IIis 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 light1 wanted warmth and color which I found

In Lancelot-now I see thee what thou art,

Thou art the highest and most human

The vast design and purpose of the King.

O shut me round with narrowing nunnery-walls,

Meek maidens, from the voices crying 'shame.'

I must not scorn myself: he loves me still.

Let no one dream but that he loves me still.

So let me, if you do not shudder at me Nor shun to call me sister, dwell with

you;

Wear black and white, and be a nun like you;

Fast with your fasts, not feasting with your feasts;

Grieve with your griefs, not grieving at your joys,

But not rejoicing; mingle with your rites;

Pray and be pray'd for; lie before your shrines;

Do each low office of your holy house; Walk your dim cloister, and distribute dole

To poor sick people, richer in his eyes Who ransom'd us, and haler too than 1; And treat their loathsome hurts and heal mine own;

And so wear out in almsdeed and in

And thrust the heathen from the Roman wall,

And shook him thro' the north. Ill doom is mine

To war against my people and my knights.

The king who fights his people fights himself.

And they my knights, who loved me once, the stroke

That strikes them dead is as my death to me.

Yet let us hence, and find or feel a way Thro' this blind haze, which ever sinco I saw

One lying in the dust at Almesbury, Hath folded in the passes of the world."

- Then rose the king and moved Lis host by night,

And ever push'd Sir Modred, league by league,

Back to the sunset bound of Lyon

Then spake the King: "My house hath been my doom.

But call not thou this traitor of my house

Who hath but dwelt beneath one roof with me.

My house are rather they who sware my vows,

Yea, even while they brake them, own'd me king.

And well for thee, saying in my dark hour,

When all the purport of my throne hath fail'd.

That quick or dead thou holdest me for king.

King am I, whatsoever be their cry; And one last act of kinghood shalt thou