Ran like a colt, and leapt at all he saw : But Modred laid his ear beside the doors, And there half heard; the same that afterward

Struck for the throne, and striking found his doom.

And then the Queen made answer, "What know I ?

For dark my mother was in eyes and hair,

And dark in hair and eyes am I; and dark Was Gorloïs, yea and dark was Uther too,

Wellnigh to blackness; but this king is fair

Beyond the race of Britons and of men.
Moreover always in my mind I hear
A cry from out the dawning of my life,
A mother weeping, and I hear her say,
O that ye had some brother, pretty one,
To guard thee on the rough ways of the
world.""

"Ay," said the King, "and hear ye such a cry?

But when did Arthur chance upon thee first?"

"O king!" she cried, "and I will tell thee true :

He found me first when yet a little maid: Beaten I had been for a little fault Whereof I was not guilty; and out I ran And flung myself down on a bank of heath, And hated this fair world and all therein, And wept, and wish'd that I were dead; and he

I know not whether of himself he came, Or brought by Merlin, who, they say, can walk

Unseen at pleasure he was at my side, And spake sweet words, and comforted my heart,

And dried my tears, being a child with me. And many a time he came, and evermore As I grew greater grew with me; and sad At times he seem'd, and sad with him was I,

Stern too at times, and then I loved him not,

But sweet again, and then I loved him well. And now of late I see him less and less, But those first days had golden hours for

me,

For then I surely thought he would be king.

"But let me tell thee now another tale: For Bleys, our Merlin's master, as they say,

Died but of late, and sent his cry to me, To hear him speak before he left his life. Shrunk like a fairy changeling lay the mage,

And when I enter'd told me that himself And Merlin ever served about the king, Uther, before he died, and on the night When Uther in Tintagil past away Moaning and wailing for an heir, the two Left the still king, and passing forth to breathe,

Then from the castle gateway by the chasm Descending thro' the dismal nightnight

a

were truth

The shining dragon and the naked child Descending in the glory of the seas --He laugh'd as is his wont, and answer'd me In riddling triplets of old time, and said:

666 Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow in the sky!

A young man will be wiser by and by; An old man's wit may wander ere he die. Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow on the lea!

And truth is this to me, and that to thee; And truth or clothed or naked let it be. Rain, sun, and rain! and the free blossom blows:

Sun, rain, and sun! and where is he who knows?

From the great deep to the great deep he goes.'

king

to new;

And we that fight for our fair father Christ, Seeing that ye be grown too weak and old To drive the heathen from your Roman wall,

No tribute will we pay": so those great lords

Drew back in wrath, and Arthur strove with Rome.

And Arthur and his knighthood for a

space

Were all one will, and thro' that strength the king

Drew in the petty princedoms under him, Fought, and in twelve great battles

overcame

The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reign'd.

GERAINT AND ENID.

THE brave Geraint, a knight of Arthur's court,

A tributary prince of Devon, one
Of that great order of the Table Round,
Had married Enid, Yniol's only child,
And loved her, as he loved the light of
Heaven.

And as the light of Heaven varies, now
At sunrise, now at sunset, now by night
With moon and trembling stars, so loved
Geraint

To make her beauty vary day by day,
In crimsons and in purples and in gems.
And Enid, but to please her husband's

The world's loud whisper breaking into storm,

Not less Geraint believed it; and there fell A horror on him, lest his gentle wife, Thro' that great tenderness for Guinevere, Had suffer'd, or should suffer any taint In nature wherefore going to the king, He made this pretext, that his princedom lay

Close on the borders of a territory, Wherein were bandit earls, and caitiff knights,

Assassins, and all fliers from the hand Of Justice, and whatever loathes a law: And therefore, till the king himself should please

To cleanse this common sewer of all his realm,

He craved a fair permission to depart, And there defend his marches; and the king

Mused for a little on his plea, but, last, Allowing it, the Prince and Enid rode, And fifty knights rode with them, to the shores

Of Severn, and they past to their own land; Where, thinking, that if ever yet was wife True to her lord, mine shall be so to me, He compass'd her with sweet observances And worship, never leaving her, and grew Forgetful of his promise to the king, Forgetful of the falcon and the hunt, Forgetful of the tilt and tournament, Forgetful of his glory and his name, Forgetful of his princedom and its cares. And this forgetfulness was hateful to her. And by and by the people, when they met In twos and threes, or fuller companies, Began to scoff and jeer and babble of him As of a prince whose manhood was all gone, And molten down in mere uxoriousness. And this she gather'd from the people's

While he that watch'd her sadden, was the more

Suspicious that her nature had a taint.

