Where I must strike against my sister's son,

Leagued with the lords of the White Horse and knights

Once mine, and strike him dead, and meet myself

Death, or I know not what mysterious doom.

And thou remaining here wilt learn the event;
But hither shall I never come again,

Never lie by thy side, see thee no more,

Farewell!'

And while she grovell'd at his feet,

She felt the King's breath wander o'er her neck,
And, in the darkness o'er her fallen head,

Perceived the waving of his hands that blest.

Then, listening till those armed steps were gone,
Rose the pale Queen, and in her anguish found
The casement: 'peradventure' so she thought,
'If I might see his face, and not be seen.'
And lo, he sat on horseback at the door!

And near him the sad nuns with each a light

Stood, and he gave them charge about the Queen,

To guard and foster her for evermore.

And while he spake to these his helm was lower'd,

To which for crest the golden dragon clung

Of Britain; so she did not see the face,

Which then was as an angel's, but she saw,

Wet with the mists and smitten by the lights,
The Dragon of the great Pendragonship

Blaze, making all the night a steam of fire.
And even then he turn'd; and more and more
The moony vapour rolling round the King,
Who seem'd the phantom of a Giant in it,
Enwound him fold by fold, and made him gray

And grayer, till himself became as mist

Before her, moving ghostlike to his doom.

Then she stretch'd out her arms and cried aloud

'Oh Arthur!' there her voice brake suddenly, Then-as a stream that spouting from a cliff Fails in mid air, but gathering at the base

Re-makes itself, and flashes down the vale

Went on in passionate utterance.

'Gone-my lord!

Gone thro' my sin to slay and to be slain !

And he forgave me, and I could not speak.
Farewell? I should have answer'd his farewell.

His mercy choked me. Gone, my lord the King,
My own true lord! how dare I call him mine?
The shadow of another cleaves to me,

And makes me one pollution: he, the King,
Call'd me polluted shall I kill myself?

What help in that? I cannot kill my sin,

If soul be soul; nor can I kill my shame;

No, nor by living can I live it down.

The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to months,

The months will add themselves and make the years,

The years will roll into the centuries,

And mine will ever be a name of scorn.

I must not dwell on that defeat of fame.

Let the world be; that is but of the world.

What else? what hope? I think there was a hope,

S

Except he mock'd me when he spake of hope;

His hope he call'd it; but he never mocks,

For mockery is the fume of little hearts.

And blessed be the King, who hath forgiven
My wickedness to him, and left me hope

That in mine own heart I can live down sin
And be his mate hereafter in the heavens
Before high God. Ah great and gentle lord,
Who wast, as is the conscience of a saint
Among his warring senses, to thy knights-
To whom my false voluptuous pride, that took
Full easily all impressions from below,
Would not look up, or half-despised the height
To which I would not or I could not climb—
I thought I could not breathe in that fine air
That pure severity of perfect light—

I wanted warmth and colour which I found
In Lancelot-now I see thee what thou art,
Thou art the highest and most human too,
Not Lancelot, nor another. Is there none

Will tell the King I love him tho' so late?

Now-ere he goes to the great Battle? none :
Myself must tell him in that purer life,
But now it were too daring. Ah my God,
What might I not have made of thy fair world,
Had I but loved thy highest creature here?

It was my duty to have loved the highest :
It surely was my profit had I known:

It would have been my pleasure had I seen.

We needs must love the highest when we see it,

Not Lancelot, nor another.'

Here her hand

Grasp'd, made her vail her eyes: she look'd and saw

The novice, weeping, suppliant, and said to her

"Yea, little maid, for am I not forgiven?'

Then glancing up beheld the holy nuns

All round her, weeping; and her heart was loosed Within her, and she wept with these and said.

'Ye know me then, that wicked one, who broke