What, Faithful—do I lie, that overshot My dream-web is with that which happeneth not? Nay, nay, believe it not!—love lies alone In loving hearts like fire within the stone: Then strikes my hand, and lo, the flax ablaze! —Those tales of empty striving, and lost days Folk tell of sometimes—never lit my fire Such ruin as this; but Pride and Vain-desire, My counterfeits and foes, have done the deed. Beware, beloved! for they sow the weed Where I the wheat: they meddle where I leave, Take what I scorn, cast by what I receive, Sunder my yoke, yoke that I would dissever, Pull down the house my hands would build for ever. Scene: In a Forest among the Hills of a Foreign Land. KING PHARAMOND, MASTER OLIVER. Stretch forth thine hand, foster-father, I know thee, And fain would be sure I am yet in the world: Where am I now, and what things have befallen? Why am I so weary, and yet have wrought nothing? Thou hast been sick, lord, but thy sickness abateth. Thou art sad unto weeping: sorry rags are thy raiment, For I see thee a little now: where am I lying? On the sere leaves thou liest, lord, deep in the wild wood What meaneth all this? was I not Pharamond, A worker of great deeds after my father, Freer of my land from murder and wrong, Fain of folks' love, and no blencher in battle? Yea, thou wert king and the kindest under heaven. Was there not coming a Queen long desired, From a land over sea, my life to fulfil? Belike it was so—but thou leftst it untold of. Why weepest thou more yet? O me, which are dreams, Which are deeds of my life mid the things I remember? Dost thou remember the great council chamber, O my king, and the lords there gathered together With drawn anxious faces one fair morning of summer, And myself in their midst, who would move thee to speech? A brawl I remember, some wordy debating, Whether my love should be brought to behold me. Sick was I at heart, little patience I had. Hast thou memory yet left thee, how an hour thereafter We twain lay together in the
Prev.
Back
Top