"Often would self-complacence spread Harmonious halos round my head; And all my being own'd awhile The warm diffusion of her smile. "One morn they call'd me forth to sing Fore our then liege, the English king. Thy guest, my Lord de Semonville, His gracious presence was the seal Of favour to a servant true, To boasted faith and fealty due! "It never suits a royal ear Prowess of foreign lands to hear; And, leaving tales of Charlemagne For British Arthur's earlier reign, I, preluding with praise, began The feats of that diviner man; Let loose my soul in fairy land, Gave wilder licence to my hand; And, learn'd in chivalrous renown, By song and story handed down, Painted my knights from those around, But placed them on poetic ground. The ample brow, too smooth for guile; The careless, fearless, open smile; The shaded and yet arching eye, At once reflective, kind, and shy; The undesigning, dauntless look,-- Became to me a living book. I read the character conceal'd, Flash'd on by chance, or never known Even to bosoms like its own; Shrinking before a step intrude; Touch, look, and whisper, all too rude; Unsunn'd and fairest when reveal'd! The first in every noble deed, Most prompt to venture and to bleed! Such hearts, so veil'd with angel wings, Such cherish'd, tender, sacred things, I since discover'd many a time, O Britain! in thy temper'd clime; In dew, in shade, in silence nurs'd, For truth and sentiment athirst. "As seas, with rough, surrounding wave, Islands of verdant freshness save From rash intruder's waste and spoil;-- As mountains rear their heads on high, Present snow summits to the sky, And weary patient feet with toil, To screen some sweet, secluded vale, And warm the air its flowers inhale;-- Reserve warns off approaching eyes From where her choicer Eden lies. "Such are the English knights, I cried, Who all their better feelings hide; Who muffle up their hearts with care, To hide the virtues nestling there, Who neither praise nor blame can bear. "My hearers, though completely steel'd For all the terrors of the field; Mail'd for the arrow and the lance, Bore not unharm'd my smiling glance; At other times collected, brave, Recoiled when I that picture gave; As if their inmost heart, laid bare, Shrank from the bleak, ungenial air.