Page:Tristram of Lyonesse and other poems (IA tristramoflyonesswinrich).pdf/125

 Rose against rose, the highest adored on earth, Imperial: yet with subtle notes of mirth Would she bemock her praises, and bemoan Her glory by that splendour overthrown Which lightened from her sister's eyes elate; Saying how by night a little light seems great, But less than least of all things, very nought, When dawn undoes the web that darkness wrought; How like a tower of ivory well designed By subtlest hand subserving subtlest mind, Ivory with flower of rose incarnadined And kindling with some God therein revealed, A light for grief to look on and be healed, Stood Guenevere: and all beholding her Were heartstruck even as earth at midsummer With burning wonder, hardly to be borne. So was that amorous glorious lady born, A fiery memory for all storied years: Nor might men call her sisters crowned her peers, Her sister queens, put all by her to scorn: She had such eyes as are not made to mourn; But in her own a gleaming ghost of tears Shone, and their glance was slower than Guenevere's, And fitfuller with fancies grown of grief; Shamed as a Mayflower shames an autumn leaf Full well she wist it could not choose but be If in that other's eyeshot standing she Should lift her looks up ever: wherewithal Like fires whose light fills heaven with festival