The massive square of his heroic breast,
  And arms on which the standing muscle sloped,
  As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone,
  Running too vehemently to break upon it. 
  And Enid woke and sat beside the couch,
  Admiring him, and thought within herself,
  Was ever man so grandly made as he? 
  Then, like a shadow, past the people’s talk
  And accusation of uxoriousness
  Across her mind, and bowing over him,
  Low to her own heart piteously she said: 

    “O noble breast and all-puissant arms,
  Am I the cause, I the poor cause that men
  Reproach you, saying all your force is gone? 
  I am the cause, because I dare not speak
  And tell him what I think and what they say. 
  And yet I hate that he should linger here;
  I cannot love my lord and not his name. 
  Far liefer had I gird his harness on him,
  And ride with him to battle and stand by,
  And watch his mightful hand striking great blows
  At caitiffs and at wrongers of the world. 
  Far better were I laid in the dark earth,
  Not hearing any more his noble voice,
  Not to be folded more in these dear arms,
  And darken’d from the high light in his eyes,
  Than that my lord thro’ me should suffer shame. 
  Am I so bold, and could I so stand by,
  And see my dear lord wounded in the strife,
  Or maybe pierced to death before mine eyes,
  And yet not dare to tell him what I think,
  And how men slur him, saying all his force
  Is melted into mere effeminacy? 
  O me, I fear that I am no true wife.”

    Half inwardly, half audibly she spoke,
  And the strong passion in her made her weep
  True tears upon his broad and naked breast,
  And these awoke him, and by great mischance
  He heard but fragments of her later words,
  And that she fear’d she was not a true wife. 
  And then he thought, “In spite of all my care,
  For all my pains, poor man, for all my pains,
  She is not faithful to me, and I see her
  Weeping for some gay knight in Arthur’s hall.” 
  Right thro’ his manful breast darted the pang
  That makes a man, in the sweet face of her
  Whom he loves most, lonely and miserable. 
  At this he hurl’d his huge limbs out of bed,
  And shook his drowsy squire awake and cried,
  “My charger and her palfrey;” then to her
  “I will ride forth into the wilderness,
  For tho’ it seems my spurs are yet to win,
  I have not fall’n so low as some would wish. 
  And thou, put on thy worst and meanest dress
  And ride with me.”  And Enid ask’d, amazed,
  “If Enid errs, let Enid learn her fault.” 
  But he, “I charge thee, ask not, but obey.”