X

     You are dying, O great-hearted lord,
     You are dying for me, she cried;
     O take my hand, O take my kiss,
     And take of your right for love like this,
     The vow that plights me bride.

     XI

     She bade the priest recite his words
     While hand in hand were they,
     Lord Dusiote’s soul to waft to bliss;
     He had her hand, her vow, her kiss,
     And his body was borne away.

     3—­I

     Lord Dusiote sprang from priest and squire;
     He gazed at her lighted room: 
     The laughter in his heart grew slack;
     He knew not the force that pushed him back
     From her and the morn in bloom.

     II

     Like a drowned man’s length on the strong flood-tide,
     Like the shade of a bird in the sun,
     He fled from his lady whom he might claim
     As ghost, and who made the daybeams flame
     To scare what he had done.

     III

     There was grief at Court for one so gay,
     Though he was a lord less keen
     For training the vine than at vintage-press;
     But in her soul the young princess
     Believed that love had been.

     IV

     Lord Dusiote fled the Court and land,
     He crossed the woeful seas,
     Till his traitorous doing seemed clearer to burn,
     And the lady beloved drew his heart for return,
     Like the banner of war in the breeze.

     V

     He neared the palace, he spied the Court,
     And music he heard, and they told
     Of foreign lords arrived to bring
     The nuptial gifts of a bridegroom king
     To the princess grave and cold.

     VI

     The masque and the dance were cloud on wave,
     And down the masque and the dance
     Lord Dusiote stepped from dame to dame,
     And to the young princess he came,
     With a bow and a burning glance.

     VII

     Do you take a new husband to-morrow, lady? 
     She shrank as at prick of steel. 
     Must the first yield place to the second, he sighed. 
     Her eyes were like the grave that is wide
     For the corpse from head to heel.

     VIII

     My lady, my love, that little hand
     Has mine ringed fast in plight: 
     I bear for your lips a lawful thirst,
     And as justly the second should follow the first,
     I come to your door this night.

     IX

     If a ghost should come a ghost will go: 
     No more the lady said,
     Save that ever when he in wrath began
     To swear by the faith of a living man,
     She answered him, You are dead.

     4—­I

     The soft night-wind went laden to death
     With smell of the orange in flower;
     The light leaves prattled to neighbour ears;
     The bird of the passion sang over his tears;
     The night named hour by hour.