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Thus her heart rejoices greatly,
Till a gateway she discerns
With armorial bearings stately,

And beneath the gate she turns;
Sees a mansion more majestic

Than all those she saw before;
Many a gallant gay domestic
Bows before him at the door.
And they speak in gentle murmur,
When they answer to his call,
While he treads with footsteps firmer,
Leading on from hall to hall.
And, while now she wonders blindly,
Nor the meaning can divine,
Proudly turns he round and kindly,
"All of this is mine and thine."
Here he lives in state and bounty,
Lord of Burleigh, fair and free,

Not a lord in all the county
Is so great a lord as he.

All at once the color flushes

Her sweet face from brow to chin: As it were with shame she blushes, And her spirit changed within.

Then her countenance all over

Pale again as death did prove: But he clasped her like a lover,

And he cheered her soul with love.

So she strove against her weakness, Though at times her spirit sank: Shaped her heart with woman's meekness To all duties of her rank:

And a gentle consort made he,

And her gentle mind was such That she grew a noble lady,

And the people loved her much. But a trouble weighed upon her,

And perplexed her, night and morn,

With the burthen of an honor

Unto which she was not born.

Faint she grew, and ever fainter,
As she murmured, "O, that he
Were once more that landscape-painter,
Which did win my heart from me!
So she drooped and drooped before him,
Fading slowly from his side:

Three fair children first she bore him,
Then before her time she died.

Weeping, weeping late and early,
Walking up and pacing down,

Deeply mourned the Lord of Burleigh,
Burleigh-house by Stamford town.

And he came to look upon her,

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And he looked at her and said,

Bring the dress, and put it on her,

That she wore when she was wed." Then her people, softly treading, Bore to earth her body, drest In the dress that she was wed in,

That her spirit might have rest.

SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE.

A FRAGMENT.

LIKE souls that balance joy and pain,
With tears and smiles from heaven again
The maiden Spring upon the plain

Came in a sun-lit fall of rain.

In crystal vapor everywhere

Blue isles of heaven laughed between,

And, far in forest-deeps unseen,

The topmost linden gathered green
From draughts of balmy air.

Sometimes the linnet piped his song:
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong:
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheeled along,
Hushed all the groves from fear of wrong:
By grassy capes with fuller sound

SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE.

127

In curves the yellowing river ran,
And drooping chestnut-buds began
To spread into the perfect fan,
Above the teeming ground.

Then, in the boyhood of the year,
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
Rode through the coverts of the deer,
With blissful treble ringing clear.

She seemed a part of joyous Spring:
A gown of grass-green silk she wore,

Buckled with golden clasps before;
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore
Closed in a golden ring.

Now on some twisted ivy-net,
Now by some tinkling rivulet,

On mosses thick with violet,

Her cream-white mule his pastern set:

And now more fleet she skimmed the plains

Than she whose elfin prancer springs

By night to eery warblings,

When all the glimmering moorland rings

With jingling bridle-reins.

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