dream Prefigured to his sense the Egyptian La

Now, while his bright-haired front bowed,

And stood, far-kenned by mantle far with ermine,

As o'er the insensate Body hung The enrapt, the beautiful, the young, Belief sank deep into the crowd That he the solemn issue would deter

Nor deem it strange; the Youth had = That very mantle on a day of glory, The day when he achieved that match feat,

The marvel of the PERILOUS SEAT, Which whosoe'er approached of stre was shorn,

Though King or Knight the most renown in story.

He touched with hesitating handAnd lo! those Birds, far-famed thro Love's dominions,

The Swans, in triumph clap their wi And their necks play, involved in ring Like sinless snakes in Eden's ha land;"Mine is she," cried the Knight;-ag they clapped their pinions.

Written at Rydal Mount. This dove was one of a pair that had been given to my daughter by our excellent friend, Miss Jewsbury, who went to India with her husband, Mr. Fletcher, where she died of cholera. The dove survived its mate many years, and was killed, to our great sorrow, by a neighbour's cat that got in at the window and dragged it partly out of the cage. These verses were composed extempore, to the letter, in the Terrace Summerhouse before spoken of. It was the habit of the bird to begin cooing and murmuring whenever it heard me making my verses.