Her unbound tresses with the Sabine dart, Holding that famous rape in memory still, Felt creep into her curls the iron chill, And looked thus," Eglamor would say--indeed [Sidenote: This is answered by Eglamor himself:] 'T is Eglamor, no other, these precede Home hither in the woods. "'T were surely sweet Far from the scene of one's forlorn defeat To sleep!" judged Naddo, who in person led Jongleurs and Trouveres, chanting at their head, A scanty company; for, sooth to say, Our beaten Troubadour had seen his day. Old worshippers were something shamed, old friends Nigh weary; still the death proposed amends. "Let us but get them safely through my song And home again!" quoth Naddo. All along, This man (they rest the bier upon the sand) --This calm corpse with the loose flowers in his hand, Eglamor, lived Sordello's opposite. For him indeed was Naddo's notion right, And verse a temple-worship vague and vast, A ceremony that withdrew the last Opposing bolt, looped back the lingering veil Which hid the holy place: should one so frail Stand there without such effort? or repine If much was blank, uncertain at the shrine He knelt before, till, soothed by many a rite, The power responded, and some sound or sight Grew up, his own forever, to be fixed, In rhyme, the beautiful, forever!--mixed With his own life, unloosed when he should please, [Sidenote: One who belonged to what he loved,] Having it safe at hand, ready to ease All pain, remove all trouble; every time He loosed that fancy from its bonds of rhyme, (Like Perseus when he loosed his naked love) Faltering; so distinct and far above Himself, these fancies! He, no genius rare, Transfiguring in fire or wave or air At will, but a poor gnome that, cloistered up In some rock-chamber with his agate cup, His topaz rod, his seed-pearl, in these few And their arrangement finds enough to do For his best art. Then, how he loved that art! The calling marking him a man apart From men--one not to care, take counsel for Cold hearts, comfortless faces--(Eglamor Was neediest of his tribe)--since verse, the gift, Was his, and men, the whole of them, must shift Without it, e'en content themselves with wealth And pomp and power, snatching a life by stealth. So, Eglamor was not without his pride! [Sidenote: Loving his art and rewarded by it,] The sorriest bat which cowers throughout noontide While other birds are jocund, has one time When moon and stars are blinded, and the prime Of earth is his to claim, nor find a peer; And Eglamor was noblest poet here-- He well knew, 'mid those April woods, he cast Conceits upon in plenty as he passed, That Naddo might suppose him not to think Entirely on the coming triumph: wink