At last it chanced that on a summer

morn

(They sleeping each by either) the new sun Beat thro' the blindless casement of the room,

And heated the strong warrior in his dreams;

Who, moving, cast the coverlet aside, And bared the knotted column of his throat,

The massive square of his heroic breast, And arms on which the standing muscle sloped,

As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone,
Running too vehemently to break upon it.
And Enid woke and sat beside the couch,
Admiring him, and thought within her-
self,

Was ever man so grandly made as he?
Then, like a shadow, past the people's talk
And accusation of uxoriousness
Across her mind, and bowing over him,
Low to her own heart piteously she said:

"O noble breast and all-puissant arms, Am I the cause, I the poor cause that men Reproach you, saying all your force is gone?

I am the cause because I dare not speak And tell him what I think and what they say.

And yet I hate that he should linger here; I cannot love my lord and not his name. Far liever had I gird his harness on him, And ride with him to battle and stand by, And watch his mightful hand striking great blows

At caitiffs and at wrongers of the world. Far better were I laid in the dark earth, Not hearing any more his noble voice, Not to be folded more in these dear arms, And darken'd from the high light in his

Is melted into mere effeminacy?
O me, I fear that I am no true wife."

Half inwardly, half audibly she spoke, And the strong passion in her made her weep

True tears upon his broad and naked breast,

And these awoke him, and by great mischance

He heard but fragments of her later words, And that she fear'd she was not a true wife. And then he thought, "In spite of all my

care,

For all my pains, poor man, for all my pains, She is not faithful to me, and I see her Weeping for some gay knight in Arthur's hall."

Then tho' he loved and reverenced her too much

To dream she could be guilty of foul act, Right thro' his manful breast darted the pang

That makes a man, in the sweet face of her Whom he loves most, lonely and miserable.

At this he hurl'd his huge limbs out of bed, And shook his drowsy squire awake and cried,

"My charger and her palfrey," then to her, "I will ride forth into the wilderness; For tho' it seems my spurs are yet to win, I have not fall'n so low as some would wish. And you, put on your worst and meanest dress

And ride with me." And Enid ask'd, amazed,

"If Enid errs, let Enid learn her fault."
But he, "I charge you, ask not but obey."
Then she bethought her of a faded silk,
A faded mantle and a faded veil,
And moving toward a cedarn cabinet,
Wherein she kept them folded reverently
With sprigs of summer laid between the
folds,

She took them, and array'd herself therein,
Remembering when first he came on her
Drest in that dress, and how he loved
her in it,

And all her foolish fears about the dress, And all his journey to her, as himself Had told her, and their coming to the court.

For Arthur on the Whitsuntide before Held court at old Caerleon upon Usk. There on a day, he sitting high in hall,

|

Before him came a forester of Dean,
Wet from the woods, with notice of a hart
Taller than all his fellows, milky-white,
First seen that day: these things he told
the king.

Then the good king gave order to let blow
His horns for hunting on the morrow

morn.

And when the Queen petition'd for his leave

To see the hunt, allow'd it easily.. So with the morning all the court were gone.

But Guinevere lay late into the morn, Lost in sweet dreams, and dreaming of

her love

For Lancelot, and forgetful of the hunt; But rose at last, a single maiden with her, Took horse, and forded Usk, and gain'd the wood;

There, on a little knoll beside it, stay'd Waiting to hear the hounds; but heard instead

A sudden sound of hoofs, for Prince Geraint,

Late also, wearing neither hunting-dress Nor weapon, save a golden-hilted brand, Came quickly flashing thro' the shallow ford

Behind them, and so gallop'd up the knoll. A purple scarf, at either end whereof There swung an apple of the purest gold, Sway'd round about him, as he gallop'd up To join them, glancing like a dragon-fly In summer suit and silks of holiday. Low bow'd the tributary Prince, and she, Sweetly and statelily, and with all grace Of womanhood and queenhood, answer'd

him: