The Well-Beloved

I wayed by star and planet shine      Towards the dear one's home     At Kingsbere, there to make her mine      When the next sun upclomb.     I edged the ancient hill and wood      Beside the Ikling Way,     Nigh where the Pagan temple stood      In the world's earlier day.     And as I quick and quicker walked      On gravel and on green,     I sang to sky, and tree, or talked      Of her I called my queen.     - "O faultless is her dainty form,      And luminous her mind;     She is the God-created norm      Of perfect womankind!"     A shape whereon one star-blink gleamed      Glode softly by my side,     A woman's; and her motion seemed      The motion of my bride.     And yet methought she'd drawn erstwhile      Adown the ancient leaze,     Where once were pile and peristyle      For men's idolatries.     - "O maiden lithe and lone, what may      Thy name and lineage be,     Who so resemblest by this ray      My darling? - Art thou she?"     The Shape: "Thy bride remains within      Her father's grange and grove."     - "Thou speakest rightly," I broke in,      "Thou art not she I love."     - "Nay: though thy bride remains inside      Her father's walls," said she,     "The one most dear is with thee here,      For thou dost love but me."     Then I: "But she, my only choice,      Is now at Kingsbere Grove?"     Again her soft mysterious voice:      "I am thy only Love."     Thus still she vouched, and still I said,      "O sprite, that cannot be!" . . .     It was as if my bosom bled,      So much she troubled me.     The sprite resumed: "Thou hast transferred      To her dull form awhile     My beauty, fame, and deed, and word,      My gestures and my smile.     "O fatuous man, this truth infer,      Brides are not what they seem;     Thou lovest what thou dreamest her;      I am thy very dream!"     - "O then," I answered miserably,      Speaking as scarce I knew,     "My loved one, I must wed with thee      If what thou say'st be true!"     She, proudly, thinning in the gloom:      "Though, since troth-plight began,     I've ever stood as bride to groom,      I wed no mortal man!"     Thereat she vanished by the Cross      That, entering Kingsbere town,     The two long lanes form, near the fosse      Below the faneless Down.     - When I arrived and met my bride,      Her look was pinched and thin,     As if her soul had shrunk and died,      And left a waste within.