Page:Tristram of Lyonesse and other poems (IA tristramoflyonesswinrich).pdf/135

 As though the sunflower's faint fierce disk absorbed The spirit and heart of starrier flowers disorbed. That same full hour of twilight's doors unbarred To let bright night behold in Joyous Gard The glad grave eyes of lovers far away Watch with sweet thoughts of death the death of day Saw lonelier by the narrower opening sea Sit fixed at watch Iseult of Brittany. As darkness from deep valleys void and bleak Climbs till it clothe with night the sunniest peak Where only of all a mystic mountain-land Day seems to cling yet with a trembling hand And yielding heart reluctant to recede, So, till her soul was clothed with night indeed, Rose the slow cloud of envious will within And hardening hate that held itself no sin, Veiled heads of vision, eyes of evil gleam, Dim thought on thought, and darkling dream on dream. Far off she saw in spirit, and seeing abhorred, The likeness wrought on darkness of her lord Shine, and the imperial semblance at his side Whose shadow from her seat cast down the bride, Whose power and ghostly presence thrust her forth: Beside that unknown other sea far north She saw them, clearer than in present sight Rose on her eyes the starry shadow of night; And on her heart that heaved with gathering fate Rose red with storm the starless shadow of hate; And eyes and heart made one saw surge and swell The fires of sunset like the fires of hell.