One whole day longer must our hero rest Within doors, to fulfill the merry jest. So when, next morning, Gawayne once more heard The hunt's-up in the court, he never stirred, But let the merry horsemen ride away While he slept soundly well into the day. Later he rose, and strolled from room to room, Through vaulted twilights of ancestral gloom, Until, descending a long stair, he found The dim-lit castle crypt, deep under ground, Where sculptured effigies forever kept Their long last marble silence as they slept, And iron sentinels, on bended knees, Held eyeless vigil in old panoplies. Sir Gawayne, wandering on in aimless mood, Pondered the tomb-stone legends, quaint and rude, Wherein the pensive dreamer might divine A tragic history in every line; For so does fate, with bitterest irony, Epitomize fame's immortality, Perpetuating for all after days Mute lamentations and unnoted praise. And Gawayne, reading here and there the story Of fame obscure and unremembered glory, Found on a tablet these words: "Where he lies, The gray wave breaks and the wild sea-mew flies: If any be that loved him, seek not here, But in the lone hills by the Murmuring Mere." A nameless cenotaph!--perhaps of one Like Gawayne's self deluded and undone By the green stranger; and the legend brought A tide of passion flooding Gawayne's thought; A flood-tide, not of fear,--for Gawayne's breast Shrank never at the perilous behest Of noble knighthood,--but the love of life, Compassion, and soul-sickness of the strife. "If any be that loved him!" Oh, to die Far from green-swarded Camelot, and lie Among these bleak and barren hills alone, His end unwept for and his grave unknown,-- Never again to see the glad sunrise That brightened all his world in those dear eyes! Half suffocating in the charneled air Of that low vault, he staggered up the stair, Out of the dim-lit halls of silent death Into the living light, and drew quick breath Where, through a casement-arch of ivied stone, Bright from the clear blue sky the warm sun shone. The whole of life's glad rapture thrilled his heart; Till a quick step behind him made him start, And there, deep-veiled, in muffling cloak and hood, Once more the lady of the castle stood.