He bears the prize to those dear feet: "Not mine the guerdon! oh, not mine!" Sadly the fated Fairy hears, And smiles through unreproachful tears; "Nay, keep the flowers, and be they sweet When I--no more am thine!" She lower'd the veil, she turn'd the rein, And ere his lips replied, was gone. As on she went her charmed way, No mortal dared the steps to stay: And when she vanish'd from the plain All space seem'd left alone! Oh, woe! that fairy shape no more Shall bless thy love nor rouse thy pride! He seeks the wood, he gains the spot-- The Tree is there, the Fountain not;-- Dried up:--its mirthful play is o'er. Ah, where the Fairy Bride? Alas, with fairies as with men, Who love are victims from the birth! A fearful doom the fairy shrouds, If once unveil'd by day to crowds. The Fountain vanish'd from the glen, The Fairy from the earth! [A] As the subject of this tale is suggested by one of the Fabliaux, the author has represented Arthur and Guenever, according to the view of their characters taken in those French romances--which he hopes he need scarcely say is very different from that taken in his maturer Poem upon the adventures and ordeal of the Dragon King. [B] "With hair that gilds the water as it glides."--MARLOWE, Edw. II. [C] As Guenever is often called Genevra in the French romances, the latter name is here adopted for the sake of euphony. THE BEACON. I. How broad and bright athwart the wave, Its steadfast light the Beacon gave! Far beetling from the headland shore, The rock behind, the surge before,-- How lone and stern and tempest-sear'd, Its brow to Heaven the turret rear'd! Type of the glorious souls that are The lamps our wandering barks to light, With storm and cloud round every star, The Fire-Guides of the Night! II. How dreary was that solitude! Around it scream'd the sea-fowl's brood; The only sound, amidst the strife Of wind, and wave, that spoke of life, Except when Heaven's ghost-stars were pale, The distant cry from hurrying sail. From year to year the weeds had grown O'er walls slow-rotting with the damp; And, with the weeds, decay'd, alone, The Warder of the lamp. III. But twice in every week from shore Fuel and food the boatmen bore; And then so dreary was the scene, So wild and grim the warder's mien, So many a darksome legend gave Awe to that Tadmor of the wave, That scarce the boat the rock could gain, Scarce heaved the pannier on the stone, Than from the rock and from the main, Th' unwilling life was gone. IV.