Page:Tristram of Lyonesse and other poems (IA tristramoflyonesswinrich).pdf/149

 Laughing for very wrath and thirst to kill, A beast's broad laugh of blind and wolfish will, And smote again ere Tristram's lips drew breath Panting, and swept as by the sense of death, That surely should have touched and sealed them fast Save that the sheer stroke shrilled aside, and passed Frustrate: but answering Tristram smote anew, And thrust the brute breast as with lightning through Clean with one cleaving stroke of perfect might: And violently the vast bulk leapt upright, And plunged over the bridge, and fell: and all The cliffs reverberate from his monstrous fall Rang: and the land by Tristram's grace was free. So with high laud and honour thence went he, And southward set his sail again, and passed The lone land's ending, first beheld and last Of eyes that look on England from the sea: And his heart mourned within him, knowing how she Whose heart with his was fatefully made fast Sat now fast bound, as though some charm were cast About her, such a brief space eastward thence, And yet might soul not break the bonds of sense And bring her to him in very life and breath More than had this been even the sea of death That washed between them, and its wide sweet light The dim strait's darkness of the narrowing night That shuts about men dying whose souls put forth To pierce its passage through: but south and north Alike for him were other than they were: For all the northward coast shone smooth and fair,