s withal!
Into the hall they brought and laid him down,
While Agathar gave thanks, from her despair,
That death had not yet conquered him. He lived,
Although he spoke not, moved not, scarcely breathed.

They told her, in few words, of his brave deed.
In some lone mountain way, far from the court,
He saw a knight almost unhorsed by fraud,
And springing quickly to the knight's relief,
Unarmed, unready, without thought of self,
He had been trampled by the maddened horse,
Whose master he had saved unfair defeat.
The leech had tended him with greatest care,
Promised him life, but never more, alas!
The power to wield his sword, or wear his arms,
The strength to walk, or run, or live the life
Of manhood as men prize it. Some deep hurt,
Beyond the sight, would ever foil his strength,
And make bold effort perilous to life.
They told her how he whiter grew, at this,
And, with the one word, "Noel-garde," had passed
Into the trance, like death, that held him thus
Through all the journey they had carried him.
"My valiant boy," said Lady Agathar;
And hushed her heart, to minister to him.

Slowly, at last, the lovely eyes unclosed
The speaking beauty of their dark-blue depths,
To meet his mother's with beseeching gaze.
"I can be true, but never valiant now,"
He said in faltering accents. "Mother mine,
There is no knight for you and my sweet Greane.
God help me!" and he turned him to the wall.

"O Christalan! my son," she answered him,
"Knighthood is in the spirit and the soul;
The deeds that show the knighthood to the world
Are but the chance and circumstance of fate;
And no knight could be truer than you proved
Yourself in self-forgetting, nor more brave
Than in foregoing knighthood for a knight.
You will be far more valiant, if you bear
This sorrow without murmur or complaint,
Than you could prove in any battle won.
The meanest varlet often wins by chance.
It needeth valour like our blessed Lord's
To forfeit glory, and to suffer pain
Unhonoured and unknown--ah, Christalan,
True knight within my heart I hold you, dear."

"Yea, mother mine, but now my father's name
Remains without fresh glory; his last prayer
And dying wishes must be unfulfilled."

"Sweet Christalan, when you were scarce a lad,
You saw the King and thought his shining crown
His royalty, which now you know is naught
But symbol of it. Thus your father, dear,
In larger life of knowledge of the truth,
Knows that the boon he prayed was but the sign.