The calm sea shines, loose hang the vessel’s sails; Before us are the sweet green fields of Wales, And overhead the cloudless sky of May. “_Ah! would I were in those green fields at play, Not pent on shipboard this delicious day! Tristram, I pray thee, of thy courtesy, Reach me my golden cup that stands by thee, But pledge me in it first for courtesy._” Ha! dost thou start? are thy lips blanched like mine Child, ’tis no water this, ’tis poisoned wine! Iseult!... * * * * * Ah, sweet angels, let him dream! Keep his eyelids; let him seem Not this fever-wasted wight Thinned and paled before his time, But the brilliant youthful knight In the glory of his prime, Sitting in the gilded barge, At thy side, thou lovely charge, Bending gayly o’er thy hand, Iseult of Ireland! And she too, that princess fair, If her bloom be now less rare, Let her have her youth again, Let her be as she was then! Let her have her proud dark eyes, And her petulant quick replies; Let her sweep her dazzling hand With its gesture of command, And shake back her raven hair With the old imperious air! As of old, so let her be, That first Iseult, princess bright, Chatting with her youthful knight As he steers her o’er the sea, Quitting at her father’s will The green isle where she was bred, And her bower in Ireland, For the surge-beat Cornish strand; Where the prince whom she must wed Dwells on loud Tyntagel’s hill, High above the sounding sea. And that golden cup her mother Gave her, that her future lord, Gave her, that King Marc and she, Might drink it on their marriage-day, And forever love each other,-- Let her, as she sits on board, --Ah! sweet saints, unwittingly!-- See it shine, and take it up, And to Tristram laughing say,-- “Sir Tristram, of thy courtesy, Pledge me in my golden cup.” Let them drink it; let their hands Tremble, and their cheeks be flame, As they feel the fatal bands Of a love they dare not name, With a wild delicious pain, Twine about their hearts again! Let the early summer be Once more round them, and the sea Blue, and o’er its mirror kind Let the breath of the May-wind, Wandering through their drooping sails, Die on the green fields of Wales; Let a dream like this restore What his eye must see no more. TRISTRAM.