And he look’d at her and said, “Bring the dress and put it on her, That she wore when she was wed”. Then her people, softly treading, Bore to earth her body, drest In the dress that she was wed in, That her spirit might have rest. Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere a fragment First published in 1842. Not altered since 1853. See for what may have given the hint for this fragment _Morte D’Arthur_, bk. xix., ch. i., and bk. xx., ch. i., and _cf. Coming of Arthur_:— And Launcelot pass’d away among the flowers, For then was latter April, and return’d Among the flowers in May with Guinevere. Like souls that balance joy and pain, With tears and smiles from heaven again The maiden Spring upon the plain Came in a sun-lit fall of rain. In crystal vapour everywhere Blue isles of heaven laugh’d between, And, far in forest-deeps unseen, The topmost elm-tree[1] gather’d green From draughts of balmy air. Sometimes the linnet piped his song: Sometimes the throstle whistled strong: Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel’d along, Hush’d all the groves from fear of wrong: By grassy capes with fuller sound In curves the yellowing river ran, And drooping chestnut-buds began To spread into the perfect fan, Above the teeming ground. Then, in the boyhood of the year, Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere Rode thro’ the coverts of the deer, With blissful treble ringing clear. She seem’d a part of joyous Spring: A gown of grass-green silk she wore, Buckled with golden clasps before; A light-green tuft of plumes she bore Closed in a golden ring. Now on some twisted ivy-net, Now by some tinkling rivulet, In mosses mixt[2] with violet Her cream-white mule his pastern set: And fleeter now[3] she skimm’d the plains Than she whose elfin prancer springs By night to eery warblings, When all the glimmering moorland rings With jingling bridle-reins. As she fled fast thro’ sun and shade, The happy winds upon her play’d, Blowing the ringlet from the braid: She look’d so lovely, as she sway’d The rein with dainty finger-tips, A man had given all other bliss, And all his worldly worth for this, To waste his whole heart in one kiss Upon her perfect lips. [1] Up to 1848. Linden. [2] All editions up to and including 1850. On mosses thick. [3] 1842 to 1851. And now more fleet, A Farewell First published in 1842. Not altered since 1843. This poem was dedicated to the brook at Somersby described in the _Ode to Memory_ and referred to so often in _In Memoriam_. Possibly it may have been written in 1837 when the Tennysons left Somersby. _Cf. In Memoriam_, sect. ci. Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea, Thy tribute wave deliver: No more by thee my steps shall be, For ever and for ever. Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, A rivulet then a river: No where by thee my steps shall be, For ever and for ever. But here will sigh thine alder tree, And here thine aspen shiver; And here by thee will hum the bee, For ever and for ever.