And down they ran,

Her damsels, crying to their lady, 'Lo!
Pelleas is dead-he told us he that hath
His horse and armour : will ye let him in?
He slew him! Gawain, Gawain of the court,
Sir Gawain-there he waits below the wall,
Blowing his bugle as who should say him nay.'

And so, leave given, straight on thro' open door Rode Gawain, whom she greeted courteously. 'Dead, is it so?' she ask'd. 'Ay, ay,' said he, 'And oft in dying cried upon your name.' 'Pity on him,' she answer'd, 'a good knight; But never let me bide one hour at peace.' 'Ay,' thought Gawain, and you be fair enow: But I to your dead man have given my troth, 'That whom ye loathe, him will I make you love.'

So those three days, aimless about the land, Lost in a doubt, Pelleas wandering Waited, until the third night brought a moon With promise of large light on woods and ways.

Hot was the night and silent; but a sound Of Gawain ever coming, and this layWhich Pelleas had heard sung before the Queen, And seen her sadden listening-vext his heart, And marr'd his rest-'A worm within the rose.'

'A rose, but one, none other rose had I, A rose, one rose, and this was wondrous fair, One rose, a rose that gladden'd earth and sky, One rose, my rose, that sweeten'd all mine airI cared not for the thorns; the thorns were there.

'One rose, a rose to gather by and by,
One rose, one rose, to gather and to wear,
No rose but one-what other rose had I?
One rose, my rose; a rose that will not die,—
He dies who loves it,-if the worm be there.'

This tender rhyme, and evermore the doubt, 'Why lingers Gawain with his golden news?' So shook him that he could not rest, but rode Ere midnight to her walls, and bound his horse Hard by the gates. Wide open were the gates, And no watch kept; and in thro' these he past, And heard but his own steps, and his own heart Beating, for nothing moved but his own self, And his own shadow. Then he crost the court, And spied not any light in hall or bower, But saw the postern portal also wide Yawning; and up a slope of garden, all Of roses white and red, and brambles mixt And overgrowing them, went on, and found, Here too, all hush'd below the mellow moon, Save that one rivulet from a tiny cave

Came lightening downward, and so spilt itself
Among the roses, and was lost again.

Then was he ware of three pavilions rear'd
Above the bushes, gilden-peakt: in one,
Red after revel, droned her lurdane knights
Slumbering, and their three squires across their feet :
In one, their malice on the placid lip

Froz'n by sweet sleep, four of her damsels lay:
And in the third, the circlet of the jousts

Bound on her brow, were Gawain and Ettarre.

Back, as a hand that pushes thro' the leaf
To find a nest and feels a snake, he drew :
Back, as a coward slinks from what he fears
To cope with, or a traitor proven, or hound
Beaten, did Pelleas in an utter shame

Creep with his shadow thro' the court again,
Fingering at his sword-handle until he stood
There on the castle-bridge once more, and thought,
'I will go back, and slay them where they lie.'

And so went back, and seeing them yet in sleep

Said, 'Ye, that so dishallow the holy sleep,

Your sleep is death,' and drew the sword, and thought,

'What! slay a sleeping knight? the King hath bound And sworn me to this brotherhood;' again,

'Alas that ever a knight should be so false.'
Then turn'd, and so return'd, and groaning laid
The naked sword athwart their naked throats,
There left it, and them sleeping; and she lay,
The circlet of the tourney round her brows,
And the sword of the tourney across her throat.

And forth he past, and mounting on his horse Stared at her towers that, larger than themselves In their own darkness, throng'd into the moon. Then crush'd the saddle with his thighs, and clench'd His hands, and madden'd with himself and moan'd:

'Would they have risen against me in their blood At the last day? I might have answer'd them Even before high God. O towers so strong, Huge, solid, would that even while I gaze The crack of earthquake shivering to your base Split you, and Hell burst up your harlot roofs Bellowing, and charr'd you thro' and thro' within, Black as the harlot's heart-hollow as a skull ! Let the fierce east scream thro' your eyelet-holes, And whirl the dust of harlots round and round In dung and nettles! hiss, snake—I saw him there— Let the fox bark, let the wolf yell. Who yells Here in the still sweet summer night, but I— I, the poor Pelleas whom she call'd her fool? Fool, beast-he, she, or I? myself most fool;

Beast too, as lacking human wit—disgraced,
Dishonour'd all for trial of true love—

Love?—we be all alike: only the King
Hath made us fools and liars. O noble vows!
O great and sane and simple race of brutes
That own no lust because they have no law !
For why should I have loved her to my shame ?
I loathe her, as I loved her to my shame.

I never loved her, I but lusted for her-
Away-'

He dash'd the rowel into his horse, And bounded forth and vanish'd thro' the night.

Then she, that felt the cold touch on her throat, Awaking knew the sword, and turn'd herself

To Gawain: Liar, for thou hast not slain
This Pelleas! here he stood, and might have slain
Me and thyself.' And he that tells the tale
Says that her ever-veering fancy turn'd
To Pelleas, as the one true knight on earth,
And only lover; and thro' her love her life
Wasted and pined, desiring him in vain.

But he by wild and way, for half the night,
And over hard and soft, striking the sod
From out the soft, the spark from off the hard,
Rode till the star above the wakening sun,