THE BLIND HARPER.

And thus it came my feet were led

To wizard walls that hairy hung

Old as their rock the moss made dead;

And, like a ditch of fire flung

Around it, uncouth flowers red

Thrust spur and fang and tongue.

And here I harped. Did dead men list?

Or was it hollow hinges gnarred

Huge, iron scorn in donjon-twist?

And when I thought a face sword-scarred

Would curse me, lo! a woman kissed

At me hands ringed and starred.

And so I sang; for she had leaned

Rare beauty to me, dark and tall;

I sang of Love, whose Court is queened

Of Alienor the virginal,

Nor saw how rolled on me a fiend

Wolf-eyeballs from the wall.

Oh, how I sang! until she laughed

Red lips that made lute harmony;

I sang of knights who fought and quaffed

To Love's own paragon, Marie —

Nor saw the suzerain whose shaft

Was bowed and bent on me.

And I had harped until she wept;

But when I sang of Ermengarde

Of Anjou,— where her Court is kept

By brave, by beauty, and by bard,—

She turned a raven there and swept

Me, like a fury,‘ ward.

A bleeding beak had pierced my sight;

A crimson claw each cheek had lined;

One glimpse: wild walls of threatening night

Heaped raven battlements behind

A moat of blazing serpents bright —

And then I wandered blind.