The hero also meets the shock, at least in poetic grace:—
"Upon my spirits
Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy,
Which I shook off, for I was young, and one
To whom the shadow of all mischance but came
As night to him that sitting on a hill
Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun,
Set into sunrise."
It is agreed to decide the contest by a combat of fifty on each side—the one led by the prince, and the other by Arac, the brother of the princess. And clad in "harness"—
"Issued in the sun that now
Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth,
And hit the northern hills."
To the fight—
"Then rode we with the old king across the lawns
Beneath huge trees, a thousand rings of Spring
In every bole, a song on every spray
Of birds that piped their Valentines."
The prince and his companions are defeated; and he, wounded almost to the death, is consigned at her own request to be nursed by the princess:—
"So was their sanctuary violated,
So their fair college turn'd to hospital;
At first with all confusion; by and by
Sweet order lived again with other laws;
A kindlier influence reign'd; and everywhere
Low voices with the ministering hand
Hung round the sick."
The result may be foreseen—
"From all a closer interest flourish'd up.
Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these,
Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears
By some cold morning glacier; frail at first
And feeble, all unconscious of itself,
But such as gather'd colour day by day."