And Lancelot answer'd nothing, but he went,

And at the inrunning of a little brook

Sat by the river in a cove, and watch'd

The high reed wave, and lifted up his eyes

And saw the barge that brought her moving down, Far-off, a blot upon the stream, and said.

Low in himself 'Ah simple heart and sweet,

You loved me, damsel, surely with a love

Far tenderer than my Queen's. Pray for thy soul?

Ay, that will I. Farewell too-now at last―

Farewell, fair lily.

"Jealousy in love?"

Not rather dead love's harsh heir, jealous pride?

Queen, if I grant the jealousy as of love,

May not your crescent fear for name and fame

Speak, as it waxes, of a love that wanes ?

Why did the King dwell on my name to me?

Mine own name shames me, seeming a reproach,

Lancelot, whom the Lady of the lake

Stole from his mother-as the story runs

She chanted snatches of mysterious song

Heard on the winding waters, eve and morn
She kiss'd me saying thou art fair, my child,

As a king's son, and often in her arms

She bare me, pacing on the dusky mere.

Would she had drown'd me in it, where'er it be ! For what am I? what profits me my name

Of greatest knight? I fought for it, and have it : Pleasure to have it, none; to lose it, pain;

Now grown a part of me: but what use in it?
To make men worse by making my sin known?
Or sin seem less, the sinner seeming great?
Alas for Arthur's greatest knight, a man

Not after Arthur's heart! I needs must break
These bonds that so defame me: not without
She wills it would I, if she will'd it? nay,
Who knows? but if I would not, then may God,
I pray him, send a sudden Angel down
To seize me by the hair and bear me far,
And fling me deep in that forgotten mere,
Among the tumbled fragments of the hills.'

So groan'd Sir Lancelot in remorseful pain,

Not knowing he should die a holy man.

GUINEVERE.