s us to strife
And toil and grief and wisdom,--and to-day
Grudge us not life!

"O Madam Destiny, omnipotent,
Why need our elders trouble us at play?
We know that very soon we shall repent
The idle follies of our holiday,
And being old, shall be as wise as they:
But now we are not wise, and lute and fife
Plead sweetlier than axioms,--so to-day
Grudge us not life!

"O Madam Destiny, omnipotent,
You have given us youth--and must we cast away
The cup undrained and our one coin unspent
Because our elders' beards and hearts are gray?
They have forgotten that if we delay
Death claps us on the shoulder, and with knife
Or cord or fever flouts the prayer we pray--
'Grudge us not life!'

"Madam, recall that in the sun we play
But for an hour, then have the worm for wife,
The tomb for habitation--and to-day
Grudge us not life!"

Candor in these matters is best. Katharine scrambled into the crotch
of the apple-tree. The dew pattered sharply about her, but the
Princess was not in a mood to appraise discomfort.

"You came!" this harper said, transfigured; and then again, "You
came!"

She breathed, "Yes."

So for a long time they stood looking at each other. She found
adoration in his eyes and quailed before it; and in the man's mind not
a grimy and mean incident of the past but marshalled to leer at his
unworthiness: yet in that primitive garden the first man and woman,
meeting, knew no sweeter terror.

It was by the minstrel that a familiar earth and the grating speech of
earth were earlier regained. "The affair is of the suddenest," Alain
observed, and he now swung the lute behind him. He indicated no
intention of touching her, though he might easily have done so as he
sat there exalted by the height of his horse. "A meteor arrives with
more prelude. But Love is an arbitrary lord; desiring my heart, he has
seized it, and accordingly I would now brave hell to come to you, and
finding you there, would esteem hell a pleasure-garden. I have already
made my prayer to Destiny that she concede me love. Now of God, our
Father and Master, I entreat quick death if I am not to win you. For,
God willing, I shall come to you again, even if in order to do this I
have to split the world like a rotten orange."

"Madness! Oh, brave, sweet madness!" Katharine said. "You are a
minstrel and I am a king's daughter."

"Is it madness? Why, then, I think sane persons are to be
commiserated.