“And I can scarcely ride with you to court,
  For old am I, and rough the ways and wild;
  But Yniol goes, and I full oft shall dream
  I see my princess as I see her now,
  Clothed with my gift, and gay among the gay.’”

    But while the women thus rejoiced, Geraint
  Woke where he slept in the high hall, and call’d
  For Enid, and when Yniol made report
  Of that good mother making Enid gay
  In such apparel as might well beseem
  His princess, or indeed the stately Queen,
  He answer’d:  “Earl, entreat her by my love,
  Albeit I give no reason but my wish,
  That she ride with me in her faded silk.” 
  Yniol with that hard message went; it fell
  Like flaws in summer laying lusty corn: 
  For Enid, all abash’d she knew not why,
  Dared not to glance at her good mother’s face,
  But silently, in all obedience,
  Her mother silent too, nor helping her,
  Laid from her limbs the costly-broider’d gift,
  And robed them in her ancient suit again,
  And so descended.  Never man rejoiced
  More than Geraint to greet her thus attired;
  And glancing all at once as keenly at her
  As careful robins eye the delver’s toil,
  Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall,
  But rested with her sweet face satisfied;
  Then seeing cloud upon the mother’s brow,
  Her by both hands he caught, and sweetly said,

    “O my new mother, be not wroth or grieved
  At thy new son, for my petition to her. 
  When late I left Caerleon, our great Queen,
  In words whose echo lasts, they were so sweet,
  Made promise, that whatever bride I brought,
  Herself would clothe her like the sun in Heaven. 
  Thereafter, when I reach’d this ruin’d hall,
  Beholding one so bright in dark estate,
  I vow’d that could I gain her, our fair Queen,
  No hand but hers, should make your Enid burst
  Sunlike from cloud—­and likewise thought perhaps,
  That service done so graciously would bind
  The two together; fain I would the two
  Should love each other:  how can Enid find
  A nobler friend?  Another thought was mine;
  I came among you here so suddenly,
  That tho’ her gentle presence at the lists
  Might well have served for proof that I was loved,
  I doubted whether daughter’s tenderness,
  Or easy nature, might not let itself
  Be moulded by your wishes for her weal;
  Or whether some false sense in her own self
  Of my contrasting brightness, overbore
  Her fancy dwelling in this dusky hall;
  And such a sense might make her long for court
  And all its perilous glories:  and I thought,
  That could I someway prove such force in her
  Link’d with such love for me, that at a word
  (No reason given her) she could cast aside
  A splendor dear to women, new to her,
  And therefore dearer; or if not so new,
  Yet therefore tenfold dearer by the power