he room,
Silent, intense, had raised her from her seat,
Of dim, great arms had made her a retreat,
Secret as love to move in, like some ghost,
Noiseless as death and subtle as sharp frost,
Poised like a light and borne as carefully,
Trod she the gusty hall where shadowy
The stirring hangings rolled a Pagan war.
And there the mail of Urience shone. A star,
Glimmering above, a dying cresset dropped
From the stone vault and flared. And here she stopped
And took the sword bright, burnished by his page,
And ruddy as a flame with restless rage.
Grasping this death unto the chamber where
Slept innocent her spouse she moved--an air
Twined in soft, glossy sendal; or a fit
Of faery song a wicked charm in it,
A spell that sings seductive on to death.
Then paused she at one chamber; for a breath
Listened: and here her son Sir Ewain slept,
He who of ravens a black army kept,
In war than fiercest men more terrible,
That tore forth eyes of kings who blinded fell.
Sure that he slept, to Urience stole and stood
Dim by his couch. About her heart hot blood
Caught strangling, then throbbed thudding fever up
To her broad eyes, like wine whirled in a cup.

Then came rare Recollection, with a mouth
Sweet as the honeyed sunbeams of the South
Trickling thro' perplexed ripples of low leaves;
To whose faint form a veil of starshine cleaves
Intricate gauze from memoried eyes to feet;--
Feet sandaled with crushed, sifted snows and fleet
To come and go and airy anxiously.
She, trembling to her, like a flower a bee
Nests in and makes an audible mouth of musk
Dripping a downy language in the dusk,
Laid lips to ears and luted memories of
Now hateful Urience:--Her maiden love,
That willing went from Caerlleon to Gore
One dazzling day of Autumn. How a boar,
Wild as the wonder of the blazing wood,
Raged at her from a cavernous solitude,
Which, crimson-creepered, yawned the bristling curse
Murderous upon her; how her steed waxed worse
And, snorting terror, fled unmanageable,
Pursued with fear, and flung her from the selle,
Soft slipping on a bank of springy moss
That couched her swooning. In an utter loss
Of mind and limbs she only knew twas thus--
As one who pants beneath an incubus:--
The boar thrust toward her a tusked snout and fanged
Of hideous bristles, and the whole wood clanged
And buzzed and boomed a thousand sounds and lights