Of a broad oak, through whose gnarled roots there fell
A slender rill that sung itself asleep,
Where its continuous toil had scooped a well

To please the fairy folk; breathlessly deep
The stillness was, save when the dreaming brook
From its small urn a drizzly murmur shook.

XXII

The wooded hills sloped upward all around
With gradual rise, and made an even rim,
So that it seemed a mighty casque unbound
From some huge Titan's brow to lighten him,
Ages ago, and left upon the ground,

Where the slow soil had mossed it to the brim,
Till after countless centuries it grew

Into this dell, the haunt of noontide dew.

XXIII

Dim vistas, sprinkled o'er with sun-flecked green,
Wound through the thickset trunks on every side,
And, toward the west, in fancy might be seen
A gothic window in its blazing pride,
When the low sun, two arching elms between,
Lit up the leaves beyond, which, autumn-dyed
With lavish hues, would into splendour start,
Shaming the laboured pains of richest art.

XXIV

Here, leaning once against the old oak's trunk, Mordred-for such was the young Templar's nameSaw Margaret come; unseen, the falcon shrunk

From the meek dove; sharp thrills of tingling flame Made him forget that he was vowed a monk,

And all the outworks of his pride o'ercame: Flooded he seemed with bright delicious pain, As if a star had burst within his brain.

XXV

Such power hath beauty and frank innocence:

A flower bloomed forth, that sunshine glad to bless, Even from his love's long leafless stem; the sense Of exile from Hope's happy realm grew less, And thoughts of childish peace, he knew not whence, Thronged round his heart with many an old caress, Melting the frost there into pearly dew,

That mirrored back his nature's morning-blue.

XXVI

She turned and saw him, but she felt no dread,
Her purity, like adamantine mail,

Did so encircle her; and yet her head

She drooped, and made her golden hair her veil,
Through which a glow of rosiest lustre spread,
Then faded, and anon she stood all pale,
As snow o'er which a blush of northern-light
Suddenly reddens, and as soon grows white.

XXVII

She thought of Tristrem and of Lancilot,

Of all her dreams, and of kind fairies' might,
And how that dell was deemed a haunted spot,
Until there grew a mist before her sight,
And where the present was she half forgot,

Borne backward through the realms of old delight,Then, starting up awake, she would have gone, Yet almost wished it might not be alone.

XXVIII

How they went home together through the wood,
And how all life seemed focussed into one
Thought-dazzling spot that set ablaze the blood,
What need to tell? Fit language there is none
For the heart's deepest things. Who ever wooed
As in his boyish hope he would have done?
For, when the soul is fullest, the hushed tongue
Voicelessly trembles like a lute unstrung.

XXIX

But all things carry the heart's messages

And know it not, nor doth the heart well know,
But nature hath her will; even as the bees,

Blithe go-betweens, fly singing to and fro
With the fruit-quickening pollen;-hard if these
Found not some all unthought-of way to show
Their secret each to each: and so they did,
And one heart's flower-dust into the other slid.

XXX

Young hearts are free; the selfish world it is
That turns them miserly and cold as stone,
And makes them clutch their fingers on the bliss
Which but in giving truly is their own ;-
She had no dreams of barter, asked not his,
But gave hers freely as she would have thrown
A rose to him, or as that rose gives forth
Its generous fragrance, thoughtless of its worth.

XXXI

Her summer nature felt a need to bless,
And a like longing to be blest again;

So, from her sky-like spirit, gentleness

Dropt ever like a sunlit fall of rain,
And his beneath drank in the bright caress

As thirstily as would a parched plain,

That long hath watched the showers of sloping gray.
For ever, ever, falling far away.

XXXII

How should she dream of ill? the heart filled quite
With sunshine, like the shepherd's-clock at noon,
Closes its leaves around its warm delight;

Whate'er in life is harsh or out of tune
Is all shut out; no boding shade of light
Can pierce the opiate ether of its swoon:
Love is but blind as thoughtful justice is,
But nought can be so wanton-blind as bliss.

XXXIII

All beauty and all life he was to her;

She questioned not his love, she only knew That she loved him, and not a pulse could stir

In her whole frame but quivered through and through With this glad thought, and was a minister

To do him fealty and service true,

Like golden ripples hasting to the land

To wreck their freight of sunshine on the strand.

XXXIV

O dewy dawn of love! O hopes that are

Hung high, like the cliff-swallow's perilous nest,
Most like to fall when fullest, and that jar
With every heavier billow! O unrest
Than balmiest deeps of quiet sweeter far!

How did ye triumph now in Margaret's breast,
Making it readier to shrink and start

Than quivering gold of the pond-lily's heart!

XXXV

Here let us pause: O, would the soul might ever
Achieve its immortality in yeuth,

When nothing yet hath damped its high endeavour
After the starry energy of truth!

Here let us pause, and for a moment sever

This gleam of sunshine from the days unruth That sometime come to all; for it is good

To lengthen to the last a sunny mood.

PART SECOND.

I

As one who, from the sunshine and the green,
Enters the solid darkness of a cave,

Nor knows what precipice or pit unseen

May yawn before him with its sudden grave, And, with hushed breath, doth often forward lean, Dreaming he hears the plashing of a wave

Dimly below, or feels a damper air

From out some dreary chasm, he knows not where;

II

So, from the sunshine and the green of love,
We enter on our story's darker part;
And, though the horror of it well may move
An impulse of repugnance in the heart,

Yet let us think, that, as there's nought above
The all-embracing atmosphere of Art,

So also there is nought that falls below

Her generous reach, though grimed with guilt and woe.

III

Her fittest triumph is to show that good

Lurks in the heart of evil evermore,

That love, though scorned, and outcast, and withstood, Can without end forgive, and yet have store;

God's love and man's are of the self-same blood,

And He can see that always at the door

Of foulest hearts the angel-nature yet
Knocks to return and cancel all its debt.

IV

It ever is weak falsehood's destiny

That her thick mask turns crystal to let through
The unsuspicious eyes of honesty;

But Margaret's heart was too sincere and true
Aught but plain truth and faithfulness to see,
And Mordred's for a time a little grew
To be like hers, won by the mild reproof
Of those kind eyes, that kept all doubt aloof.

V

Full oft they met, as dawn and twilight meet
In northern climes; she full of growing day
As he of darkness, which before her feet

Shrank gradual, and faded quite away,

Soon to return; for power had made love sweet
To him, and, when his will had gained full sway,
The taste began to pall; for never power
Can sate the hungry soul beyond an hour.

VI

He fell as doth the tempter ever fall,

Even in the gaining of his loathsome end;
God doth not work as man works, but makes all
The crooked paths of ill to goodness tend;
Let him judge Margaret! If to be the thrall
Of love, and faith too generous to defend
Its very life from him she loved, be sin,
What hope of grace may the seducer win?

VII

Grim-hearted world, that look'st with Levite eyes
On those poor fallen by too much faith in man,
She that upon thy freezing threshold lies,

Starved to more sinning by thy savage ban,--
Seeking that refuge because foulest vice

More godlike than thy virtue is, whose span
Shuts out the wretched only,-is more free
To enter heaven than thou wilt ever be!

VIII

Thou wilt not let her wash thy dainty feet

With such salt things as tears, or with rude hair Dry them, soft Pharisee, that sitt'st at meat

With him who made her such, and speak'st him fair, Leaving God's wandering lamb the while to bleat Unheeded, shivering in the pitiless air:

Thou hast made prisoned virtue show more wan
And haggard than a vice to look upon.

IX

Now many months flew by, and weary grew
To Margaret the sight of happy things;
Blight fell on all her flowers instead of dew;
Shut round her heart were now the joyous wings
Wherewith it wont to soar; yet not untrue,

Though tempted much, her woman's nature clings
To its first pure belief, and with sad eyes
Looks backward o'er the gate of Paradise.

X

And so, though altered Mordred came less oft,

And winter frowned where spring had laughed before, In his strange eyes, yet half her sadness doffed,

And in her silent patience loved him more: