La Beale Isoud.

I.     With bloodshot eyes the morning rose      Upon a world of gloom and tears;     A kindred glance queen Isoud shows -      Come night, come morn, cease not her fears.     The fog-clouds whiten all the vale,      The sunlight draws them to its love;     The diamond dews wash ev'ry dale,      Where bays the hunt within the grove.     Her lute - the one her touch he taught      To wake beneath the stars a song     Of swan-caught music - is as naught      And on yon damask lounge is flung.     Down o'er her cheeks her hair she draws      In golden rays 'twixt lily tips,     And gazes sad on gloomy shaws      'Neath which had often touched their lips.              II.     With irised eyes, from morn to noon.      And noon to middle night she stoops     From her high lattice 'neath the moon,      Hoping to see him 'mid the groups     Of mail-swathed braves come jingling by.      And once there came a dame in weft     All pearl besprent, as when the sky      A springtide day hath wept and left     A stormy eve one flash of gems.     "'Mid neatherds he's a naked waif      Unwitted," said she, lipping scorn:     And shook deep curls with a weak laugh      Tib clinked the gold thick in them worn.              III.     "How long to wait!" and far she bent      From her tall casement toward the lawn;     A prospect of a wide extent      Glassed in her eyes and hateful shown.     Along the white lake windy crags      Blue with coarse brakes and ragged pines;     A bandit keep with trembling flags;      And barren scars, and waste marsh lines,     And now a palfried dame and knight.     Deep deer-behaunted forests old,      Whose sinewy boughs dark blocked the cave     Of Heav'n o'er Earth; a blasted hold      'Mid livid fields; a torrent's wave.     And o'er the bridge whose marble arched      The torrent's foam, dim in the dew     Of morning, one all glimmering marched      In glittering steel from helm to shoe,     With lance whose fang smote back the dawn.              IV.     Selled on a barb whose trappings shone      Red brass, - a morning star of jousts     Upon the dawning beaming lone      Burst from the hills' empurpled crusts.     A lying star, whose double tongue      Was slave to gold: "I saw him die! -     'Tis ruth, for he was brave and young, -      I saw him in the close clay lie."     Then passed he rattling from the court....     So grief in furrows ploughed her front's      Smooth surface wan, and toward the eve, -     The bloodshot eve upon the mounts,      Who o'er day's flow'ry bier did grieve     And bow her melancholy star, -      O'er teenful eyes she bent the light     Of her crown-crescent's gem, and far      She lingered till the full-mooned night     Showered ripple-stars the gray mere o'er.              V.     "And I'm like her who trims a flame      Of sickly color, bowing low     To balk the wind; in wanton game      One stoops in secret toward her brow     With wind-bulged cheeks, a quick breath sends -      And then the world is blind with gloom,     And filled with phantoms and with fiends,      That strain huge eyes and jibe her doom."     Thus thought Isoud in her despair,     Of Launcelot then thoughts grew on,      And Arthur's lovely queen away     In castled courts of Caerleon,      And all their joy and dalliance gay.     Until she could have thawed the spars      Of her clear-fountained eyes to tears,     And gush wild grief long-seared by wars      Of passionate anguish and great fears:     "Oh Tristram gone! oh death in life!"     Soft down below in the thick dark      A fountain throbbed monotonous foam,     Unseen within the starlit park,      Deep in the tower's shadowed dome.     "And thus my heart drums frigid life      In hateful gloom of fear and woe!     One flood of sorrow, cataract-rife,      My full-flush heart streams come and go     Since Tristram's gone and I'm alone!"              VI.     Then sunk the moon, and far away,      Beside the bickering lake, the towers     Of bandit braves shone tall and gray,      Like specters in her lonely hours.     And 'twixt the nodding grove and lake      A glimmering fawn stalked thro' the night;     And with full brow the musks did take,      Then bowed to drink - she veiled her sight     And moaning said, "Death is but life!     The fawn 'mid lilies from the mere      Sucks genial draughts to dull its thirsts;     O fondest spirit, art thou near?      Draw to thy soul this soul that bursts!     The vivid lilies to the stars      Clasp their white eyes and sink to sleep:     O anguish, to thy burning wars      Lock my sad heart and drag it deep!" -     Albeit she slept, she dreamed in grief.