itch, thy blood, like some lewd wine,
Shall subtly make me, like thee, half divine;
And,--sweet rebellion!--clasp thee till thou urge
To combat close of savage kisses: surge
A war that rubies all thy proud cheeks' shine,--
Slain, struggling blushes,--till white truce emerge.

"My life for thine, thus bartered lip to lip!
A striving being pulsant, that shall slip
Like song and flame in sense from thee to me;
Nor held, but quick rebartered thence to thee:
So our two loves be as a singleship,
Ten thousand loves as one eternally."

Babbled the woodland like a rocky brook;
And as the ecstacy of foliage shook,
Hot pieces of bright, sunny heavens glanced
Like polished silver thro' pale leaves that danced.
As one hath seen some green-gowned huntress fair,
Morn in her cheeks and midnight in her hair,
Eyes clear as hollow dews; clean limbs as lithe
As limbs swift morning moves; a voice as blithe
As high hawk's ringing thro' the falling dews;
Pant thro' the bramble-matted avenues,--
Where brier and thorn have gashed her gown's pinched green,
About bright breasts and arms, the milky sheen
Of white skin healthy pouting out; her face,
Ardent and flushed, fixed on the lordly chase.

III.

The eve now came; and shadows cowled the way
Like somber palmers, who have kneeled to pray
Beside a wayside shrine, and rosy rolled
Up the capacious West a grainy gold,
Luxuriant fluid, burned thro' strong, keen skies,
Which seemed as towering gates of Paradise
Surged dim, far glories on the hungry gaze.
And from that sunset down the roseate ways,
To Accolon, who with his idle lute,
Reclined in revery against a root
Of a great oak, a fragment of that West,
A dwarf, in crimson satin tightly dressed,
Skipped like a leaf the rather frosts have burned
And cozened to a fever red, that turned
And withered all its sap. And this one came
From Camelot; from his beloved dame,
Morgane the Fay. He on his shoulder bore
A burning blade wrought strange with wizard lore,
Runed mystically; and a scabbard which
Glared venomous, with angry jewels rich.
He, louting to the knight, "Sir knight," said he,
"Your lady with all sweetest courtesy
Assures you--ah, unworthy messenger
I of such brightness!--of that love of her."
Then doffing that great baldric, with the sword
To him he gave: "And this fr