Page:Tristram of Lyonesse and other poems (IA tristramoflyonesswinrich).pdf/43

 What was before the bidding: and she knew How sore a life dead love should lead her through To what sure end how fearful; and though yet Nor with her blood nor tears her way be wet And she look bravely with set face on fate, Yet she knows well the serpent hour at wait Somewhere to sting and spare not; ay, and he, Arthur' 'The king,' quoth Iseult suddenly, 'Doth the king too live so in sight of fear? They say sin touches not a man so near As shame a woman; yet he too should be Part of the penance, being more deep than she Set in the sin.' 'Nay,' Tristram said, 'for thus It fell by wicked hap and hazardous, That wittingly he sinned no more than youth May sin and be assoiled of God and truth, Repenting; since in his first year of reign As he stood splendid with his foemen slain And light of new-blown battles, flushed and hot With hope and life, came greeting from King Lot Out of his wind-worn islands oversea, And homage to my king and fealty Of those north seas wherein the strange shapes swim, As from his man; and Arthur greeted him As his good lord and courteously, and bade To his high feast; who coming with him had This Queen Morgause of Orkney, his fair wife, In the green middle Maytime of her life,