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PDFUpon the brow-top grew a thorn, and here 205
The grass was dry and moss’d, and you saw clear
Across the hollow; white anemones
Starr’d the cool turf, and clumps of primroses
Ran out from the dark underwood behind.
No fairer resting-place a man could find. 210
“Here let us halt,” said Merlin then; and she
Nodded, and tied her palfrey to a tree.
They sate them down together, and a sleep
Fell upon Merlin, more like death, so deep.
Her finger on her lips, then Vivian rose
215
And from her brown-lock’d head the wimple throws,
And takes it in her hand, and waves it over
The blossom’d thorn-tree and her sleeping lover.
Nine times she waved the fluttering wimple deg. round,
deg.219
And made a little plot of magic ground.
220
And in that daised circle, as men say,
Is Merlin prisoner deg. till the judgment-day;
deg.222
But she herself whither she will can rove—
For she was passing weary of his love. deg.
deg.224
LYRICAL POEMS
THE CHURCH OF BROU deg.
I
THE CASTLE
Down the Savoy deg. valleys sounding,
deg.1
Echoing round this castle old,
’Mid the distant mountain-chalets deg.
deg.3
Hark! what bell for church is toll’d?
In the bright October morning
5
Savoy’s Duke had left his bride.
From the castle, past the drawbridge,
Flow’d the hunters’ merry
tide.
Steeds are neighing, gallants glittering;
Gay, her smiling lord to greet,
10
From her mullion’d chamber-casement
Smiles the Duchess Marguerite.
From Vienna, by the Danube,
Here she came, a bride, in spring.
Now the autumn crisps the forest;
15
Hunters gather, bugles ring.
Hounds are pulling, prickers deg. swearing,
deg.17
Horses fret, and boar-spears glance.
Off!—They sweep the marshy forests.
Westward, on the side of France.
20
Hark! the game’s on foot; they scatter!—
Down the forest-ridings lone,
Furious, single horsemen gallop——
Hark! a shout—a crash—a
groan!
Pale and breathless, came the hunters;
25
On the turf dead lies the boar—
God! the Duke lies stretch’d beside him,
Senseless, weltering in his gore.
* * * * *
In the dull October evening,
Down the leaf-strewn forest-road,
30
To the castle, past the drawbridge,
Came the hunters with their load.
