The instant's fostered phantoms,--passed again. Then all around me seemed a rippling stir Of silken something,--wilier, lovelier Than that witch-mothered beauty, Viviane,-- Approaching with dead knights amid her train, Pale through the vast Brécèliande. And then A knight, steel-helmeted, a man of men, Passed with a fool, King Arthur's Dagonet, Who on his head a tinsel crown had set In mockery. And as he went his way, Behind the knight the leaves began to sway, Then slightly parted--and Morgane le Fay, With haughty, wicked eyes and lovely face, Studied him steadily a little space. I "Again I hold thee to my heart, Morgane; Here where the restless forest hears the main Toss as in troubled sleep. Now hear me, sweet, While I that dream of yesternight repeat." "First let us find some rock or mossed retreat Where we may sit at ease.--Why dost thou look So serious? Nay! learn lightness from this brook, And gladness from these flowers, my Accolon. See the wild vista there! where purpling run Long woodland shadows from the sinking sun; Deeper the wood seems there, secluded as The tame wild-deer that, in the moss and grass, Gaze with their human eyes. Where grow those lines Of pale-starred green; and where yon fountain shines, Urned deep in tremulous ferns, let's rest upon Yon oak-trunk by the tempest overthrown Years, years ago. See, how 'tis rotted brown! But here the red bark's firm and overgrown Of trailing ivy darkly berried. Share My throne with me. Come, cast away thy care! Sit here and breathe with me this wildwood air, Musk with the wood's decay that fills each way; As if some shrub, while dreaming of the May, In longing languor weakly tried to wake Its perished blossoms and could only make Ghosts of such dead aromas as it knew, And shape a spectre of invisible dew To haunt these sounding miles of solitude." "Still, thou art troubled, Morgane! and the mood, Deep in thy fathomless eyes, glows.--Canst not keep Mine eyes from seeing!--Dark thy thought and deep As that of some wild woman,--found asleep By some lost knight upon a precipice,-- Whom he hath wakened with a sudden kiss: As that of some frail elfin lady,--light As are the foggy moonbeams,--filmy white, Who waves diaphanous beauty on a cliff, That, drowsing, purrs with moon-drenched pines; but if The lone knight follow, foul fiends rise and drag Him crashing down, while she, tall on the crag, Triumphant, mocks him with glad sorcery Till all the wildwood echoes shout with glee."