Who seems of marble on a tomb?

How comes it here, this chamber bright,
Through whose mullion'd windows clear

The castle court all wet with rain,

The drawbridge and the moat appear,

And then the beach, and, mark'd with spray, The sunken reefs, and far away

The unquiet bright Atlantic plain? —
What, has some glamour made me sleep,
And sent me with my dogs to sweep,

By night, with boisterous bugle peal,
Through some old, sea-side, knightly hall,
Not in the free greenwood at all?
That Knight's asleep, and at her prayer
That Lady by the bed doth kneel :

Then hush, thou boisterous bugle peal!"

The wild boar rustles in his lair

The fierce hounds snuff the tainted air

But lord and hounds keep rooted there.

Cheer, cheer thy dogs into the brake,

O Hunter! and without a fear

Thy golden-tassell'd bugle blow,

And through the glades thy pastime take! For thou wilt rouse no sleepers here. For these thou seest are unmov'd;

Cold, cold as those who liv'd and lov'd

A thousand years ago.

TRISTRAM AND ISEULT.

III.

Eseult of Brittany.

A YEAR had flown, and o'er the sea away,

In Cornwall, Tristram and queen Iseult lay;
At Tyntagil, in King Marc's chapel old:
There in a ship they bore those lovers cold.
The young surviving Iseult, one bright day,
Had wander'd forth: her children were at play
In a green circular hollow in the heath
Which borders the sea-shore; a country path
Creeps over it from the till'd fields behind.
The hollow's grassy banks are soft inclin❜d,
And to one standing on them, far and near
The lone unbroken view spreads bright and clear

Over the waste:

This cirque of open ground

Is light and green; the heather, which all round
Creeps thickly, grows not here; but the pale grass
Is strewn with rocks, and many a shiver'd mass
Of vein'd white-gleaming quartz, and here and there
Dotted with holly trees and juniper.

In the smooth centre of the opening stood
Three hollies side by side, and made a screen
Warm with the winter sun, of burnish'd green,
With scarlet berries gemm'd, the fell-fare's food.
Under the glittering hollies Iseult stands
Watching her children play: their little hands
Are busy gathering spars of quartz, and streams
Of stagshorn for their hats: anon, with screams
Of mad delight they drop their spoils, and bound
Among the holly clumps and broken ground,
Racing full speed, and startling in their rush
The fell-fares and the speckled missel-thrush
Out of their glossy coverts: but when now
Their cheeks were flush'd, and over each hot brow

Under the feather'd hats of the sweet pair
In blinding masses shower'd the golden hair
Then Iseult called them to her, and the three
Cluster'd under the holly screen, and she
Told them an old-world Breton history.

Warm in their mantles wrapt, the three stood there, Under the hollies, in the clear still air

Mantles with those rich furs deep glistering

Which Venice ships do from swart Egypt bring.

Long they staid still then, pacing at their ease, and down under the glossy trees;

Mov'd up

But still as they pursued their warm dry road
From Iseult's lips the unbroken story flow'd,
And still the children listen'd, their blue eyes
Fix'd on their mother's face in wide surprise;
Nor did their looks stray once to the sea-side,
Nor to the brown heaths round them, bright and wide,

Nor to the snow which, though 'twas all away

From the open heath, still by the hedgerows lay,