Thus while he mused he thought he heard her voice: Or was it fancy? teasing him with sounds Of music and of words: or did he hear Her lute below the creepered walls? whose leaves, Crimson with autumn, reddened all the court, Burning continual sunset, where she sat Beside the ceaseless whisper of the foam Of one faint fountain. Sweeter mockery Had never held him: and he heard her sing:--
"Ask me not now to sing to thee Songs I have loved to sing before. I love thee not; it can not be: The dream is done; the song is o'er.
"Come, hold my hands: look deep into The heartbreak of my eyes that bore Glad welcome erst and now adieu; Adieu, adieu forevermore!
"Once more shalt kiss my mouth and brow; Once more my hair,--as oft of yore When it was love and I and thou,-- Then nevermore! ah, nevermore!
"Thou must not weep; I can not weep: I love thee not; should I regret?-- Nay! go; forget my face and sleep, Sleep and forget! sleep and forget!"
"Aye! that I will! thy face, thy form, thy voice, O bird of spring! whose beak is in my heart. Take out thy beak, and sing me back my soul! O bird of spring," he said, "when flowers are dead Thy wing will winter underneath the pine, And hunger, for the summer that is gone, Will slay thy music with the memory. God give thou find no winter in thy heart Whenas dost find the frost invades thy voice! Ah, lovelier than thy song, there's that in me That harps and sings of thee; that troubadours Thy beauty! ballades, sonnets it! and makes A lyric of each heart-beat--all in vain: Thou dost not heed, thou wilt not hear it sing. Or, if thou dost, 'tis but in wantonness, Indifference pretending interest: then praise, A moiety, in mockery. And this To one who'd love thee over all belief, Above all women and beyond all men."
She strummed her lute. He listened, and then laughed, "God's life! our Dagonet might teach me sense, The folly that I am!--What? have I slept A sennight in the taking of the moon, Or danced, sleep-footed, with the forest fays?-- One would imagine.... No!... O silken Lust, O Wantonness! whose soft, voluptuous skirts Trail sweet contamination through these halls! O lawless Love, whose evil influence Haunts and parades Caerleon corridors! O Vanity and Falsehood, throned within The faithless Court, here is another soul, Fresh, fragrant, like a wild-flower of the woods, Ready and willing to be plucked and worn, And placed among those soiled and hothouse flowers, You long have worn, Isolt and Gwenhwyvar! The forest flower, innocent as yet,-- The fairest, hence the more to be desired, The quickest, too, to wither,--whose sweet name Is Angharad!... Ho! page! my horse! my mail!-- God's wounds! my horse! my arms!--I will away!"