hen they call love blind;
Love's habitation is the purer mind,
Whence with his keen eyes he may penetrate
All mists and fogs that baser spells create.
Love? What is love? Not the wild feverish thrill,
When heart to heart the thronging pulses fill,
And lips that close in parching kisses find
No speech but those;--the best remains behind.
The tranquil spirit--the divine assurance
That this life's seemings have a high endurance--
Thoughts that allay this restless striving, calm
The passionate heart, and fill old wounds with balm;--
These are the choirs invisible that move
In white processionals up the aisles of love.

Such love was Gawayne's,--love that sanctifies
The heart's most secret altar; and his eyes
Were opened, and his pulses beat once more
Their old true rhythm. And so the strife was o'er,
And all the perilous wiles of magic art
Were foiled by Gawayne--and by Elfinhart.

But time flies, and 't were tedious to delay
My song for all the trials of that day.
Light summer breezes, skurrying o'er the deep,
Ripple and foam and flash,--then sink to sleep;
But underneath, serene and changing never,
The mighty heart of ocean beats forever,
And his deep streams renew from pole to pole
The living world's indomitable soul.
Enough, then, of the spells that vexed the brain
Of Gawayne; love and knighthood made all
vain.

And in the afternoon, when Gawayne learned
That his good host, the baron, had returned,
He met him in the hall at candle-light,
According to his promise of last night.
And then the baron motioned to a page,
And straightway six tall men, of lusty age
And mighty sinews, entered the great door,
Bearing the carcass of a huge wild boar,
In all its uncouth ugliness complete,
And dropped it quivering at our hero's feet.
"What do you say to that, Sir Gawayne?" cried
The baron, swelling with true sportsman's pride
"But come: your promise, now, of yester-eve;
'T is blesseder to give than to receive!
Though I'll be sworn you'll find it hard to pay
Full value for the winnings of this day."
"Not so," said Gawayne; "you will rest my debtor;
Your gift is good, but mine will be far better."
And then he strode with solemn steps along
The echoing hall, and through the listening throng,
And with the words, "My noble lord, take this!"
He gave the baron a resounding kiss.
The baron jumped up in ecstatic glee.
"Now by my great-great-grandsire's beard," quoth he,
"Better than all dead boars in Christendom
Is one