Page:Tristram of Lyonesse and other poems (IA tristramoflyonesswinrich).pdf/133



all that year in Brittany forlorn, More sick at heart with wrath than fear of scorn And less in love with love than grief, and less With grief than pride of spirit and bitterness, Till all the sweet life of her blood was changed And all her soul from all her past estranged And all her will with all itself at strife And all her mind at war with all her life, Dwelt the white-handed Iseult, maid and wife, A mourner that for mourning robes had on Anger and doubt and hate of things foregone. For that sweet spirit of old which made her sweet Was parched with blasts of thought as flowers with heat And withered as with wind of evil will; Though slower than frosts or fires consume or kill That bleak black wind vexed all her spirit still. As ripples reddening in the roughening breath Of the eager east when dawn does night to death,