*~ Launcelot and Guinevere~*
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 vapour everywhere
Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between,
And far, in forest-deeps unseen,
The topmost elm-tree gather'd green
From draughts of balmy air.
Sometimes the linnet piped his song:
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong:
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along,
Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong:
By grassy capes with fuller sound
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 thro' the coverts of the deer,
With blissful treble ringing clear.
She seem'd 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,
In mosses mixt with violet
Her cream-white mule his pastern set:
And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains
Than she whose elfin prancer springs
By night to eery warblings,
When all the glimmering moorland rings
With jingling bridle-reins.
As she fled fast thro' sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her play'd,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid:
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd
The rein with dainty finger-tips,
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.
*~ Queen Guinevere To Her Launcelot ~*
The night is here,and thou art with me still,
Loved one,although beyond the reach of hands
Eager to clasp thee,and I long to fill
Again this soul more dry than desert sands.
Now thou art gone,with the deep-flowing stream
Of thy most gracious presence.Soon it will
Return all life-like in the land of dreams.
How shall our struggling hearts
So many years as perchance be thine and mine,sweet love
Out-face this ceaseless storm of hopes and fears,
For aye within us,round,below,above?
Oh,ask me not;for whether joy or tears
Remain with us,we must bear silently
Dearest,and with a love that cannot die.
How do the angels reason of our love?
And those blest spirits that are gone before
Who,now rejoicing in their place above,
Walked with us on this melancholy shore
Of life,years,years ago;will they forgive
In us such earth-born folly?Or once more
Could we with such as they are choose to live?
Ah,weary hearts,encrusted o'er with dross
Caught up from this vile world!Can we be sure,
When of this lower life we suffer loss,
They will beat freely in air so pure,
Fit for the souls who enter into light?
Such dross is in the grain;it must endure
Our own,unchanging still,in death's despite.
But come what will,to the last agony,
My choice is made;I cannot yield thee up.
Dross or pure gold,I give it all to thee.
The pearls of my life shall in thy cup
Be thrown and melted;they are nought to me
Save as they make some bubbling sparkle rise,
To see itself one instant in thine eyes.
ancelot's
and 
uenevere's
