Page:Tristram of Lyonesse and other poems (IA tristramoflyonesswinrich).pdf/124

 On each bleak bluff breaking the strenuous tides That rings reverberate mirth when storm bestrides The subject night in thunder: many a noon They took the moorland's or the bright sea's boon With all their hearts into their spirit of sense, Rejoicing, where the sudden dells grew dense With sharp thick flight of hillside birds, or where On some strait rock's ledge in the intense mute air Erect against the cliff's sheer sunlit white Blue as the clear north heaven, clothed warm with light, Stood neck to bended neck and wing to wing With heads fast hidden under, close as cling Flowers on one flowering almond-branch in spring, Three herons deep asleep against the sun, Each with one bright foot downward poised, and one Wing-hidden hard by the bright head, and all Still as fair shapes fixed on some wondrous wall Of minster-aisle or cloister-close or hall To take even time's eye prisoner with delight. Or, satisfied with joy of sound and sight, They sat and communed of things past: what state King Arthur, yet unwarred upon by fate, Held high in hall at Camelot, like one Whose lordly life was as the mounting sun That climbs and pauses on the point of noon, Sovereign: how royal rang the tourney's tune Through Tristram's three days' triumph, spear to spear, When Iseult shone enthroned by Guenevere,