XXXV

Here let us pause:  oh, would the soul might ever
  Achieve its immortality in youth,
When nothing yet hath damped its high endeavor
  After the starry energy of truth! 
Here let us pause, and for a moment sever
  This gleam of sunshine from the sad unruth
That sometime comes to all, for it is good
To lengthen to the last a sunny mood. 280

PART SECOND

I

As one who, from the sunshine and the green,
  Enters the solid darkness of a cave,
Nor knows what precipice or pit unseen
  May yawn before him with its sudden grave,
And, with hushed breath, doth often forward lean,
  Dreaming he hears the plashing of a wave
Dimly below, or feels a damper air
From out some dreary chasm, he knows not where;

II

So, from the sunshine and the green of love,
  We enter on our story’s darker part; 290
And, though the horror of it well may move
  An impulse of repugnance in the heart,
Yet let us think, that, as there’s naught above
  The all-embracing atmosphere of Art,
So also there is naught that falls below
Her generous reach, though grimed with guilt and woe.

III

Her fittest triumph is to show that good
  Lurks in the heart of evil evermore,
That love, though scorned, and outcast, and withstood,
  Can without end forgive, and yet have store; 300
God’s love and man’s are of the selfsame blood,
  And He can see that always at the door
Of foulest hearts the angel-nature yet
Knocks to return and cancel all its debt.

IV

It ever is weak falsehood’s destiny
  That her thick mask turns crystal to let through
The unsuspicious eyes of honesty;
  But Margaret’s heart was too sincere and true
Aught but plain truth and faithfulness to see,
  And Mordred’s for a time a little grew 310
To be like hers, won by the mild reproof
Of those kind eyes that kept all doubt aloof.

V

Full oft they met, as dawn and twilight meet
  In northern climes; she full of growing day
As he of darkness, which before her feet
  Shrank gradual, and faded quite away,
Soon to return; for power had made love sweet
  To him, and when his will had gained full sway,
The taste began to pall; for never power
Can sate the hungry soul beyond an hour. 320

VI

He fell as doth the tempter ever fall,
  Even in the gaining of his loathsome end;
God doth not work as man works, but makes all
  The crooked paths of ill to goodness tend;
Let Him judge Margaret!  If to be the thrall
  Of love, and faith too generous to defend
Its very life from him she loved, be sin,
What hope of grace may the seducer win?