"That night he slept not—with the morn was gone;51
And the dove led him where the snow-storms sleep."
Then Lancelot rose, and led his destrier on,
And gain'd the boat, and motion'd to the deep,
His purpose well the Alemen divine,
And launch once more the bark upon the brine.
And ask to aid—"Know, friends," replied the knight,52
"Each wave that rolleth smooths its frown for me;
My sire and mother, by the lawless might
Of a fierce foe expell'd and forced to flee
From the fair halls of Benoic, paused to take
Breath for new woes, beside a Fairy's lake.
"With them was I, their new-born helpless heir,53
The hunted exiles gazed afar on home,
And saw the fires that dyed like blood the air
Pall with the pomp of hell the crashing dome.
They clung, they gazed—no word by either spoken;
And in that hush the sterner heart was broken.
"The woman felt the cold hand fail her own;54
The head that lean'd fell heavy on the sod;
She knelt—she kiss'd the lips,—the breath was flown!
She call'd upon a soul that was with God:
For the first time the wife's sweet power was o'er—
She who had soothed till then could soothe no more!
"In the wife's woe, the mother was forgot.55
At last—(for I was all earth held of him
Who had been all to her, and now was not)—
She rose, and look'd with tearless eyes, but dim,
In the babe's face the father still to see;
And lo! the babe was on another's knee!—
"Another's lip had kiss'd it into sleep,56
And o'er the sleep another, watchful, smiled;—
The Fairy sate beside the lake's still deep,
And hush'd with chanted charms the orphan child!
Scared at the cry the startled mother gave,
It sprang, and, snow-like, melted in the wave.
"There, in calm halls of lucent crystalline,57
Fed by the dews that fell from golden stars,
But through the lymph I saw the sunbeams shine,
Nor dream'd a world beyond the glist'ning spars;
Buoy'd by a charm that still endows and saves,
In stream or sea, the nurseling of the waves.
"In my fifth year, to Uther's royal towers58
The fairy bore me, and her charge resign'd.
My mother took the veil of Christ—the Hours
With Arthur's life the orphan's life entwined.
O'er mine own element my course I take—
All oceans smile on Lancelot of the Lake!"
He said, and waved his hand: around the boat59
The curlews hover'd, as it shot to sea.
The wild men, lingering, watch'd the lessening float,
Till in the far expanse lost desolately,
Then slowly towards the hut they bent their way,
And the lone waves moan'd up the lifeless bay.
Pass we the voyage. Hunger-worn, to shore60
Gain'd man and steed; there food and rest they found
In humble roofs. The course, resumed once more,
Stretch'd inland o'er not unfamiliar ground:
The wanderer smiles, by tower and town, to see
Cymri's old oak rebloom in Brettanie.