She comes to meet me! Earth and air Grow radiant with another light. In her dark eyes and her dark hair Are all the stars and all the night. She comes! I clasp her! and it is As if no grief had ever been. The world takes fire from our kiss.-- There are no other women or men But Oriana and Amadis!
It is Sir Elid of the Sword, Of whom his wife, Helis, hath heard For three long years no wished-for word.
His armor dofft, he comes in fur And velvet, all the warrior, And takes her hand and kisses her.
"Thrice have I seen the summer die; And thrice the autumn, fading, lie: And heard the weary winter sigh,
"Since last, my lord, my own true heart, From me, thy wife, with love, didst part, And rode to war with Lisuarte:"--
So said Helis with many tears:-- "Still welcome, Elid! though long years Of silence, what with doubts and fears,
"Have made me deem that thou wast dead.-- Why dost thou stare so overhead?-- What is it that thy soul doth dread?"
He said to her: "My own, my best, To thee alone ... _Witch! wilt thou wrest This hour from me?_ ... shall be confessed The thing that will not let me rest.
"It was at Hallowmas I spurred Through woods wherein no wild thing stirred, No sound of brook, no song of bird.
"When softly down a tangled way A dim fair woman, white as day, Rode on a palfrey misty gray.
"Upon her brow a circlet burned Of jewels, and the fire, inurned Within them, changed, and turned and turned.
"I stared like one, who, wild and pale, Spurs, hag-led, through the night and hail: When, lo! adown a forest vale An angel with the Holy Grail.
"It vanishes; but, once beheld, The longing heart is never quelled, Its loveliness hath so enspelled.--
"She vanished. And I rode alone, Save for a voice that did intone, 'Urganda is she, the Unknown.
"'And never shalt thou clasp the form Of her who leads thee by a charm To follow her through sun and storm.'
"I can not stay for weal or woe. E'en now her magic bids me go, Soft-summoning through wind and snow."
Helis with some old song beguiles His hollow face until it smiles; And with her lute shapes sweeter wiles:
Till kingly figures, woven in The shadowy arras, seem to win Strange, ghostly life, and slay and sin.
Until her deep hair's golden glow Sweeps his dark curls as, praying low, She kneels, a marble-sculptured woe.