Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/177

Rh Is already gone and past,

And instead thereof is seen

Its winter, which endureth still,—

Tyntagel on its surge-beat hill,

The pleasaunce-walks, the weeping queen,

The flying leaves, the straining blast,

And that long, wild kiss,—their last.

And this rough December-night,

And his burning fever-pain,

Mingle with his hurrying dream,

Till they rule it; till he seem

The pressed fugitive again,

The love-desperate, banished knight,

With a fire in his brain,

Flying o'er the stormy main.

—Whither does he wander now?

Haply in his dreams the wind

Wafts him here, and lets him find

The lovely orphan child again

In her castle by the coast;

The youngest, fairest chatelaine,

That this realm of France can boast,

Our snowdrop by the Atlantic sea,—

Iseult of Brittany.

And—for through the haggard air,

The stained arms, the matted hair,

Of that stranger-knight ill-starred,

There gleamed something which recalled

The Tristram who in better days

Was Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard—

Welcomed here, and here installed,

Tended of his fever here,

Haply he seems again to move

His young guardian's heart with love,