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Well, at that moment, who should stalk
Forth boldly-to my face, indeed-

But Gauthier? and he thundered "Stay!"

And all stayed.

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'Bring torches!

"About her!

"Bring no crowns, I say!

X

Wind the penance-sheet

Let her shun the chaste, "Or lay herself before their feet!

"Shall she, whose body I embraced "A night long, queen it in the day? For honour's sake no crowns, I say!"

XI

I? What I answered? As I live,
I never fancied such a thing

As answer possible to give.

What says the body when they spring Some monstrous torture-engine's whole Strength on it? No more says the soul.

XII

Till out strode Gismond; then I knew
That I was saved. I never met
His face before, but, at first view,

I felt quite sure that God had set
Himself to Satan: who would spend
A minute's mistrust on the end?

XIII

He strode to Gauthier, in his throat

Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth With one back-handed blow that wrote

In blood men's verdict there. North, South, East, West, I looked. The lie was dead, And damned, and truth stood up instead,

XIV

This glads me most, that I enjoyed
The heart o' the joy, with my content
In watching Gismond unalloyed

By any doubt of the event:

God took that on him-I was bid
Watch Gismond for my part: I did.

XV

Did I not watch him while he let

His armourer just brace his greaves,

Rivet his hauberk, on the fret

The while! His foot. . . my memory leaves No least stamp out, nor how anon

He pulled his ringing gauntlets on.

XVI

And e'en before the trumpet's sound

Was finished, prone lay the false knight, Prone as his lie, upon the ground:

Gismond flew at him, used no sleight O' the sword, but open-breasted drove, Cleaving till out the truth he clove.

XVII

Which done, he dragged him to my feet And said, "Here die, but end thy breath "In full confession, lest thou fleet

"From my first, to God's second death! "Say, hast thou lied?" And, "I have lied "To God and her,” he said, and died.

XVIII

Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked

-What safe my heart holds, though no word

Could I repeat now, if I tasked
My powers for ever, to a third

Dear even as you are. Pass the rest
Until I sank upon his breast.

XIX

Over my head his arm he flung

Against the world; and scarce I felt His sword (that dripped by me and swung) A little shifted in its belt :

For he began to say the while

How South our home lay many a mile.

XX

So, 'mid the shouting multitude

We two walked forth to never more
Return. My cousins have pursued
Their life, untroubled as before

I vexed them. Gauthier's dwelling-place
God lighten! May his soul find grace!

XXI

Our elder boy has got the clear

Great brow; tho' when his brother's black

Full eye

shows scorn,

it . . . Gismond here?

And have you brought my tercel back?

I was just telling Adela

How many birds it struck since May.

EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS.

A PICTURE BY FREDERICK LEIGHTON, R.A.

BUT give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow!
Let them once more absorb me! One look now
Will lap me round for ever, not to pass

Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond :
Hold me but safe again within the bond

Of one immortal look! All woe that was,
Forgotten, and all terror that may be,
Defied,-
-no past is mine, no future: look at me!

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THE GLOVE.

(PETER RONSARD loquitur.)

HEIGHO," yawned one day King Francis, "Distance all value enhances !

"When a man's busy, why, leisure

"Strikes him as wonderful pleasure:

"Faith, and at leisure once is he?

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Straightway he wants to be busy.

"Here we 've got peace; and aghast I 'm

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Caught thinking war the true pastime.

Is there a reason in metre?

"Give us your speech, master Peter!"
I who, if mortal dare say so,

Ne'er am at loss with my Naso,

"Sire," I replied, “joys prove cloudlets :
"Men are the merest Ixions

Here the King whistled aloud, "Let's
“,.. Heigho . . go look at our lions!"

Such are the sorrowful chances

If you talk fine to King Francis.

And so, to the courtyard proceeding,
Our company, Francis was leading,
Increased by new followers tenfold
Before he arrived at the penfold ;
Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen
At sunset the western horizon.

And Sir de Lorge pressed 'mid the foremost
With the dame he professed to adore most-
Oh, what a face! One by fits eyed
Her, and the horrible pitside;

For the penfold surrounded a hollow

Which led where the eye scarce dared follow,
And shelved to the chamber secluded
Where Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded.
The King hailed his keeper, an Arab
As glossy and black as a scarab,

And bade him make sport and at once stir
Up and out of his den the old monster.
They opened a hole in the wire-work
Across it, and dropped there a firework,
And fled one's heart's beating redoubled;
A pause, while the pit's mouth was troubled,
The blackness and silence so utter,
By the firework's slow sparkling and sputter;
Then earth in a sudden contortion

Gave out to our gaze her abortion.

Such a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot
(Whose experience of nature's but narrow,
And whose faculties move in no small mist
When he versifies David the Psalmist)
I should study that brute to describe you
Illum Juda Leonem de Tribu.

One's whole blood grew curdling and creepy

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