“Hath any loved you well, down there,
    Summer or winter through? 
  Down there, have you found any fair
    Laid in the grave with you? 
  Is death’s long kiss a richer kiss
    Than mine was wont to be—­
  Or have you gone to some far bliss
    And quite forgotten me?”

Of similar inspiration, but more pictorially and externally Gothic, are such tales as “The Building of the Dream” and “Sir Floris” in Payne’s volume, “The Masque of Shadows.”  The former of these, introduced by a quotation from Jehan du Mestre, is the history of a certain squire of Poitou, who devotes himself to necromancy and discovers a spell in an old Greek manuscript, whereby, having shod his horse with gold and ridden seven days into the west, he comes to the enchanted land of Dame Venus and dwells with her a season.  But the bliss is insupportable by a mortal, and he returns to his home and dies.  The poem has analogies with “The Earthly Paradise” and the Tannhaeuser legend.  The ancient city of Poitou, where the action begins, is elaborately described, with its “lazy grace of old romance”;

    “Fair was the place and old
  Beyond the memory of man, with roofs
    Tall-peak’d and hung with woofs
  Of dainty stone-work, jewell’d with the grace
    Of casements, in the face
  Of the white gables inlaid, in all hues
    Of lovely reds and blues. 
  At every corner of the winding ways
    A carven saint did gaze,
  With mild sweet eyes, upon the quiet town,
    From niche and shrine of brown;
  And many an angel, graven for a charm
    To save the folk from harm
  Of evil sprites, stood sentinel above
    High pinnacle and roof.”

“Sir Floris” is an allegorical romaunt founded on a passage in “Le Violier des Histoires Provenciaux.”  The dedication, to the author of “Lohengrin,” praises Wolfram von Eschenbach, the poet of “Parzival,” as “the sweetest of all bards.”  Sir Floris, obeying a voice heard in sleep, followed a white dove to an enchanted garden, where he slew seven monsters, symbolic of the seven deadly sins; from whose blood sprang up the lily of chastity, the rose of love, the violet of humility, the clematis of content, the marigold of largesse, the mystic marguerite, and the holy vervain “that purgeth earth’s desire.”  Sir Galahad then carries him in a magic boat to the Orient city of Sarras, where the Grail is enshrined and guarded by a company of virgin knights, Percival, Lohengrin, Titurel, and Bors.  Sir Floris sees the sacred chalice—­a single emerald—­lays his nosegay upon the altar, witnesses the mystery of the eucharist, and is kissed upon the mouth by Christ.  This poet is fond of introducing old French words “to make his English sweet upon his tongue”; accueillade, valiantise, faineant, allegresse, gentilesse, forte et dure, and occasionally a phrase like dieu vous doint felicite.  Payne’s ballads are