To peasants, scatter'd through the neighbouring plains,160
The secret known;—kind hands with pious care
Supply such humble nurture as sustains
Lives most with fast familiar; thus and there
The patient sisters in their faith sublime,
Felt God was good, and waited for His time.
Yet ever when the crimes of earth and day161
Slept in the starry peace, to the lone tower
The sainted abbess won her nightly way,
And gazed on Carduel!—'Twas the wonted hour
When from the opening door the Cymrian knight
Saw the pale shadow steal along the light.
Musing, the King the safe retreat survey'd,162
And smooth'd his brow from times most anxious care;
Here—from the strife secure, might rest the maid
Not meet the tasks that morn must bring to share;
She, while he mused, the nun's mild aspect eyed,
And crept with woman's trust to woman's side.
"King," said the gentle saint, "from what far clime163
Comes this fair stranger, that her eyes alone
Answer our mountain tongue?"—"May happier time,"
Replied the King, "her tale, her land, make known!
Meanwhile, O kind recluse, receive the guest
To whom these altars seem the native rest."
The sister smiled, "In sooth those looks," she said,164
"Do speak a soul pure with celestial air;
And in the morrow's awful hour of dread
Her heart methinks will echo to our prayer,
And breathe responsive to the hymns that swell
The Christian's curse upon the infidel.
"But say, if truth from rumour vague and wild165
To this still world the friendly peasants bring,
'That grief and wrath for some lost heathen child,
Urge to yon walls the Mercian's direful king?'"—
"Nay," said the Cymrian, "doth ambition fail
When force needs falsehood, of the glozing tale?
"And—but behold she droops, she faints, outworn166
By the long wandering and the scorch of day!"
Pale as a lily when the dewless morn,
Parch'd in the fiery dog-star, wanes away
Into the glare of noon without a cloud,
O'er the nun's breast that flower of beauty bow'd.
Yet still the clasp retain'd the hand that press'd,167
And breath came still, though heaved in sobbing sighs.
"Leave her," the sister said, "to needful rest,
And to such care as woman best supplies;
And may this charge a conqueror soon recall,
And change the refuge to a monarch's hall!"
Though found the asylum sought, with boding mind168
The crowning guerdon of his mystic toil
To the kind nun the unwilling King resign'd;
Nor till his step was on his mountain soil
Did his large heart its lion calm regain,
And o'er his soul no thought but Cymri reign.
As towards the bark the friends resume their way,169
Quick they resolve the conflict's hardy scheme;
With half the Northmen, at the break of day
Shall Gawaine sail where Sabra's broadening stream
Admits a reeded creek, and, landing there,
Elude the fleet the neighbouring waters bear;