She like a new disease, unknown to men,
Creeps, no precaution used, among the crowd,
Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes, and saps
The fealty of our friends, and stirs the pulse
With devil's leaps, and poisons half the young.
Worst of the worst were that man he that reigns!
Better the King's waste hearth and aching heart
Than thou reseated in thy place of light,
The mockery of my people, and their bane."

He paused, and in the pause she crept an inch
Nearer, and laid her hands about his feet.
Far off a solitary trumpet blew.

Then waiting by the doors the warhorse neigh'd
As at a friend's voice, and he spake again.

"Yet think not that I come to urge thy crimes,

I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere,

I, whose vast pity almost makes me die

To see thee, laying there thy golden head,

My pride in happier summers, at my feet.

The wrath which forced my thoughts on that fierce law, The doom of treason and the flaming death,

(When first I learnt thee hidden here) is past.

The pang - which while I weigh'd thy heart with one

Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee,
Made my tears burn-is also past, in part.

And all is past, the sin is sinn'd, and I,

Lo! I forgive thee, as Eternal God

Forgives do thou for thine own soul the rest.

But how to take last leave of all I loved?

O golden hair, with which I used to play
Not knowing! O imperial-moulded form,
And beauty such as never woman wore,
Until it came a kingdom's curse with thee-
I cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine,
But Lancelot's: nay, they never were the King's.
I cannot take thy hand; that too is flesh,

And in the flesh thou hast sinn'd; and mine own flesh,
Here looking down on thine polluted, cries,

'I loathe thee': yet not less, O Guinevere,
For I was ever virgin save for thee,

My love thro' flesh hath wrought into my life.
So far, that my doom is, I love thee still.
Let no man dream but that I love thee still.
Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul,
And so thou lean on our fair father Christ,
Hereafter in that world where all are pure
We two may meet before high God, and thou
Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine, and know
I am thine husband. not a smaller soul,

Nor Lancelot, nor another.

I charge thee, my last hope.

Leave me that,
Now must I hence.

Thro' the thick night I hear the trumpet blow:
They summon me their King to lead mine hosts
Far down to that great battle in the west,

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 forevermore.

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 vapor 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, "O Arthur!" there her voice brake suddenly, Then as a stream that spouting from a cliff

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,
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 color which I found

In Lancelot - now I see thee what thou art,