Just were his boding fears:  new shouts ascend
    Of loud acclaim; and wide the welkin rend. 
    A female form the wondering peers behold,
    Too bright for mixture of earth’s mortal mould: 
    The gridelin pall that down her shoulders flow’d
    Half veil’d her snow-white courser as she rode;
    On her fair hand a sparrow-hawk was plac’d,
    Her steed’s sure steps a following grey-hound trac’d
    And, as she pass’d, still pressing to the right
    Female and male, and citizen and knight,
    What wight soe’er in Carduel’s walls was found,
    Swell’d the full quire, and spread the joy around.

    Lanval, the while, apart from all the rest,
    Sat sadly waiting for his doom unbless’d: 
    (Not that he fear’d to die:  death rather sued;
    For life was nought, despoil’d of all its good:)
    To his dull ears his hastening friends proclaim
    The fancied form and presence of his dame;
    Feebly he rais’d his head:  and, at the sight,
    In a strange extacy of wild delight,
    ’’Tis she! ‘tis she!’ was all his faultering cry,
    ‘I see her once again now satisfied I die!’

    Thus while he spake, the peers with seemly state. 
    Led by their king, the illustrious stranger wait;
    Proud Carduel’s palace hail’d its princely guest,
    And thus the dame the assembled court address’d. 
    ’List, king, and barons!—­Arthur, I have lov’d
    A knight most loyal in thy service prov’d;
    Him, by thy foul neglect, reduc’d to need,
    These hands did recompense; they did thy deed. 
    He disobey’s me; I forbore to save;
    I left him at the portal of the grave: 
    Firm loyalty hath well that breach repair’d—­
    He loves me still, nor shall he lack reward. 
    ’Barons! your court its judgment did decree,
    Quittance or death, your queen compar’d with me: 
    Behold the mistress of the knight is come,
    Now judge between us? and pronounce the doom.’

    All cry aloud, the words of love were right,
    And one united voice acquits the knight. 
    Back from the palace turns the parting fay,
    And with her beauteous damsels speeds away: 
    Her, as she pass’d the enraptur’d Lanval view’d;
    High on the portal’s marble steps he stood;
    On his tall steed he sprang with vigorous bound;
    Thenceforth their footsteps never wight hath found.

    But ’tis the Breton tale, they both are gone
    To the fair isle of fertile Avalon;
    There, in the lap of love for ever laid,
    By sorrow unassail’d, in bliss embay’d,
    They make their won:  for me, where’er they dwell,
    No farther tale befalls me here to tell.

Thomas Chestre translated this tale in the reign of Henry 6, but the extracts published by Mr. Warton, differ in some particulars from the tale here given.

No.  VI.—­LES DEUX AMANTS.