Yet e'en in that romantic age

Ne'er were such charms by mortal seen
As Arthur's dazzled eyes engage,
When forth on that enchanted stage
With glittering train of maid and page
Advanced the castle's queen!

While up the hall she slowly passed,
Her dark eye on the king she cast
That flashed expression strong;
The longer dwelt that lingering look,
Her cheek the livelier colour took,

And scarce the shame-faced king could brook
The gaze that lasted long.

A sage who had that look espied,

Where kindling passion strove with pride,

Had whispered, "Prince, beware!

From the chafed tiger rend the prey,

Rush on the lion when at bay,
Bar the fell dragon's blighted way,

But shun that lovely snare!"

XX

'At once, that inward strife suppressed,
The dame approached her warlike guest,

With greeting in that fair degree
Where female pride and courtesy

Are blended with such passing art

As awes at once and charms the heart.
A courtly welcome first she gave,
Then to his goodness 'gan to crave
Construction fair and true

Of her light maidens' idle mirth,
Who drew from lonely glens their birth
Nor knew to pay to stranger worth

And dignity their due;

And then she prayed that he would rest
That night her castle's honoured guest.
The monarch meetly thanks expressed;
The banquet rose at her behest,
With lay and tale, and laugh and jest,
Apace the evening flew.

XXI

"The lady sate the monarch by,
Now in her turn abashed and shy,

And with indifference seemed to hear
The toys he whispered in her ear.
Her bearing modest was and fair,
Yet shadows of constraint were there
That showed an over-cautious care

Some inward thought to hide;
Oft did she pause in full reply,

And oft cast down her large dark eye,

Oft checked the soft voluptuous sigh

That heaved her bosom's pride.

Slight symptoms these, but shepherds know

How hot the mid-day sun shall glow

From the mist of morning sky;

And so the wily monarch guessed
That this assumed restraint expressed
More ardent passions in the breast

Than ventured to the eye.

Closer he pressed while beakers rang, While maidens laughed and minstrels sang,

But why pursue the common tale?

· Or wherefore show how knights prevail When ladies dare to hear?

Or wherefore trace from what slight cause Its source one tyrant passion draws,

Till, mastering all within,

Where lives the man that has not tried

How mirth can into folly glide

And folly into sin!'

50

CANTO SECOND

LYULPH'S TALE CONTINUED

I

'ANOTHER day, another day,
And yet another, glides away!
The Saxon stern, the pagan Dane,
Maraud on Britain's shores again.
Arthur, of Christendom the flower,
Lies loitering in a lady's bower;
The horn that foemen wont to fear
Sounds but to wake the Cumbrian deer,
And Caliburn, the British pride,

Hangs useless by a lover's side.

II

'Another day, another day,
And yet another, glides away.
Heroic plans in pleasure drowned,
He thinks not of the Table Round;
In lawless love dissolved his life,
He thinks not of his beauteous wife:
Better he loves to snatch a flower
From bosom of his paramour

Than from a Saxon knight to wrest

The honours of his heathen crest;

Better to wreathe mid tresses brown

The heron's plume her hawk struck down Than o'er the altar give to flow

The banners of a Paynim foe.

Thus week by week and day by day

His life inglorious glides away;

But she that soothes his dream with fear

Beholds his hour of waking near.

III

'Much force have mortal charms to stay
Our pace in Virtue's toilsome way;
But Guendolen's might far outshine
Each maid of merely mortal line.
Her mother was of human birth,
Her sire a Genie of the earth,

In days of old deemed to preside
O'er lovers' wiles and beauty's pride,
By youths and virgins worshipped long
With festive dance and choral song,
Till, when the cross to Britain came,
On heathen altars died the flame.
Now, deep in Wastdale solitude,
The downfall of his rights he rued,
And born of his resentment heir,
He trained to guile that lady fair,