So pale, so tranquil:—­she had thrown,
    For the warm evening’s sultriness,
  The broidered coverlet aside
  And nothing was there to deck or hide
    The glory of her loveliness,
  But a scarf of gauze, so light and thin
  You might see beneath the dazzling skin,
  And watch the purple streamlets go
  Through the valleys of white and stainless snow,
  Or here and there a wayward tress
  Which wandered out with vast assurance
  From the pearls that kept the rest in durance,
  And fluttered about, as if ’twould try
  To lure a zephyr from the sky. 
  “Bertha!”—­large drops of anguish came
  On Rudolph’s brow, as he breathed that name,—­
  “Oh fair and false one, wake, and fear;
  I, the betrayed, the scorned, am here.” 
  The eye moved not from its dull eclipse,
  The voice came not from the fast-shut lips;
  No matter! well that gazer knew
  The tone of bliss, and the eyes of blue. 
    Sir Rudolph hid his burning face
  With both his hands for a minute’s space,
  And all his frame in awful fashion
  Was shaken by some sudden passion. 
  What guilty fancies o’er him ran?—­
    Oh, pity will be slow to guess them;
  And never, save the holy man,
    Did good Sir Rudolph e’er confess them
  But soon his spirit you might deem
  Came forth from the shade, of the fearful dream;
  His cheek, though pale, was calm again. 
  And he spoke in peace, though he spoke in pain
    “Not mine! not mine! now, Mary mother. 
  Aid me the sinful hope to smother! 
  Not mine, not mine!—­I have loved thee long
  Thou hast quitted me with grief and wrong. 
  But pure the heart of a knight should be,—­
  Sleep on, sleep on, thou art safe for me. 
  Yet shalt thou know, by a certain sign,
  Whose lips have been so near to thine,
  Whose eyes have looked upon thy sleep,
  And turned away, and longed to weep,
  Whole heart,—­mourn,—­madden as it will,—­
  Has spared thee, and adored thee, still!”
    His purple mantle, rich and wide,
  From his neck the trembling youth untied,
  And flung it o’er those dangerous charms,
  The swelling neck, and the rounded arms. 
  Once more he looked, once more he sighed;
  And away, away, from the perilous tent,
    Swift as the rush of an eagle’s wing,
    Or the flight of a shaft from Tartar string,
  Into the wood Sir Rudolph went: 
  Not with more joy the school-boys run
  To the gay green fields, when their task is done;
  Not with more haste the members fly,
  When Hume has caught the Speaker’s eye. 
    At last the daylight came; and then
  A score or two of serving men,
  Supposing that some sad disaster
  Had happened to their lord and master,
  Went out into the wood, and found him,
  Unhorsed, and with no mantle round him. 
  Ere he could tell his tale romantic,
  The leech pronounced him clearly frantic,