Or shall it be, when blows and dies The wood-anemone, two eyes Will gaze in thine, as faint as frost? And thou, in dreams, Wilt hear the sigh of one long lost, Who near thee seems. III Or shall it be, where waters soothe The stillness, thou wilt hear the smooth Dim notes of a familiar lute, And in thine ears Old Provence melodies, long mute, Like falling tears?... IV Now doff my helm.--Loop thy white arm Beneath my hair. So. Let thy warm Blue eyes gaze in mine for a space, A little while... Love, it will rest me... And thy face-- Ah, let it smile. V Now art thou thou. Yet--let thy hair, A golden wonder, fall; thy fair Full throat bend low; thy kiss be hot With love, not dry With anguish.--Sweet, my Evalott! Now let me die. THE DARK TOWER "_Childe Rowland to the dark tower came._" --King Lear. The hills around were iron, The sky, a boundless black, Where wells of the lightning opened And boiled with blazing rack, When he came to the giant castle, The wild rain on his back. Huge in the night and tempest, Over the cataract's bed, Its windows, ulcers of fire, Its gate, a hell-lit red, The Dark Tower loomed; and wildly A voice sang overhead. Thrice, under its warlock turrets, Where the causeway of rock was laid; Thrice, there at its owlet portal, His scornful bugle brayed; And the drawbridge clanged at his summons, And he rode in unafraid. The heavens were riven asunder, One glare of blinding storm; And the blackness, chasmed with thunder, Blazed form on demon form, As he rode in the court of the castle, The shield upon his arm. His sword unsheathed and open The vizor of his casque, Childe Rowland entered the donjon His gauntlet should unmask: But naught, save night and silence, He found, and none to ask. His heel on the stair crashed iron, His hand on the door clashed steel-- In the hall, the roar of the torrent, In the turret, the thunder's peal-- And there in the highest turret She sat at a spinning-wheel. She spun the flax of a spindle, All in a magic space; She spun with her head bent downward, His Lady, fair of face; She spun, all wildly singing, All spellbound in that place. Again, when he gazed on her beauty, The heart in his breast was wax; Again, when he heard her singing, The thews of his limbs grew lax-- She spun, nor saw him, spinning A spindle of blood-red flax. And now the flax was fire, That wrapped her, skein on skein; And now a flaming serpent, And now a blazing chain; But he seized the enchanted spindle, And all its spells were vain.