r monarch's bed,
With naked swords and torches in their hands,
And test this lover's-knot with steel and fire;
But with a thought, "To-morrow yet will serve
To greet these mummers," softly the window closed,
And so went back to his corn-tax again.

But, with the morn, the king a meeting called
Of all his lords, courtiers and kindred too,
And squire and dame,--in the great Audience Hall
Gathered; where sat the king, with the high crown
Upon his brow, beneath a drapery
That fell around him like a cataract,
With flecks of color crossed and cancellate;
And over this, like trees about a stream,
Rich carven-work, heavy with wreath and rose,
Palm and palmirah, fruit and frondage, hung.

And more the high hall held of rare and strange:
For on the king's right hand Leoena bowed
In cloudlike marble, and beside her crouched
The tongueless lioness; on the other side,
And poising this, the second Sappho stood,--
Young Erexcea, with her head discrowned,
The anadema on the horn of her lyre:
And by the walls there hung in sequence long
Merlin himself, and Uterpendragon,
With all their mighty deeds, down to the day
When all the world seemed lost in wreck and rout,
A wrath of crashing steeds and men; and, in
The broken battle fighting hopelessly,
King Arthur, with the ten wounds on his head.

But not to gaze on these appeared the peers.
Stern looked the king, and, when the court was met,--
The lady and her lover in the midst,--
Spoke to his lords, demanding them of this:
"What merits he, the servant of the king,
Forgetful of his place, his trust, his oath,
Who, for his own bad end, to hide his fault,
Makes use of her, a Princess of the realm,
As of a mule,--a beast of burden!--borne
Upon her shoulders through the winter's night
And wind and snow?" "Death!" said the angry lords;
And knight and squire and minion murmured, "Death!"
Not one discordant voice. But Charlemaign--
Though to his foes a circulating sword,
Yet, as a king, mild, gracious, exorable,
Blest in his children too, with but one born
To vex his flesh like an ingrowing nail--
Looked kindly on the trembling pair, and said:
"Yes, Eginardus, well hast thou deserved
Death for this thing; for, hadst thou loved her so,
Thou shouldst have sought her Father's will in this,--
Protector and disposer of his child,--
And asked her hand of him, her lord and thine.
T