and
he sat alone
With raiment half blood-red, half white as snow.
and
Also her hands have lost that way
Of clinging that they used to have;
They look'd quite easy, as they lay
Upon the silken cushions brave
With broidery of apples green.
And again,
The blue owls on my father's hood
Were a little dimm'd as I turn'd away,
and whole passages in such poems as The Wind, and even poems in their entirety such as The Gilliflower of Gold depend as much upon their colour as if actually done with a brush; and they depend safely, whilst the use of one art by another can scarcely be more triumphantly vindicated than by the lines in A Good Knight in Prison, where Sir Guy says:—
For these vile beasts that hem me in
These Pagan beasts who live in sin
* * * * *
Why, all these things I hold them just
Like dragons in a missal-book,
Wherein, whenever we may look,
We see no horror, yea delight,
We have, the colours are so bright.
There are moments, however, in this volume when the poet's power of visualizing, as with the eyes of the painter, lead him into a weakness from which his later work is entirely free. When Guenevere says:—
This is true, the kiss
Wherewith we kissed in meeting that spring day
I scarce dare talk of the remember'd bliss,