GUINEVERE. 

 Of Guinevere from Arthur separate, And separate from Launcelot and the world, And shielded in the convent with her sin, As one draws fast a veil upon a face That 's marred, but only holds the scar more close Against the burning brain—I read to-day This legend; and if other yet than I Have read, or said, how know I? for the text Was written in the story we have learned, Between the ashen lines, invisible, In hieroglyphs that blazed and leaped like light Unto the eyes. A thousand times we read; A thousand turn the page and understand, And think we know the record of a life, When lo! if we will open once again The awful volume, hid, mysterious, Intent, there lies the unseen alphabet— Re-reads the tale from breath to death, and spells A living language that we never knew. 

 This that I read was one short song of hers, A fragment, I interpret, or a lost Faint prelude to another—missing too. She sang it (says the text) one summer night, After the vespers, when the Abbess passed And blessed her; when the nuns were gone, and when She, kneeling in her drowsy cell, had said Her prayers (poor soul!), her sorrowful prayers, in which She had besought the Lord, for His dear sake, And love and pity of His Only Son, To wash her of her stain, and make her fit On summer nights, behind the convent bars And on stone-floors, with bruisèd lips, to pray Away all vision but repentance from her soul. 

 When, kneeling as she was, her limbs Refused to bear her, and she fell afaint From weariness and striving to become A holy woman, all her splendid length Upon the ground, and groveled there, aghast That buried nature was not dead in her, But lived, a rebel through her fair, fierce youth; Aghast to find that clasped hands would clench; Aghast to feel that praying lips refused Like saints to murmur on, but shrank And quivered dumb.  "Alas! I cannot pray!" Cried Guinevere.  "I cannot pray! I will Not lie! God is an honest God, and I Will be an honest sinner to his face. Will it be wicked if I sing? Oh! let Me sing a little, of I know not what; Let me just sing, I know not why. For lips Grow stiff with praying all the night. Let me believe that I am happy, too. A blessèd blessèd woman, who is fit To sing because she did not sin; or else That God forgot it for a little while And does not mind me very much. Dear Lord," (Said Guinevere), "wilt thou not listen while I sing, as well as while I pray? I shall Feel safer so. For I have naught to say God should not hear. The song comes as the prayer Doth come. Thou listenest. I sing." ... 

When, kneeling as she was, her limbs

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