r
For God's peace, though he knows not what it means.

The Lady Agathar stands, robed in black,
Behind the buoyant boy she loves so well.
She still has youth, and beauty, and desire;
But each full throb of her true, wifely heart
Beats for her lord, though he be gone,--all else
In life is naught to her but Christalan,
And Greane, the winsome maiden by her side.

Sweet Greane's heart thrills with pride of Christalan,
And with the spirit of the solemn scene;
But, also, with a fierce rebellious pang,
That she is but a useless, silly girl.
She wishes she too had been born a lad,
To take the knightly vow, and leave the home,
And go forth to the world and its delight.

Now Christalan turns from the altar-rail
To see the love upon his mother's face.
Back to the castle, in a goodly train,
They take their way, in joyous merriment
And festal cheer.

A banquet for the lad
Is given in the hall, where gather soon
The Noel-garde retainers, come to greet
The noble boy, and say a long farewell.

The Lady Agathar still smiles, and fills
The moment with all pleasure and delight,
No shadow of her sorrow or her pain
Shall fall upon her Christalan to-day,
But deep within her heart she maketh moan,
"My Christalan goes forth to-morrow morn."

Amid the revel Greane and Christalan
Are missing for a time from the gay feast,
And Agathar's quick eyes have followed them
To where they sit apart, the two young heads,
Of golden beauty and of softest brown,
Forming a picture that for evermore
Her memory will hold to solace grief,
Or make it greater, as her mood may be.

"O Christalan how can I let you go?"
Says sweet Greane, weeping "Who will climb with me
The rocks to find the bird's nest? who will play
At arms, forgetting that I am a girl,
And helping me forget it?"

Christalan,
Lifting the nut-brown curl to find her ear,
Low whispers tenderly, "I love you, Greane,
A hundred times more than were you a boy,
And always have, e'en when I laughed at you."

Greane nestles to him, lays her pretty head
Upon his breast, her slender shapely hand,
Sun-browned and thorn scratched, wanders lovingly
Over his face and hair,--then to the words
Upon his doublet, tracing thoughtfully
Their broidered curving with her forefinger,

"_Valiant and True_" she says: "My Christalan,
When you are great and famous in the world,
Which would you be, could you be only one?"

"Why, Greane, they go together