Beside the placid breathings of the

King,

In the dead night, grim faces came and went

Before her, or a vague spiritual fearLike to some doubtful noise of creaking doors,

Heard by the watcher in a haunted house,

That keeps the rust of murder on the walls

Held her awake: or if she slept, she dream'd

An awful dream; for then she seem'd to stand

On some vast plain before a setting sun,

And from the sun there swiftly made at her

A ghastly something, and its shadow flew

Before it, till it touch'd her, and she turn'd

When lo! her own, that broadening from her feet,

And blackening, swallow'd all the land, and in it

Far cities burnt, and with a cry sho woke.

And all this trouble did not pass but

"O Lancelot, get thee hence to thine own land,

For if thou tarry we shall meet again, And if we meet again, some evil chance

Will make the smouldering scandal break and blaze

Before the people, and our lord the King.'

And Lancelot ever promised, but remain'd,

And still they met and met. Again she said,

"O Lancelot, if thou love me get thee hence."

And then they were agreed upon a night

(When the good King should not be there) to meet

And part for ever. Passion-pale they met

And greeted: hands in hands, and eye

to eye,

Low on the border of her couch they

sat

Stammering and staring: it was their last hour.

A madness of farewells. And Modred

brought

His creatures to the basement of the tower

For testimony; and crying with full voice

Leapt on him, and hurl'd him headlong, and he fell

Stunn'd, and his creatures took and bare him off

And all was still then she," the end is come

And I am shamed for ever;" and he said

"Mine be the shame; mine was the sin but rise,

And fly to my strong castle overseas : There will I hide thee, till my life shall end,

There hold thee with my life against the world."

She answer'd "Lancelot, wilt thou hold me so ?

Nay friend, for we have taken our farewells.

Would God, that thou couldst hide me from myself!

Mine is the shame, for I was wife, and thou

Unwedded; yet rise now, and let us fly,

For I will draw me into sanctuary,

And bide my doom." So Lancelot got her horse,

Set her thereon, and mounted on his own,

And then they rode to the divided way, There kiss'd, and parted weeping: for he past,

Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen,

Back to his land; but she to Almes

bury

Fled all night long by glimmering waste and weald,

And heard the Spirits of the waste and

Her name, to whom ye yield it, till her time

To tell you" and her beauty, grace and power

Wrought as a charm upon them, and they spared

To ask it.

but now,

This night, a rumor wildly blown about Came, that Sir Modred had usurped the realm,

And leagued him with the heathen, while the King

Was waging war on Lancelot : then she thought,

"With what a hate the people and the King

Must hate me," and bow'd down upon her hands

Silent, until the little maid, who brook'd

No silence, brake it, uttering "late! so late!

What hour, I wonder, now ?" and when she drew

No answer, by and by began to hum An air the nuns had taught her; "late, so late!"

Which when she heard, the Queen look'd up, and said,

"O maiden, if indeed ye list to sing, Sing, and unbind my heart that I may weep."

Whereat full willingly sang the little maid.

If this false traitor have displaced his lord,

Grieve with the common grief of all the realm?"

"Yea," said the maid, "this is all

woman's grief,

That she is woman, whose disloyal life Hath wrought confusion in the Tablo Round

Which good King Arthur founded, years ago,

With signs and miracles and wonders, there

At Camelot, ere the coming of the Queen."

Then thought the Queen within herself again;

"Will the child kill me with her foolish prate?"

But openly she spake and said to her; "O little maid, shut in by nunnery walls,

What canst thou know of Kings and Tables Round,

Or what of signs and wonders, but the signs

And simple miracles of thy nunnery?”

To whom the little novice garrulously.

"Yea, but I know: the land was full of signs

And wonders ere the coming of the Queen.

So said my father, and himself was knight

Of the great Table - at the founding of it;

And rode thereto from Lyonnesse, and he said

That as he rode, an hour or maybe twain

After the sunset, down the coast, he heard

Strange music, and he paused and turning-there,

All down the lonely coast of Lyonnesse,

Each with a beacon-star upon his head, And with a wild sea-light about his