wind,
  Their jewelled bridles, horses keen as flame
  Crushing the flowers to fragrance as they moved! 
  Now flashed they past the solitary crag,
  Now glimmered through the forest’s dewy gloom,
  Now issued to the sun.  The summer night
  Hung o’er their tents, within the valley pitched,
  Her transient pomp of stars.  When that had paled,
  And when the peaks of all the region stood
  Like crimson islands in a sea of dawn,
  They, yet in shadow, struck their canvas town;
  For Love shook slumber from him as a foe,
  And would not be delayed.  At height of noon,
  When, shining from the woods afar in front,
  The Prince beheld the palace-gates, his heart
  Was lost in its own beatings, like a sound
  In echoes.  When the cavalcade drew near,
  To meet it, forth the princely brothers pranced,
  In plume and golden scale; and when they met,
  Sudden, from out the palace, trumpets rang
  Gay wedding music.  Bertha, among her maids,
  Upstarted, as she caught the happy sound,
  Bright as a star that brightens ’gainst the night. 
  When forth she came, the summer day was dimmed;
  For all its sunshine sank into her hair,
  Its azure in her eyes.  The princely man
  Lord of a happiness unknown, unknown,
  Which cannot all be known for years and years,—­
  Uncomprehended as the shapes of hills
  When one stands in the midst!  A week went by,
  Deepening from feast to feast; and at the close,
  The gray priest lifted up his solemn hands,
  And two fair lives were sweetly blent in one,
  As stream in stream.  Then once again the knights
  Were gathered fair as flowers upon the sward,
  While in the distant chambers women wept,
  And, crowding, blessed the little golden head,
  So soon to lie upon a stranger’s breast,
  And light that place no more.  The gate stood wide: 
  Forth Edwin came enclothed with happiness;
  She trembled at the murmur and the stir
  That heaved around,—­then, on a sudden, shrank,
  When through the folds of downcast lids she felt
  Burn on her face the wide and staring day,
  And all the curious eyes.  Her brothers cried,
  When she was lifted on the milky steed,
  ’Ah! little one, ’t will soon be dark to-night! 
  A hundred times we’ll miss thee in a day,
  A hundred times we’ll rise up to thy call,
  And want and emptiness will come on us! 
  Now, at the last, our love would hold thee back! 
  Let this kiss snap the cord!  Cheer up, my girl! 
  We’ll come and see thee when thou hast a boy
  To toss up proudly to his father’s face,
  To let him hear it crow!’ Away they rode;
  And still the brethren watched them from the door,
  Till purple distance took them.  How she wept,
  When, looking back, she saw the things she knew—­
  The palace, streak of waterfall, the mead,
  The gloomy belt of forest—­fade