A GOOD KNIGHT IN PRISON.

SIR GUY, being in the court of a Pagan castle.

THIS castle where I dwell, it stands
A long way off from Christian lands,
A long way off my lady's hands,
A long way off the aspen-trees,
And murmur of the lime-tree bees.

But down the Valley of the Rose My lady often hawking goes, Heavy of cheer; oft turns behind, Leaning toward the western wind, Because it bringeth to her mind Sad whisperings of happy times, The face of him who sings these rhymes.

King Guilbert rides beside her there, Bends low and calls her very fair, And strives, by pulling down his hair, To hide from my dear lady's ken The grisly gash I gave him, when I cut him down at Camelot; However he strives, he hides it not, That tourney will not be forgot, Besides, it is King Guilbert's lot, Whatever he says she answers not.

Now tell me, you that are in love, From the king's son to the wood-dove, Which is the better, he or I?

For this king means that I should die In this lone Pagan castle, where The flowers droop in the bad air On the September evening.

Look, now I take mine ease and sing, Counting as but a little thing The foolish spite of a bad king.

For these vile things that hem me in, These Pagan beasts who live in sin, The sickly flowers pale and wan, The grim blue-bearded castellan, The stanchions half worn-out with rust, Whereto their banner vile they trustWhy, all these things I hold them just Like dragons in a missal-book, Wherein, whenever we may look, We see no horror, yea, delight We have, the colors are so bright; Likewise we note the specks of white, And the great plates of burnished gold.

Just so this Pagan castle old, And every thing I can see there Sick-pining in the marsh-land air,

I note; I will go over now,

Like one who paints with knitted brow,
The flowers and all things one by one,

From the snail on the wall to the setting sun.

Four great walls, and a l'ttle one

That leads down to the barbican,
Which walls with many spears they man,
When news comes to the castellan

Of Launcelot being in' the land.

And as I sit here, close at hand Four spikes of sad sick sunflowers stand, The castellan with a long wand Cuts down their leaves as he goes by, Ponderingly, with screwed-up eye, And fingers twisted in his beard— Nay, was it a knight's shout I heard? I have a hope makes me afeard: It cannot be, but if some dream Just for a minute made me deem I saw among the flowers there My lady's face with long red hair, Pale, ivory-colored dear face come, As I was wont to see her some Fading September afternoon, And kiss me, saying nothing, soon To leave me by myself again; Could I get this by longing: vain!

The castellan is gone: I see On one broad yellow flower a bee Drunk with much honey

Christ! again, Some distant knight's voice brings me pain, I thought I had forgot to feel,

I never heard the blissful steel
These ten years past; year after year,
Through all my hopeless sojourn here,
No Christian pennon has been near;
Laus Deo! the dragging wind draws on
Over the marshes, battle won,
Knights' shouts, and axes hammering,
Yea, quicker now the dint and ring
Of flying hoofs; ah! castellan,

When they come back count man for man,
Say whom you miss.

THE PAGANS, from the battlements. Mahound to aid Why flee ye so like men dismayed?

THE PAGANS, from without.
Nay, haste! for here is Launcelot,
Who follows quick upon us, hot
And shouting with his men-at-arms.
SIR GUY.

Also the Pagans raise alarms,
And ring the bells for fear; at last
My prison walls will be well past.

SIR LAUNCELOT, from outside. Ho! in the name of the Trinity, Let down the drawbridge quick to me, And open doors, that I may see Guy, the good knight.

THE PAGANS, from the battlements. Nay, Launcelot, With mere big words ye win us not.

SIR LAUNCELOT,

Bid Miles bring up la perrière,

And archers clear the vile walls there,
Bring back the notches to the ear,
Shoot well together! God to aid!
These miscreants will be well paid.

Hurrah! all goes together; Miles
Is good to win my lady's smiles
For his good shooting-Launcelot !
On! kuights, apace! this game is hot!

SIR GUY sayeth afterwards.

I said, I go to meet her now,
And saying so, I felt a blow

From some clinched hand across my brow,
And fell down on the sunflowers
Just as a hammering smote my ears,
After which this I felt in sooth;
My bare hands throttling without ruth
The hairy-throated castellan;

Then a grim fight with those that ran
To slay me, while I shouted, “God,
For the Lady Mary!" deep I trod
That evening in my own red blood;
Nevertheless, so stiff I stood,

That when the knights burst the old wood
Of the castle doors, I was not dead.

I kiss the Lady Mary's head, Her lips, and her hair golden red, Because to-day we have been wed.

OLD LOVE.

"You must be very old, Sir Giles," I said; he said, "Yea, very old;" Whereat the mournfulest of smiles

Creased his dry skin with many a fold.

"They hammered out my basnet point Into a round salade," he said, "The basnet being quite out of joint, Nevertheless the salade rasps my head."

He gazed at the great fire awhile:

And you are getting old, Sir John;" (He said this with that cunning smile That was most sad): we both wear on.

"Knights come to court and look at me With eyebrows up; except my lord, And my dear lady, none I see

That know the ways of my old sword." (My lady at that word no pang Stopped all my blood.) “But tell me, John, Is it quite true that Pagans hang So thick about the East, that on The Eastern Sea no Venice flag

Can fly unpaid for?" "True," I said, "And in such way the miscreants drag Christ's cross upon the ground, I dread "That Constantine must fall this year." Within my heart, "These things are small; This is not small, that things outwear

I thought were made for every year: all,

"All things go soon or late," I said.

I saw the duke in court next day; Just as before, his grand great head Above his gold robes dreaming lay;

Only his face was paler; there

I saw his duchess sit by him; And she-she was changed more; her hair Before my eyes that used to swim,

And make me dizzy with great bliss Once, when I used to watch her sitHer hair is bright still, yet it is

As though some dust were thrown on it.

Her eyes are shallower, as though

Some gray glass were behind; her brow And cheeks, that streaming bones show through, Are not so good for kissing now.

Her lips are drier, now she is

A great duke's wife these many years. They will not shudder with a kiss

As once they did, being moist with tears. Also her hands have lost that way

Of clinging that they used to have;
They looked quite easy as they lay
Upon the silken cushions brave

With broidery of the apples green
My Lord Duke bears upon his shield.
Her face, alas! that I have seen
Look fresher than an April field.

This is all gone now: gone also

Her tender walking; when she walks She is most queenly, I well know.

And she is fair still;-as the stalks

Of faded summer lilies are,

So she is grown now unto me This spring-time, when the flowers star The meadows, birds sing wonderfully.

I warrant once she used to cling

About his neck, and kissed him so, And then his coming step would ring Joy-bells for her,—some time ago. Ah! sometimes like an idle dream

That hinders true life overmuch, Sometimes like a lost heaven, these seem. True love is not so hard to smutch.

SHAMEFUL DEATH.

THERE were four of us about that bed;
The mass-priest knelt at the side,

I and his mother stood at the head,
Over his feet lay the bride;

We were quite sure that he was dead,
Though his eyes were open wide.

He did not die in the night,

He did not die in the day,

But in the morning twilight

His spirit passed away,

When neither sun nor moon was bright
And the trees were merely gray.

He was not slain with the sword,
Knight's axe, or the knightly spear,
Yet he spake never a word
After he came in here;

I cut away the cord

From the neck of my brother dear.

He did not strike one blow,

For the recreants came behind,
In a place where the hornbeams grow,
A path right hard to find.

For the hornbeam boughs swung so,
That the twilight makes it blind.

They lighted a great torch then,
When his arms were pinioned fast,
Sir John the Knight of the Fen,
Sir Guy of the Dolorous Blast,
With knights threescore and ten,
Hung brave Lord Hugh at last.

I ain threescore and ten,

And my hair is all turned gray, But I met Sir John of the Fen

Long ago on a summer day,

And am glad to think of the moment when I took his life away.

And the lead roof heavy and gray?

Therefore," said fair Yoland of the Flowers, "This is the tune of Seven Towers."

No one walks there now:

Except in the white moonlight The white ghosts walk in a row;

If one could see it, an awful sight"Listen," said fair Yoland of the Flowers, "This is the tune of Seven Towers."

But none can see them now,

Though they sit by the side of the moat, Feet half in the water, there in a row,

Long hair in the wind afloat.

Therefore," said fair Yoland of the Flowers, "This is the tune of Seven Towers."

A MATCH.

IF love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together In sad or singing weather, Blown fields or flowerful closes, Green pleasure or gray grief; If love were what the rose is,

And I were like the leaf.

If I were what the words are,

And love were like the tune, With double sound and single Delight our lips would mingle, With kisses glad as birds are

That get sweet rain at noon; If I were what the words are And love were like the tune.

If you were life, my darling,

And I your love were death, We'd shine and snow together Ere March made sweet the weather With daffodil and starling

And hours of fruitful breath; If you were life, my darling, And I your love were death.

If you were thrall to sorrow,

And I were page to joy, We'd play for lives and seasons, With loving looks and treasons, And tears of night and morrow, And laughs of maid and boy; If you were thrall to sorrow, And I were page to joy.

If you were April's lady,

And I were lord in May, We'd throw with leaves for hours, And draw for days with flowers, Till day like night were shady, And night were bright like day;

If you were April's lady,

And I were lord in May.

If you were queen of pleasure, And I were king of pain, We'd hunt down love together, Pluck out his flying-feather, And teach his feet a measure, And find his mouth a rein; If you were queen of pleasure, And I were king of pain.

ROCOCO.

TAKE hands and part with laughter;
Touch lips and part with tears ;
Once more and no more after,
Whatever comes with years.
We twain shall not remeasure
The ways that left us twain;
Nor crush the lees of pleasure
From sanguine grapes of pain.

We twain once well in sunder, What will the mad gods do For hate with me, I wonder,

Or what for love with you? Forget them till November,

And dream there's April yet; Forget that I remember,

And dream that I forget.

Time found our tired love sleeping, And kissed away his breath; But what should we do weeping,

Though light love sleep to death? We have drained his lips at leisure, Till there's not left to drain A single sob of pleasure, A single pulse of pain.

Dream that the lips once breath.ess
Might quicken if they would;
Say that the soul is deathless;

Dream that the gods are good;
Say March may wed September,
And time divorce regret;
But not that you remember,
And not that I forget.

We have heard from hidden places
What love scarce lives and hears:
We have seen on fervent faces

The pallor of strange tears: We have trod the wine-vat's treasure, Whence, ripe to steam and stain, Foams round the feet of pleasure The blood-red must of pain.

Remembrance may recover

And time bring back to time The name of your first lover,

The ring of my first rhyme: But rose-leaves of December The frosts of June shall fret, The day that you remember, The day that I forget.

The snake that hides and hisses

In heaven we twain have known; The grief of cruel kisses,

The joy whose mouth makes moan; The pulse's pause and measure,

Where in one furtive vein Throbs through the heart of pleasure

The purpler blood of pain.

We have done with tears and treasons
And love for treason's sake;
Room for the swift new seasons,
The years that burn and break,
Dismantle and dismember

Men's days and dreams, Juliette;
For love may not remember,

But time will not forget.
Life treads down love in flying,

Time withers him at root;
Bring all dead things and dying,

Reaped sheaf and ruined fruit, Where, crushed by three days' pressure, Our three days' love lies slain; And earlier leaf of pleasure, And latter flower of pain.

Breathe close upon the ashes,

It may be flame will leap;
Unclose the soft close lashes,

Lift up the lids, and weep.
Light love's extinguished ember,
Let one tear leave it wet
For one that you remember
And ten that you forget.

And weariness that keeps awake for hire,

The burden of sad sayings. In that day

Thou shalt tell all thy days and hours, and tell Thy times and ways and words of love, and say How one was dear and one desirable,

And sweet was life to hear and sweet to smell, But now with lights reverse the old hours retire And the last hour is shod with fire from hell; This is the end of every man's desire.

The burden of fair seasons. Rain in spring, White rain and wind among the tender trees: A summer of green sorrows gathering,

Rank autumn in a mist of miseries,

With sad face set toward the year, that sees
The charred ash drop out of the dropping pyre,
And winter wan with many maladies:
This is the end of every man's desire.

The burden of dead faces. Out of sight
And out of love, beyond the reach of hands,
Changed in the changing of the dark and light,
They walk and weep about the barren lands
Where no seed is, nor any garner stands,

The burden of bought kisses. This is sore,
A burden without fruit in childbearing;
Between the nightfall and the dawn three-score,
Three-score between the dawn and evening.
The shuddering in thy lips, the shuddering
In thy sad eyelids tremulous like fire,

Makes love seem shameful and a wretched thing. This is the end of every man's desire.

The burden of sweet speeches. Nay, kneel down,
Cover thy head and weep; for verily
These market-men that buy thy white and brown
In the last days shall take no thought for thee.
In the last days like earth thy face shall be,
Yea, like sea-marsh made thick with brine and mire,
Sad with thick leavings of the sterile sea.
This is the end of every man's desire.

And Time's turned glass lets through the sighing sands;

This is the end of every man's desire.

The burden of much gladness. Life and lust
Forsake thee, and the face of thy delight;
And under foot the heavy hour strews dust,

And overhead strange weathers burn and bite;
And where the red was, lo! the bloodless white,
And where truth was, the likeness of a liar,
And where day was, the likeness of the night:
This is the end of every man's desire.

L'ENVOY.

Princes, and ye whom pleasure quickeneth,
Heed well this rhyme before your pleasure tire;
For life is sweet, but after life is death:

This is the end of every man's desire.