To whom Geraint with eyes all bright replied,
  Leaning a little toward him, “Thy leave! 
  Let me lay lance in rest, O noble host,
  For this dear child, because I never saw,
  Tho’ having seen all beauties of our time,
  Nor can see elsewhere, anything so fair. 
  And if I fall her name will yet remain
  Untarnish’d as before; but if I live,
  So aid me Heaven when at mine uttermost,
  As I will make her truly my true wife.”

    Then, howsoever patient, Yniol’s heart
  Danced in his bosom, seeing better days,
  And looking round he saw not Enid there,
  (Who hearing her own name had stol’n away)
  But that old dame, to whom full tenderly
  And fondling all her hand in his he said,
  “Mother, a maiden is a tender thing,
  And best by her that bore her understood. 
  Go thou to rest, but ere thou go to rest
  Tell her, and prove her heart toward the Prince.”

    So spake the kindly-hearted Earl, and she
  With frequent smile and nod departing found,
  Half disarray’d as to her rest, the girl;
  Whom first she kiss’d on either cheek, and then
  On either shining shoulder laid a hand,
  And kept her off and gazed upon her face,
  And told her all their converse in the hall,
  Proving her heart:  but never light and shade
  Coursed one another more on open ground
  Beneath a troubled heaven, than red and pale
  Across the face of Enid hearing her;
  While slowly falling as a scale that falls,
  When weight is added only grain by grain,
  Sank her sweet head upon her gentle breast;
  Nor did she lift an eye nor speak a word,
  Rapt in the fear and in the wonder of it;
  So moving without answer to her rest
  She found no rest, and ever fail’d to draw
  The quiet night into her blood, but lay
  Contemplating her own unworthiness;
  And when the pale and bloodless east began
  To quicken to the sun, arose, and raised
  Her mother too, and hand in hand they moved
  Down to the meadow where the; ousts were held,
  And waited there for Yniol and Geraint.

    And thither came the twain, and when Geraint
  Beheld her first in field, awaiting him,
  He felt, were she the prize of bodily force,
  Himself beyond the rest pushing could move
  The chair of Idris.  Yniol’s rusted arms
  Were on his princely person, but thro’ these
  Princelike his bearing shone; and errant knights
  And ladies came, and by and by the town
  Flow’d in, and settling circled all the lists. 
  And there they fixt the forks into the ground,
  And over these they placed the silver wand,
  And over that the golden sparrow-hawk
  Then Yniol’s nephew, after trumpet blown,
  Spake to the lady with him and proclaim’d
  “Advance and take as fairest of the fair. 
  For I these two years past have won it for thee,
  The prize of beauty.”  Loudly