Could I always tell you by your long strong arms, And sway like an angel's in your saddle there? Why sicken'd I so often with alarms Over the tilt-yard? Why were you more fair Than aspens in the autumn at their best? Why did you fill all lands with your great fame, So that Breuse even, as he rode, fear'd lest At turning of the way your shield should flame? Was it nought then, my agony and strife? When as day passed by day, year after year, I found I could not live a righteous life! Didst ever think queens held their truth for dear? O, but your lips say: Yea, but she was cold Sometimes, always uncertain as the spring; When I was sad she would be overbold, Longing for kisses. When war-bells did ring, The back-toll'd bells of noisy Camelot. 'Now, Lord God, listen! listen, Guenevere, Though I am weak just now, I think there's not A man who dares to say: You hated her, And left her moaning while you fought your fill In the daisied meadows! lo you her thin hand, That on the carven stone can not keep still, Because she loves me against God's command, Has often been quite wet with tear on tear, Tears Launcelot keeps somewhere, surely not In his own heart, perhaps in Heaven, where He will not be these ages.' 'Launcelot! Loud lips, wrung heart! I say when the bells rang, The noisy back-toll'd bells of Camelot, There were two spots on earth, the thrushes sang In the lonely gardens where my love was not, Where I was almost weeping; I dared not Weep quite in those days, lest one maid should say, In tittering whispers: Where is Launcelot To wipe with some kerchief those tears away? Another answer sharply with brows knit, And warning hand up, scarcely lower though: You speak too loud, see you, she heareth it, This tigress fair has claws, as I well know, As Launcelot knows too, the poor knight! well-a-day! Why met he not with Iseult from the West, Or better still, Iseult of Brittany? Perchance indeed quite ladyless were best. Alas, my maids, you loved not overmuch Queen Guenevere, uncertain as sunshine In March; forgive me! for my sin being such, About my whole life, all my deeds did twine, Made me quite wicked; as I found out then, I think; in the lonely palace where each morn We went, my maids and I, to say prayers when They sang mass in the chapel on the lawn. And every morn I scarce could pray at all, For Launcelot's red-golden hair would play, Instead of sunlight, on the painted wall, Mingled with dreams of what the priest did say; Grim curses out of Peter and of Paul; Judging of strange sins in Leviticus; Another sort of writing on the wall, Scored deep across the painted heads of us.