Always I long to creep
Into some still cavern deep,
There to weep, and weep, and weep
My whole soul out to thee.
So when the ghostly man had come and gone,
She, with a face bright as for sin forgiven,
Besought Lavaine to write as she devised
A letter, word for word; and when he asked,
"Is it for Lancelot, is it for my dear lord?
Then will I bear it gladly," she replied,
"For Lancelot and the Queen and all the world,
But I myself must bear it." Then he wrote
The letter she devised; which being writ
And folded, "O sweet father, tender and true,
Deny me not," she said-"You never yet
Denied my fancies-this, however strange,
My latest lay the letter in my hand
A little ere I die, and close the hand
Upon it; I shall guard it even in death.
And when the beat is gone from out my heart,
Then take the little bed on which I died
For Lancelot's love, and deck it like the Queen's
For richness, and me also like the Queen
In all I have of rich, and lay me on it.
And let there be prepared a chariot-bier
To take me to the river, and a barge
Be ready on the river, clothed in black.
go in state to court, to meet the Queen. There surely I shall speak for mine own self,
And none of you can speak for me so well.
And therefore let our dumb old man alone
Go with me; he can steer and row, and he
Will guide me to that palace, to the doors."
She ceased; her father promised; whereupon
She grew so cheerful that they deem'd her death
Was rather in the fantasy than the blood.
But ten slow mornings past, and on the eleventh
Her father laid the letter in her hand,
And closed the hand upon it, and she died.
So that day there was dole in Astolat.
But when the next sun brake from underground, Then, those two brethren slowly with bent brows Accompanying, the sad chariot-bier
Passed like a shadow thro' the field, that shone
Full summer, to that stream whereon the barge,
Pall'd all its length in blackest samite, lay.
There sat the lifelong creature of the house,
Loyal, the dumb old servitor, on deck,
Winking his eyes, and twisted all his face.
So those two brethren from the chariot took
And on the black decks laid her in her bed,
Set in her hand a lily, o'er her hung
The silken case with braided blazonings,
And kiss'd her quiet brows, and saying to her,
'Sister, farewell for ever," and again,
"Farewell, sweet sister," parted all in tears.
Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead
Steer'd by the dumb went upward with the flood-
In her right hand the lily, in her left
The letter-all her bright hair streaming down
And all the coverlid was cloth of gold
Drawn to her waist, and she herself in white,
All but her face, and that clear-featured face
Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead
But fast asleep, and lay as though she smiled.
On his 21st Birthday, with a Silver Lamp," Fiat Lux."
Is all too poor in passionate words;
The heart aches with a sense above
All language that the lip affords :
Therefore a symbol shall express
My love, a thing not rare or strange,
But yet-eternal-measureless-
Knowing no shadow and no change.
Light! which of all the lovely shows
To our poor world of shadows given,
The fervent Prophet-voices chose
Alone, as attribute of heaven!
At a most solemn pause we stand,
From this day forth, for evermore,
The weak but loving human hand
Must cease to guide thee as of yore.
Then, as thro' life thy footsteps stray,
And earthly beacons dimly shine,
"Let there be light" upon thy way,
And holier guidance far than mine!
"Let there be light" in thy clear soul,
When passion tempts and doubts assail;
When grief's dark tempests o'er thee roll,
"Let there be light" that shall not fail!
So, Angel-guarded, may'st thou tread
The narrow path which few may find,
And at the end look back, nor dread
To count the vanished years behind!
And pray that she, whose hand doth trace
This heart-warm prayer,-when life is past— May see and know thy blessed face,
In God's own glorious light at last!
THE LADY OF LA GARAYE
Oh! woodland paths she ne'er again may see,
Oh! tossing branches of the forest tree,
Oh! loveliest banks in all the land of France,
Glassing your shadows in the silvery Rance;
Oh! river with your swift yet quiet tide,
Specked with white sails that seem in dreams to glide;
Oh! ruddy orchards, basking on the hills,
Whose plenteous fruit the thirsty flagon fills;
And oh ye winds, which free and unconfined,
No sickness poisons, and no art can bind,-
Restore her to enjoyment of the earth!
Echo again her songs of careless mirth,
Those little Breton songs so wildly sweet,
Fragments of music strange and incomplete,
Her small red mouth went warbling by the way
Through the glad roamings of her active day.
Blighted are summer hours! The bee goes booming through the plats of flowers; The butterfly its tiny mate pursues
With rapid fluttering of its painted hues ;
The thin-winged gnats their transient time employ
Reeling through sunbeams in a dance of joy;
The small field-mouse with wide transparent ears
Comes softly forth, and softly disappears;
The dragon-fly hangs glittering on the reed;
The spider swings across his filmy thread;
And gleaming fishes, darting to and fro,
Make restless silver in the pools below.
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