Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/119

98 A false tale made he Of my true, true lady; But the spear went through his mouth.

In the winter weather We rode back together From the broad mead under the hill; And the cock sung his warning As it grew toward morning, But the far-off hound was still.

Black grew his tower As we rode down lower, Black from the barren hill; And our horses strode Up the winding road To the gateway dim and still.

At the gate of his tower, In the quiet hour, We laid his body there; But his helmet broken, We took as a token; Shout for my lady fair!

We rode back together In the winter weather From the broad mead under the hill; No cloud did darken The night; we did hearken How the hound bay'd from the hill.

In the article on Amiens Cathedral, which appeared in the February number, the intense love and wonderful knowledge Morris had of the Middle Ages, and of those glorious French Gothic churches which were always to him the crown and flower of the whole world's architecture, expressed themselves in what is perhaps even yet the noblest and most loving tribute ever paid to the great Cathedral. It was not written without violent struggles. "I am to have a grind about Amiens Cathedral this time," he writes from home on the 11th of January, "it is very poor and inadequate, I cannot