On a sudden, many a voice along the street,
  And heel against the pavement echoing, burst
  Their drowse; and either started while the door,
  Push’d from without, drave backward to the wall,
  And midmost of a rout of roisterers,
  Femininely fair and dissolutely pale,
  Her suitor in old years before Geraint,
  Enter’d, the wild lord of the place, Limours. 
  He moving up with pliant courtliness,
  Greeted Geraint full face, but stealthily,
  In the mid-warmth of welcome and graspt hand,
  Found Enid with the corner of his eye,
  And knew her sitting sad and solitary. 
  Then cried Geraint for wine and goodly cheer
  To feed the sudden guest, and sumptuously
  According to his fashion, bade the host
  Call in what men soever were his friends,
  And feast with these in honor of their Earl;
  “And care not for the cost; the cost is mine.” 
  And wine and food were brought, and Earl Limours
  Drank till he jested with all ease, and told
  Free tales, and took the word and play’d upon it,
  And made it of two colors; for his talk,
  When wine and free companions kindled him,
  Was wont to glance and sparkle like a gem
  Of fifty facets; thus he moved the Prince
  To laughter and his comrades to applause. 
  Then, when the Prince was merry, ask’d Limours
  “Your leave, my lord, to cross the room, and speak
  To your good damsel there who sits apart,
  And seems so lonely?” “My free leave,” he said;
  “Get her to speak:  she doth not speak to me.” 
  Then rose Limours, and looking at his feet,
  Like him who tries the bridge he fears may fail,
  Crost and came near, lifted adoring eyes,
  Bow’d at her side and utter’d whisperingly: 

    “Enid, the pilot star of my lone life,
  Enid, my early and my only love,
  Enid, the loss of whom hath turn’d me wild—­
  What chance is this? how is it I see you here? 
  Ye are in my power at last, are in my power. 
  Yet fear me not:  I call mine own self wild,
  But keep a touch of sweet civility
  Here in the heart of waste and wilderness. 
  I thought, but that your father came between,
  In former days you saw me favorably. 
  And if it were so do not keep it back: 
  Make me a little happier:  let me know it: 
  Owe you me nothing for a life half-lost? 
  Yea, yea, the whole dear debt of all you are. 
  And, Enid, you and he, I see with joy,
  Ye sit apart, you do not speak to him,
  You come with no attendance, page or maid,
  To serve you—­doth he love you as of old? 
  For, call it lovers’ quarrels, yet I know
  Tho’ men may bicker with the things they love,
  They would not make them laughable in all eyes,
  Not while they loved them; and your wretched dress,
  A wretched insult on you, dumbly speaks
  Your story, that this man loves you no more. 
  Your beauty is no beauty to him now: