In Lancelot. Now I see thee what thou art—
Thou art the highest, and most human, too,
Not Lancelot, nor another.”
Could she but have seen him as he really was in the golden days long ago, when her court formed the centre of all that was bravest and fairest in the world of Christendom, when her life seemed one long holiday of dance and revel in the lighted halls of Camelot, of tilt and tournament and pageantry of mimic war, held in honour of her own peerless beauty, in the Lists of Caerleon, of horn and hound and rushing chase and willing palfrey speeding over the scented moors of Cornwall, or through the sunny glades of Lyonesse, of sweet May mornings when she went forth fresh and lovely, fairer than the very smile of spring, amongst her courtiers, all
“Green-suited, but with plumes that mocked the may,”
to walk apart, nevertheless, with flushing cheek and eyes cast down, while she listened to his whispers, whose voice was softer and sweeter than fairy music in her ears! Could she but have known then where to seek her happiness and find it! Alas! that we see things so differently in different lights and surroundings—in serge and velvet, in the lustre of revelry and the pale cold grey of dawn, in black December frosts and the rich glow of June. Alas for us, that so seldom, till too late to take our bearings and avoid impending shipwreck, can we make use of that fearful gift described by another great poet as
“The telescope of truth,
Which strips the distance of its fantasies,
And brings life near, in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!”