Blaze upon her window, sun, And honor all the day. XI. MARRIAGE MORNING. LIGHT, so low upon earth, You send a flash to the sun O the woods and the meadows, You flash and lighten afar : By meadow and stile and wood: O lighten into my eyes and my heart, Into my heart and my blood! Heart, are you great enough For a love that never tires? O heart, are you great enough for love? I have heard of thorns and briers. Over the thorns and briers, Over the meadows and stiles, Over the world to the end of it Flash for a million miles. GARETH AND LYNETTE. And yet thou art but swollen with cold THE last tall son of Lot and Bellicent, | Bearing all down in thy precipitancyAnd tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted snows, And mine is living blood: thou dost His will, The Maker's, and not knowest, and I that know, Have strength and wit, in my good mother's hall Linger with vacillating obedience, Prison'd, and kept and coaxed and whistled to Was finer gold than any goose can lay; For this an Eagle, a royal Eagle, laid Almost beyond eye-reach, on such a palm As glitters gilded in thy Book of Hours. And there was ever haunting round the palm A lusty youth, but poor, who often saw The splendor sparkling from aloft, and thought 'An I could climb and lay my hand upon it, Then were I wealthier than a leash of kings.' But ever when he reach'd a hand to climb, One, that had loved him from his childhood, caught And stay'd him, 'Climb not lest thou break thy neck, I charge thee by my love,' and so the boy, Sweet mother, neither clomb, nor brake his neck, But brake his very heart in pining for it, And past away." And there were cries and clashings in the nest, That sent him from his senses: let me go." Then Bellicent bemoan'd herself and said, "Hast thou no pity upon my loneliness? Lo, where thy father Lot beside the hearth Lies like a log, and all but smoulder'd out! For ever since when traitor to the King He fought against him in the Barons' war, [tory, And Arthur gave him back his terriHis age hath slowly droopt, and now lies there A yet-warm corpse, and yet unburiable, No more; nor sees, nor hears, nor speaks, nor knows. And both thy brethren are in Arthur's hall, Albeit neither loved with that full love 1 feel for thee, nor worthy such a love: Stay therefore thou; red berries charm the bird, And thee, mine innocent, the jousts, the wars, [pang Who never knewest finger-ache, nor Of wrench'd or broken limb-an often chance In those brain-stunning shocks, and tourney-falls, Frights to my heart; but stay: follow the deer |