“Enid, the pilot star of my lone life, Enid, my early and my only love, Enid, the loss of whom hath turned me wild— What chance is this? how is it I see you here? Ye are in my power at last, are in my power. Yet fear me not: I call mine own self wild, But keep a touch of sweet civility Here in the heart of waste and wilderness. I thought, but that your father came between, In former days you saw me favourably. And if it were so do not keep it back: Make me a little happier: let me know it: Owe you me nothing for a life half-lost? Yea, yea, the whole dear debt of all you are. And, Enid, you and he, I see with joy, Ye sit apart, you do not speak to him, You come with no attendance, page or maid, To serve you—doth he love you as of old? For, call it lovers’ quarrels, yet I know Though men may bicker with the things they love, They would not make them laughable in all eyes, Not while they loved them; and your wretched dress, A wretched insult on you, dumbly speaks Your story, that this man loves you no more. Your beauty is no beauty to him now: A common chance—right well I know it—palled— For I know men: nor will ye win him back, For the man’s love once gone never returns. But here is one who loves you as of old; With more exceeding passion than of old: Good, speak the word: my followers ring him round: He sits unarmed; I hold a finger up; They understand: nay; I do not mean blood: Nor need ye look so scared at what I say: My malice is no deeper than a moat, No stronger than a wall: there is the keep; He shall not cross us more; speak but the word: Or speak it not; but then by Him that made me The one true lover whom you ever owned, I will make use of all the power I have. O pardon me! the madness of that hour, When first I parted from thee, moves me yet.” At this the tender sound of his own voice And sweet self-pity, or the fancy of it, Made his eye moist; but Enid feared his eyes, Moist as they were, wine-heated from the feast; And answered with such craft as women use, Guilty or guiltless, to stave off a chance That breaks upon them perilously, and said: “Earl, if you love me as in former years, And do not practise on me, come with morn, And snatch me from him as by violence; Leave me tonight: I am weary to the death.” Low at leave-taking, with his brandished plume Brushing his instep, bowed the all-amorous Earl, And the stout Prince bad him a loud good-night. He moving homeward babbled to his men, How Enid never loved a man but him, Nor cared a broken egg-shell for her lord.