Worst of the worst were that man he that reigns!
Better the King's waste hearth and aching heart
Than thou reseated in thy place of light,

The mockery of my people, and their bane."

He paused, and in the pause she crept an inch
Nearer, and laid her hands about his feet.
Far off a solitary trumpet blew,

Then waiting by the doors the war horse neigh'd
As at a friend's voice, and he spake again :

46

Yet think not that I come to urge thy crimes,

I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere,

I, whose vast pity almost makes me die

To see thee, laying there thy golden head,
My pride in happier summers, at my feet.

The wrath which forced my thoughts on that fierce law,
The doom of treason and the flaming death,

(When first I learned thee hidden here) is past,

The pang-which while I weigh'd thy heart with one
Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee,

Made my tears burn-is also past—in part.
And all is past, the sin is sinn'd, and I,
Lo! I forgive thee, as Eternal God

Forgives: do thou for thine own soul the rest.
But how to take last leave of all I loved?
O golden hair, with which I used to play
Not knowing! O imperial-moulded form,
And beauty such as never woman wore,
Until it came a kingdom's curse with thee—
I cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine,

But Lancelot's: nay, they never were the King's.

I cannot take thy hand; that too is flesh,

And in the flesh thou hast sinn'd; and mine own flesh, Here looking down on thine polluted, cries

'I loathe thee:' yet not less, O Guinevere,

For I was ever virgin save for thee,

My love thro' flesh hath wrought into my life
So far, that my doom is, I love thee still.
Let no man dream but that I love thee still.
Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul,
And so thou lean on our fair father Christ,
Hereafter in that world where all are pure
We two may meet before high God, and thou
Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine, and know
I am thine husband-not a smaller soul,

Nor Lancelot, nor another. Leave me that,
I charge thee, my last hope. Now must I hence.
Thro' the thick night I hear the trumpet blow:
They summon me their King to lead mine hosts
Far down to that great battle in the west,
Where I must strike against the man they call
My sister's son-no kin of mine, who leagues
With lords of the White House, heathen, and knights—
Traitors--and strike him dead, and meet myself
Death, or I know not what mysterious doom.
And thou remaining here wilt learn the event;
But hither shall I never come again,
Never lie by thy side, see thee no more,
Farewell!"

TO ALFRED TENNYSON.

MY GRANDSON.

GOLDEN-HAIR'D Ally whose name is one with mine,
Crazy with laughter and babble and earth's new wine,
Now that the flower of a year and a half is thine,
O little blossom, O mine, and mine of mine,
Glorious poet who never has writ a line,

Laugh, for the name at the head of my verse is thine.
May'st thou never be wrong'd by the name that is mine.

RIZPAH.

17-.
I.

WAILING, wailing, wailing, the wind over land and sea—
And Willy's voice in the wind, "O mother, come out to me."
Why should he call me to-night, when he knows that I cannot
go?

For the downs are as bright as day, and the full moon stares at the snow.

II.

We should be seen, my dear; they would spy us out of the

town.

The loud black nights for us, and the storm rushing over the

down,

When I cannot see my own hand, but am led by the creak of the chain,

And grovel and grope for my son till I find myself drenched with the rain.

III.

Any thing fallen again? nay-what was there left to fall? I have taken them home, I have number'd the bones, I have hidden them all.

What am I saying? and what are you? do you come as a spy? Falls? what falls? who knows? As the tree falls so must it lie.

IV.

Who let her in? how long has she been? you-what have you heard?

Why did you sit so quiet? you never have spoken a word.

O-to pray with me-yes-a lady-none of their spiesBut the night has crept into my heart, and begun to darken my eyes.

V.

Ah-you, that have lived so soft, what should you know of the night,

The blast and the burning shame and the bitter frost and the

fright?

I have done it, while you were asleep-you were only made for

the day.

I have gathered my baby together-and now you may go your

way.

VI.

Nay-for it's kind of you, Madam, to sit by an old dying wife. But say nothing hard of my boy, I have only an hour of life.

I kissed my boy in the prison, before he went out to die.

44

They dared me to do it," he said, and he never has told me a lie.

I whipt him for robbing an orchard once when he was but a child

The farmer dared me to do it," he said; he was always so

wild

And idle-and couldn't be idle-my Willy-he never could

rest.

The king should have made him a soldier, he would have been one of his best.

VII.

But he lived with a lot of wild mates, and they never would let

him be good;

They swore that he dare not rob the mail, and he swore that

he would;

And he took no life, but he took one purse, and when all was

done

He flung it among his fellows-I'll none of it, said my son.

VIII.

I came into the court to the Judge and the lawyers. I told them my tale,

God's own truth-but they kill'd him, they kill'd him for robbing the mail.

They hang'd him in chains for a show-we had always borne a good name

To be hang'd for a thief-and then put away-isn't that enough shame ?

Dust to dust-low down-let us hide! but they set him so high

That all the ships of the world could stare at him, passing by. God'll pardon the hell-black raven and horrible fowls of the

air,

But not the black heart of the lawyer who kill'd him and hang'd him there.

IX.

And the jailer forced me away.

bye;

I had bid him my last good

They had fastened the door of his cell. "O mother!" I heard

him cry.

I couldn't get back tho' I tried, he had something further to say, And now I never shall know it. The jailer forced me away.

X.

Then since I couldn't but hear that cry of my boy that was

dead,

They seized me and shut me up: they fasten'd me down on my bed.

"Mother, O mother!" he call'd in the dark to me year after

year

They beat me for that, they beat me--you know that I couldn't

but hear;

And then at the last they found I had grown so stupid and still They let me abroad again-but the creatures had worked their will.

XI.

Flesh of my flesh was gone, but bone of my bone was leftI stole them all from the lawyers--and you, will you call it a theft?

My baby, the bones that had suck'd me, the bones that had laughed and had cried-

Theirs? O no! they are mine-not theirs--they had moved in my side.

XII.

Do you think I was scared by the bones? I kiss'd 'em, I buried 'em all-

I can't dig deep, I am old-in the night by the churchyard

wall,

My Willy'll rise up whole when the trumpet of judgment'll

sound,

But I charge you never to say that I laid him in holy ground.

XIII.

They would scratch him up--they would hang him again on the cursed tree.

Sin? O yes-we are sinners, I know--let all that be,

And read me a Bible verse of the Lord's good-will toward

men-

"Full of compassion and mercy, the Lord "--let me hear it again;

"Full of compassion and mercy-long suffering." Yes, O yes! For the lawyer is born but to murder--the Saviour lives but to

bless.

He'll never put on the black cap except for the worst of the

worst,

And the first may be last I have heard it in church-and the last may be first.

Suffering--O long-suffering--yes, as the Lord must know, Year after year in the mist and the wind and the shower and the snow.

XIV.

Heard, have you? what? they have told you he never repented

his sin.

How do they know it? are they his mother? are you of his kin? Heard! have you ever heard, when the storm on the downs began?

The wind that'll wail like a child, and the sea that'll moan like a man?

XV.

Election, Election, and Reprobation-it's all very well.

But I go to-night to my boy, and I shall not find him in Hell.