Before me, looming through the night,
Darker than night's sad heart,
King Ida's castle on the sheer crag set
Waked darker sorrow yet
Within me for the light,
Beauty, and might of old loves rent apart,
Time-broken, spent,
And strewn as old dead winds among the salt-sea bent.

Till, dreaming of the glittering days,
And eves with beauty starred,
Time fell from me as some night-cloud withdrawn,
And in enchanted dawn,
All in a golden haze,
I saw the gleaming towers of Joyous Garde
In splendour rise,
Tall, pinnacled, and white to my dream-laden eyes.

While thither, as in days of old,
Launcelot homeward came,
War-wearied, and yet wearier of the strife
Of love that tore his life;

Burning, beneath the cold
Armour of steel, a never-dying flame:
The fierce desire
Consuming honour's gold on the heart's altar fire!

And thither in great love he brought
The fugitives of love,
Isoud and Tristram fleeing from King Mark.
One day 'twixt dark and dark
These lovers, by fate caught
In love's bright web, dreamed with blue skies above
Of love no tide
Of wavering life may part, or death's swift sea divide.

But Launcelot, in their bliss forlorn,
Fled from the laughter clear
Of happy lovers, and love's silent noon;
All night beneath the moon
He strode, his spirit torn
For Guenevere! All night on Guenevere
He cried aloud
Unto the moonlit foam and every windy cloud.

* * * * *

Then faded, quivering, from my sight
The memory-woven dream.
The towers of Joyous Garde shall never more
Lighten that desolate shore;
No longe'r through the night
Wrestling with love, beneath the pale moon gleam
That anguished form!--
But keen with snow and wind, and loud with gathering storm.

_--Wilfrid W. Gibson_.

(In "The Northern Counties Magazine," March, 1901).

MY NORTH COUNTRIE.

O though here fair blows the rose, and the woodbine waves on high,
And oak, and elm, and bracken fronds enrich the rolling lea,
And winds, as if in Arcady, breathe joy as they go by,
Yet I yearn and I pine for my North Countrie!

I leave the drowsing South, and in thought I northward fly,
And walk the stretching moors that fringe the ever-calling sea,
And am gladdened as the gales that are so bitter-sweet rush by.
While grey clouds swee