Ye that are now of heaven, and see They fall on those within the palisade !

Here fell the truest, manliest hearts of Some held she was his wife in secret

England.

Go further hence and find him.

She is crazed!

Aldwyth.
Edith. That doth not matter either.
Lower the light.

He must be here.

Enter two Canons, OSGOD and
ATHELRIC, with torches. They
turn over the dead bodies and
examine them as they pass.

Osgod. I think that this is Thurkill.
Athelric. More likely Godric.
Osgod.

some

Well-some believed she was his para

mour.

Edith. Norman, thou liest ! liars all of you,

Your Saints and all! I am his wife! and she

For look, our marriage ring!

[She draws it off the finger of Harold. I lost it somehowI lost it, playing with it when I was wild. That bred the doubt! but I am wiser now.. •

I am sure this body I am too wise. . Will none among

Is Alfwig, the king's uncle.

Osgod.

Edith.

And here is Leofwin.

you all

Bear me true witness-only for this once-
That I have found it here again?

[She puts it on.

And thou,

And here is He! Thy wife am I for ever and evermore.

Aldwyth. Harold? Oh no-nay, if it were my God,

They have so maim'd and murder'd all

his face

There is no man can swear to him.

Malet.

And this dead king's | Who, king or not, hath kinglike fought

and fallen, His birthday, too.

even

It seems but yester

I held it with him in his English halls, His day, with all his rooftree ringing 'Harold,'

Before he fell into the snare of Guy ;

When all men counted Harold would be king,

And Harold was most happy.

William.

He did forswear himself—a warrior—ay,
And but that Holy Peter fought for us,
And that the false Northumbrian held
aloof,

And save for that chance arrow which the
Saints

Sharpen'd and sent against him-who
can tell?-

Three horses had I slain beneath me: twice

I thought that all was lost. Since I knew battle,

Thou art half English. And that was from my boyhood, never

Take them away!
Malet, I vow to build a church to God
Here on the hill of battle; let our high
altar

Stand where their standard fell... where
these two lie.

Take them away, I do not love to see
them.

Pluck the dead woman off the dead man,
Malet !

Malet. Faster than ivy. Must I hack
her arms off?

How shall I part them?

William. Leave them. Let them be!
Bury him and his paramour together.
He that was false in oath to me, it seems
Was false to his own wife. We will not
give him

A Christian burial: yet he was a warrior,
And wise, yea truthful, till that blighted

VOW

Which God avenged to-day.

Wrap them together in a purple cloak And lay them both upon the waste seashore

At Hastings, there to guard the land for which

yet

No, by the splendour of God-have I fought men

Like Harold and his brethren, and his guard

Of English. Every man about his king Fell where he stood. They loved him : and, pray God

My Normans may but move as true with

me

To the door of death. Of one self-stock
at first,

Make them again one people-Norman,
English;

And English, Norman; we should have
a hand

To grasp the world with, and a foot to
stamp it.
Praise the Saints.
No more blood!

Flat.

It is over.

I am king of England, so they thwart me

not,

And I will rule according to their laws.
(To Aldwyth.) Madam, we will entreat
thee with all honour.

Aldwyth. My punishment is more
than I can bear.

THE LOVER'S TALE.

THE original Preface to 'The Lover's Tale' states that it was composed in my nineteenth year. Two only of the three parts then written were printed, when, feeling the imperfection of the poem, I withdrew it from the press. One of my friends however who, boylike, admired the boy's work, distributed among our common associates of that hour some copies of these two parts, without my knowledge, without the omissions and amendments which I had in contemplation, and marred by the many misprints of the compositor. Seeing that these two parts have of late been mercilessly pirated, and that what I had deemed scarce worthy to live is not allowed to die, may I not be pardoned if I suffer the whole poem at last to come into the light-accompanied with a reprint of the sequel-a work of my mature life-'The Golden Supper'?

May 1879.

ARGUMENT.

JULIAN, whose cousin and foster-sister, Camilla, has been wedded to his friend and rival, Lionel, endeavours to narrate the story of his own love for her, and the strange sequel. He speaks (in Parts II. and III.) of having been haunted by visions and the sound of bells, tolling for a funeral, and at last ringing for a marriage; but he breaks away, overcome, as he approaches the Event, and a witness to it completes the tale.

The hills that watch'd thee, as Love The sight that throbs and aches beneath

watcheth Love,

In thine own essence, and delight thyself
To make it wholly thine on sunny days.
Keep thou thy name of 'Lover's Bay.'
See, sirs,

Even now the Goddess of the Past, that
takes

my touch,

As tho' there beat a heart in either eye;
For when the outer lights are darken'd
thus,

The memory's vision hath a keener edge.
It grows upon me now-the semicircle
Of dark-blue waters and the narrow fringe

The heart, and sometimes touches but Of curving beach-its wreaths of dripping

A mountain nest-the pleasure-boat that rock'd,

Light-green with its own shadow, keel to
keel,

Upon the dappled dimplings of the wave,
That blanch'd upon its side.

And heaven pass too, dwelt on my heaven, a face

Most starry-fair, but kindled from within As 'twere with dawn. She was darkhair'd, dark-eyed :

Oh, such dark eyes! a single glance of them

O Love, O Hope! Will govern a whole life from birth to death,

They come, they crowd upon me all at

once

Moved from the cloud of unforgotten | things,

Careless of all things else, led on with light
In trances and in visions: look at them,
You lose yourself in utter ignorance;

That sometimes on the horizon of the You cannot find their depth; for they go

Lies folded, often sweeps athwart in And farther back, and still withdraw

storm

Flash upon flash they lighten thro' me—
days

Of dewy dawning and the amber eves
When thou and I, Camilla, thou and I
Were borne about the bay or safely
moor'd

Beneath a low-brow'd cavern, where the
tide

Plash'd, sapping its worn ribs; and all
without

The slowly-ridging rollers on the cliffs
Clash'd, calling to each other, and thro'

the arch

Down those loud waters, like a setting star,

themselves

Quite into the deep soul, that evermore
Fresh springing from her fountains in the

brain,

Still pouring thro', floods with redundant life

Her narrow portals.

Trust me, long ago
I should have died, if it were possible
To die in gazing on that perfectness
Which I do bear within me: I had died,
But from my farthest lapse, my latest ebb,
Thine image, like a charm of light and
strength

Upon the waters, push'd me back again

Mixt with the gorgeous west the light- On these deserted sands of barren life.

house shone,

And silver-smiling Venus ere she fell
Would often loiter in her balmy blue,
To crown it with herself.

Here, too, my love Waver'd at anchor with me, when day hung

Tho' from the deep vault where the heart

of Hope

Fell into dust, and crumbled in the dark—
Forgetting how to render beautiful
Her countenance with quick and health-
ful blood-

Thou didst not sway me upward; could
I perish

From his mid-dome in Heaven's airy While thou, a meteor of the sepulchre,