THE WELL-BELOVED

I wayed by star and planet shine

Towards the dear one's home

At Kingsbere, there to make her mine

When the next sun upclomb.

I edged the ancient hill and wood

Beside the Ikling Way,

Nigh where the Pagan temple stood

In the world's earlier day.

And as I quick and quicker walked

On gravel and on green,

I sang to sky, and tree, or talked

Of her I called my queen.

- “O faultless is her dainty form,

And luminous her mind;

She is the God-created norm

Of perfect womankind!”

A shape whereon one star-blink gleamed

Glode softly by my side,

A woman's; and her motion seemed

The motion of my bride.

And yet methought she'd drawn erstwhile

Adown the ancient leaze,

Where once were pile and peristyle

For men's idolatries.

- “O maiden lithe and lone, what may

Thy name and lineage be,

Who so resemblest by this ray

My darling?— Art thou she?”

The Shape: “Thy bride remains within

Her father's grange and grove.”

- “Thou speakest rightly,” I broke in,

“Thou art not she I love.”

- “Nay: though thy bride remains inside

Her father's walls,” said she,

“The one most dear is with thee here,

For thou dost love but me.”

Then I: “But she, my only choice,

Is now at Kingsbere Grove?”

Again her soft mysterious voice:

“I am thy only Love.”

Thus still she vouched, and still I said,

“O sprite, that cannot be!”...

It was as if my bosom bled,

So much she troubled me.

The sprite resumed: “Thou hast transferred

To her dull form awhile

My beauty, fame, and deed, and word,

My gestures and my smile.

“O fatuous man, this truth infer,

Brides are not what they seem;

Thou lovest what thou dreamest her;

I am thy very dream!”

- “O then,” I answered miserably,

Speaking as scarce I knew,

“My loved one, I must wed with thee

If what thou say'st be true!”

She, proudly, thinning in the gloom:

“Though, since troth-plight began,

I've ever stood as bride to groom,

I wed no mortal man!”

Thereat she vanished by the Cross

That, entering Kingsbere town,

The two long lanes form, near the fosse

Below the faneless Down.

- When I arrived and met my bride,

Her look was pinched and thin,

As if her soul had shrunk and died,

And left a waste within.