A little vext at losing of the hunt,

A little at the vile occasion, rode,

By ups and downs, through many a glassy glade
And valley, with fixt eye following the three.
At last they issued from the world of wood,

And climbed upon a fair and even ridge,

And showed themselves against the sky, and sank.
And thither came Geraint, and underneath
Beheld the long street of a little town

In a long valley, on one side of which,

White from the mason's hand, a fortress rose;

And on one side a castle in decay,

Beyond a bridge that spanned a dry ravine:
And out of town and valley came a noise
As of a broad brook o'er a shingly bed
Brawling, or like a clamor of the rooks
At distance, ere they settle for the night.

And onward to the fortress rode the three, And entered, and were lost behind the walls. "So," thought Geraint, "I have tracked him to his earth." And down the long street riding wearily, Found every hostel full, and everywhere Was hammer laid to hoof, and the hot hiss And bustling whistle of the youth who scoured

Then sighed and smiled the hoary-headed Earl,
And answered, "Graver cause than yours is mine
To curse this hedgerow thief, the sparrow-hawk:
But in, go in; for save yourself desire it
We will not touch upon him ev'n in jest."

Then rode Geraint into the castle court,
His charger trampling many a prickly star
Of sprouted thistle on the broken stones.
He looked and saw that all was ruinous.
Here stood a shattered archway plumed with fern;
And here had fallen a great part of a tower,

Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the cliff,
And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers:
And high above a piece of turret stair,
Worn by the feet that now were silent, wound
Bare to the sun, and monstrous ivy-stems
Claspt the gray walls with hairy-fibred arms,
And sucked the joining of the stones, and looked
A knot, beneath, of snakes, aloft, a grove.

And while he waited in the castle court, The voice of Enid, Yniol's daughter, rang Clear through the open casement of the Hall, Singing; and as the sweet voice of a bird,

Heard by the lander in a lonely isle,
Moves him to think what kind of bird it is
That sings so delicately clear, and make
Conjecture of the plumage and the form;
So the sweet voice of Enid moved Geraint;
And made him like a man abroad at morn
When first the liquid note beloved of men
Comes flying over many a windy wave
To Britain, and in April suddenly

Breaks from a coppice gemmed with green and red,
And he suspends his converse with a friend,
Or it may be the labor of his hands,

To think or say, "There is the nightingale";
So fared it with Geraint, who thought and said,
"Here, by God's grace, is the one voice for me.”

It chanced the song that Enid sang was one Of Fortune and her wheel, and Enid sang:

"Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud ; Turn thy wild wheel through sunshine, storm, and cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

"Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown; With that wild wheel we go not up or down; Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.