Nips too keenly the sweet flower? 
Is it that a deep fatigue
Hath come on her, a chilly fear,
Passing all her youthful hour
Spinning with her maidens here, 40
Listlessly through the window-bars
Gazing seawards many a league,
From her lonely shore-built tower,
While the knights are at the wars? 
Or, perhaps, has her young heart 45
Felt already some deeper smart,
Of those that in secret the heart-strings rive,
Leaving her sunk and pale, though fair? 
Who is this snowdrop by the sea?—­
I know her by her mildness rare, 50
Her snow-white hands, her golden hair;
I know her by her rich silk dress,
And her fragile loveliness—­
The sweetest Christian soul alive,
Iseult of Brittany. 55

Iseult of Brittany?—­but where
Is that other Iseult fair,
That proud, first Iseult, Cornwall’s queen? 
She, whom Tristram’s ship of yore
From Ireland to Cornwall bore, 60
To Tyntagel, deg. to the side deg.61
Of King Marc, deg. to be his bride? deg.62
She who, as they voyaged, quaff’d
With Tristram that spiced magic draught,
Which since then for ever rolls 65
Through their blood, and binds their souls,
Working love, but working teen deg.?—. deg.67
There were two Iseults who did sway
Each her hour of Tristram’s day;
But one possess’d his waning time, 70
The other his resplendent prime. 
Behold her here, the patient flower,
Who possess’d his darker hour! 
Iseult of the Snow-White Hand
Watches pale by Tristram’s bed. 75
She is here who had his gloom,
Where art thou who hadst his bloom? 
One such kiss as those of yore
Might thy dying knight restore! 
Does the love-draught work no more? 80
Art thou cold, or false, or dead,
Iseult of Ireland?

* * * * *

Loud howls the wind, sharp patters the rain,
And the knight sinks back on his pillows again. 
He is weak with fever and pain; 85
And his spirit is not clear. 
Hark! he mutters in his sleep,
As he wanders deg. far from here, deg.88
Changes place and time of year,
And his closed eye doth sweep 90
O’er some fair unwintry sea, deg. deg.91
Not this fierce Atlantic deep,
While he mutters brokenly:—­