Then I can go where I list, and weep, For good St. John my child will keep.” “Thy beauty filleth the very air, Never saw I a woman so fair.” “Come, if thou darest, and sit by my side; But do not touch me, or woe will betide. Alas, I am weak: I might well know This gladness betokens some further woe. Yet come. It will come. I will bear it. I can. For thou lovest me yet—though but as a man.” The knight dismounted in earnest speed; Away through the tombstones thundered the steed, And fell by the outer wall, and died. But the knight he kneeled by the lady’s side; Kneeled beside her in wondrous bliss, Rapt in an everlasting kiss: Though never his lips come the lady nigh, And his eyes alone on her beauty lie. All the night long, till the cock crew loud, He kneeled by the lady, lapt in her shroud. And what they said, I may not say: Dead night was sweeter than living day. How she made him so blissful glad Who made her and found her so ghostly sad, I may not tell; but it needs no touch To make them blessed who love so much. “Come every night, my ghost, to me; And one night I will come to thee. ‘Tis good to have a ghostly wife: She will not tremble at clang of strife; She will only hearken, amid the din, Behind the door, if he cometh in.” And this is how Sir Aglovaile Often walked in the moonlight pale. And oft when the crescent but thinned the gloom, Full orbed moonlight filled his room; And through beneath his chamber door, Fell a ghostly gleam on the outer floor; And they that passed, in fear averred That murmured words they often heard. ‘Twas then that the eastern crescent shone Through the chancel window, and good St. John Played with the ghost-child all the night, And the mother was free till the morning light, And sped through the dawning night, to stay With Aglovaile till the break of day. And their love was a rapture, lone and high, And dumb as the moon in the topmost sky. One night Sir Aglovaile, weary, slept And dreamed a dream wherein he wept. A warrior he was, not often wept he, But this night he wept full bitterly. He woke—beside him the ghost-girl shone Out of the dark: ‘twas the eve of St. John. He had dreamed a dream of a still, dark wood, Where the maiden of old beside him stood; But a mist came down, and caught her away, And he sought her in vain through the pathless day, Till he wept with the grief that can do no more, And thought he had dreamt the dream before. From bursting heart the weeping flowed on; And lo! beside him the ghost-girl shone; Shone like the light on a harbour’s breast, Over the sea of his dream’s unrest; Shone like the wondrous, nameless boon, That the heart seeks ever, night or noon: Warnings forgotten, when needed most, He clasped to his bosom the radiant ghost. She wailed aloud, and faded, and sank. With upturn’d white face, cold and blank, In his arms lay the corpse of the maiden pale, And she came no more to Sir Aglovaile.