Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/189

Rh Where those lifeless lovers be.

Swinging with it, in the light

Flaps the ghost-like tapestry.

And on the arras wrought you see

A stately huntsman, clad in green,

And round him a fresh forest-scene.

On that clear forest-knoll he stays,

With his pack round him, and delays.

He stares and stares, with troubled face,

At this huge, gleam-lit fireplace,

At that bright, iron-figured door,

And those blown rushes on the floor.

He gazes down into the room

With heated cheeks and flurried air,

And to himself he seems to say,—

"What place is this, and who are they?

Who is that kneeling lady fair?

And on his pillows that pale knight

Who seems of marble on a tomb?

How comes it here, this chamber bright,

Through whose mullioned windows clear

The castle-court all wet with rain,

The drawbridge and the moat appear,

And then the beach, and, marked with spray,

The sunken reefs, and far away

The unquiet bright Atlantic plain?

—What! has some glamour made me sleep,

And sent me with my dogs to sweep,

By night, with boisterous bugle-peal,

Through some old, sea-side, knightly hall,

Not in the free green wood at all?

That knight's asleep, and at her prayer

That lady by the bed doth kneel—

Then hush, thou boisterous bugle-peal!