A common chance—­right well I know it—­pall’d—­
  For I know men:  nor will ye win him back,
  For the man’s love once gone never returns. 
  But here is one who loves you as of old;
  With more exceeding passion than of old: 
  Good, speak the word:  my followers ring him round: 
  He sits unarm’d; I hold a finger up;
  They understand:  nay; I do not mean blood: 
  Nor need ye look so scared at what I say: 
  My malice is no deeper than a moat,
  No stronger than a wall:  there is the keep;
  He shall not cross us more; speak but the word: 
  Or speak it not; but then by him that made me
  The one true lover whom you ever own’d,
  I will make use of all the power I have. 
  O pardon me! the madness of that hour,
  When first I parted from thee, moves me yet.”

    At this the tender sound of his own voice
  And sweet self-pity, or the fancy of it
  Made his eye moist; but Enid fear’d his eyes,
  Moist as they were, wine-heated from the feast;
  And answered with such craft as women use,
  Guilty or guiltless, to stave off a chance
  That breaks upon them perilously, and said: 

    “Earl, if you love me as in former years,
  And do not practice on me, come with morn,
  And snatch me from him as by violence;
  Leave me to-night:  I am weary to the death.”

    Low at leave-taking, with his brandish’d plume
  Brushing his instep, bow’d the all-amorous Earl. 
  And the stout Prince bade him a loud good-night. 
  He moving homeward babbled to his men,
  How Enid never loved a man but him,
  Nor cared a broken egg-shell for her lord.

    But Enid left alone with Prince Geraint,
  Debating his command of silence given,
  And that she now perforce must violate it,
  Held commune with herself, and while she held
  He fell asleep, and Enid had no heart
  To wake him, but hung o’er him, wholly pleased
  To find him yet unwounded after fight,
  And hear him breathing low and equally. 
  Anon she rose, and stepping lightly, heap’d
  The pieces of his armor in one place,
  All to be there against a sudden need;
  Then dozed awhile herself, but over-toil’d
  By that day’s grief and travel, evermore
  Seem’d catching at a rootless thorn, and then
  Went slipping down horrible precipices,
  And strongly striking out her limbs awoke;
  Then thought she heard the wild Earl at the door,
  With all his rout of random followers,
  Sound on a dreadful trumpet, summoning her;
  Which was the red cock shouting to the light,
  As the gray dawn stole o’er the dewy world,
  And glimmer’d on his armor in the room. 
  And once again she rose to look at it,
  But touch’d it unawares:  jangling, the casque
  Fell, and he started up and stared at her. 
  Then breaking his command of silence given,
  She told him all that Earl Limours had