Well! suddenly at noon,
Llewellyn, baffled of his game, hied back,
Striding right grimly in his discontent,
And whistling, oft his spear upon the ground,
Slaying the visions of his fretful dreams;
And presently he thought him of his child: 
So with its winsome ways to wile the time,
He went unto the chamber where it lay,
Watch’d o’er by Gelert, as his custom was: 
But there, alack! or that the child had crost
The savage humour of the beast, or that
Some sudden madness had embolden’d it,
He saw the child lie bloody mid the sheets,
Slain by the hound, as it would seem, for there
Lay Gelert lapping from his chaps the blood,
That hung in gouts from every grisly curl.

MONK.

O Heaven! the woful deed!  What did your lord?

MORGAN.

You know the hasty humour of the man,
That brooks no let betwixt him and his mood—­
He slew the old hound with his heavy spear,
That almost licking of his feet fell dead;
For Gelert loved him well, and, crouching, took
Without a cry the blow that struck his heart.

MONK.

This is a sorry day for all the house; they say
Llewellyn had his soul set on the child.

MORGAN.

His soul!  Ay, marry! many a time and oft
I’ve seen the man’s great heart stare from his eyes,
Just like a girl’s, out at the crowing boy: 
And yesterday it was he perch’d him fair
Upon his broad rough shoulder, like a lamb
Laid on the topmost reaches of a hill,
And so he bore him, all his face a-glow,
When heralds came with war-notes from the king;
At which he turn’d him soft—­the startled babe
Still set astride, and looking fondly up,
Said he, “See! here’s the only lord that sets
His foot upon my shoulder.”  The man’s heart
Scarce beats, I warrant, now the child is dead.

MONK.

And hath he master’d aught his sorrow now,
Or still rides passion curbless through his soul?

MORGAN.

Ah! there, good Father, lies the chiefest woe,
For in the slaying of the hound his rage
Quite spent its force, and now I fear me much
His mind bath lost its olden empery.

MONK.

Nay!  Death smites passion still upon the mouth,
And its grim shade is silence—­’Tis no sign.

MORGAN.

But in this one act all his fury pass’d;
And turning softly from the dead child there,
Suffering none to touch it where it lay,
He sat him down in awful calmness nigh,
And gazed forth blankly like a sculptured face;
And when we fain would pass to take the child,
A strange wild voice still warns us back again,
“Hush! for the boy is sleeping.”  It would seem
He will not think that Death hath struck the babe,
But blinds his willing soul, and deems it sleep.

MONK.

A longer sleep, whose waking is not here! 
Poor soul! that, catching at the skirts of Truth. 
Muffleth his eyes that he may see her not.