Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth

Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13th, 1798

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur. – Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
‘Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreathes of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some hermit’s cave, where by his fire
The hermit sits alone.

                                   These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration: – – feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man’s life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened: – that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

                                               If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft —
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart —
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro’ the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all. — I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye. — That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompence. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear, — both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

                                       Nor perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; ’tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance —
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence — wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love — oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

Sheep Badgers

One can always tell a forester from a foreigner, for when he speaks of a ‘ship’ he does not mean the boat that carries away his coal from the harbour port of Lydney – he is speaking of the sheep that roam in the forest. These animals would almost seem to own the forest, except that the saddles of their fleeces are marked with the initials of individual proprietorship, and the man who runs sheep in the forest is a ‘ship badger.’ These amateur shepherds are easily distinguished, for, as they wander about the woods, there is always a border collie at their heels. The ship badger is so called not on account of his black and white dog, but because it is his habit to badger another man’s sheep when he finds them grazing near his own.

Sheep badgering is of ancient origin, and some will tell you, without the evidence of written history, that it was a privilege granted by William the Conqueror to the foresters in compensation for damage done by his deer and the routing boar to their holdings.

In point of law, however, no Crown land can be common, and this freedom to pasture is a privilege and not a right. Also this privilege was granted to those whose land bordered on Dean, so that many a squatter and other dwellings within the forest are technically without ‘right of commonage.’ Furthermore, when this grant was made, the original bounds of the forest were far beyond their present confines, and the Severn side hamlet of Rodley, now divided from the forest by several miles of orchard and pasture, once enjoyed this privilege in Dean. A few small holders on the forest fringe still turn their sheep into the woods, though a farmer frowns on the practice, deeming it more trouble than it is worth. The sheep badger, though not invariably, is usually a miner, and nine out of every ten of them have at some time or another worked underground.

The above text is from “The Forest of Dean”
                by Brian Waters
                publisher: Dent 1951

White Stag

White stags feature in a number of Arthurian tales. It was said that whoever hunted one down could kiss the loveliest girl in Arthur’s court.

One was chased by Sagremor in Rigomer, while another was hunted in the Forest of Adventure in Erec.

Floriant pursued one which brought him to the castle of his foster-mother, Morgan Le Fay and, in the Didot Perceval, Perceval cut off the head of a white stag.

The white stag may originally have featured in stories of a pagan, mythical nature and these tales may have some connection with the Celtic stag cult.

          The above text is from:
                “The Encyclopædia of Arthurian Legends”
                by Ronan Coghlan
                publisher: BCA 1991

Blackpool Brook

At one point a little stream of water runs in a culvert underneath the [Spruce] Drive; so small as hardly to be noticed were its voice not strong from recent rains. It deserves notice too; for this is Blackpool Brook, which when strong and broad a few miles farther on its course, will show us one of the most interesting antiquities the Forest holds. Without the Blackpool Brook we should lack Blackpool Bridge with its adjacent ford; that ford, the curve to which, neglected by the traffic of to-day, preserves a strip of Roman paving perfect as when laid.

This text is taken from “The Forest of Dean” by Arthur O. Cooke, published by Constable in 1913.

Mystery Bridge

This structure is on the disused Severn and Wye Valley Railway, on the approach to Drybrook Road Station in the east from Serridge Junction in the west, it appears to have no obvious purpose: leading from nowhere in the north, to a drop at the south end.

I have passed this ‘Mystery Bridge’ many times on my own and with family and friends. Its purpose remained an enigma to me. Then my son came up with the idea that it might be protecting the track from the Trafalgar Tip.

This turned out to be its real purpose, as I found out when I re-read
H. W. Parr’s book “The Severn and Wye Valley Railway”. Here is the relevant piece of text. (2013 – EH)

The route curves on an embankment through the forest, over the Cannop Brook, with glimpses of the Lydbrook line at a higher level. Approaching Serridge Jcn (16 miles 33 chains), Crown siding passed through a gate, to a small wharf; laid in 1903 for loading Crown timber, it fell out of use about 1952. To the north, the vast Trafalgar tip is clothed with conifers, and surmounted by a fire observation post.

Beyond Serridge Jcn the single line was in a cutting, with the Trafalgar tip an ever-increasing menace. In 1887 a serious slip occurred, and a retaining wall, with a buttress over the line, was built in 1904. The first connection to Trafalgar was a loop on the main line with two sidings into the colliery. Beyond, on the down side, a gate marks the later (1890) connection to Trafalgar, a 15-chain siding to the screens.

At Drybrook Road station (17 miles 32 chains), in a charming setting, the west connection of the loop to the main line was a double slip so that Trafalgar traffic could run direct to Bilson Jcn or on to the Mineral Loop. The course falls past a connection to Crump Meadow Colliery, to Laymoor Jcn (17 miles 69 chains), worked by a ground frame, and the site of Bilson platform (up side). Immediately beyond, the Trafalgar Tramway crossed on the level en route to Bilson Yard, the S & W curving to its triangular junction with the GWR Churchway branch. The tramway crossing was closed in 1890, and in 1900 Laymoor Jcn came into being, with the extension into Cinderford.

The text above is from:
                “The Severn and Wye Valley Railway”
                by H. W. Parr
                publisher: David & Charles 1963

Blackpennywall Well

“This was probably commonly used as a drinking place by travellers through the Forest. Its importance is indicated by the way it has been lined with stonework. The name is a corruption of Blackberry.”

This text was written by B. Cave of the Wilderness Wildlife Centre Mitcheldean and M.J. Dunn, Forest Warden, for the Forestry Commission ‘Boy’s Grave and Forest Trail’. © 1974

De Wyrhale: A Tale of Dean Forest

De Wyrhale: A Tale of Dean Forest

By P.J. Ducarel, Esq.

I.

“There was a day of strife in History’s page

Deep noted, and its dark detail of crime ;

Brother with brother then learn’d war to wage

Ev’n to the death in his gentle clime ;

Parent, and child in arms, with fiendlike rage

For rugged onslaught met at that fell time ;

It was an age of horror, and the stain,

Whilst England yet survives shall remain.

II.

But thence I seek my theme ; and will resort,

Where crimes amidst, shall virtue blaze more clear,

Embellish’d with sweet lore, in that report

The muse pours forth to win the listening ear :

So graced with flowers from Fancy’s fairy court,

That even Lucilla may not dread to hear

When Inspiration ranges fair to view,

And robes the deeds of eld with her warm hue.

III.

Oh ! ‘t was an awful hour for Albion’s weal,

When the Red rose, and rival White arrayed

Her hosts for slaughter, and to hateful steel

High mettled knight by kindred ties unstayed,

Unchecked by keen remorse, made fierce appeal,

And couched the lance, and brandished the sharp blade.

Ye, who despise not dulcet song, survey

The scene with me come listen to my lay.

IV.

Dire was the clang of arms ; each rival king

Sent forth his myriads, where the battle fray

Was fierce and sharp, and War was his full swing

Of carnage held his unrelenting sway ;

And shout was heard of hosts re-echoing,

And glancing steel flashed back the bright sun-ray :

The gorged earth steamed hot with recent flood

Shed by her children, of her children’s blood.

V.

For Glory called, and Honour, laurel wreathed,

Greedy of high report,—and youthful eyes

Ardent with Hope, that o’er the bosom breathed

Contempt of death, strained at the high emprize ;

And grasping hand the sword for death unsheathed,

And bade heaped high the pile of slaughter rise,

Where thousands rushed to swell the page of story,

The crimsoned page of honour and glory.

VI.

Oh honour!—what is honour? glory what ?

Twin phantoms, aye pursued with murderous skill—

Marring of peaceful souls the feebler lot,

Urging alas ! to ravage, rend, and kill,

With demon rage to senseless fury wrought,

And spurn Compassion’s touch, and Pity’s thrill.

Man wades to fame through blood ; the unreasoning beast

Bounds on his prey that he may gorge a feast,

VII.

That he may stain the paws, which mature first

Taught him to tinge with purple gore, and thrive

On carnage ; that, as instinct prompts, his thirst

He slake in blood ; that he may quaff and live.

But sated, he is disarmed : in sleep immersed,

His slumbers to the weak a respite give.

Such is not glory’s pretext, honour’s plea—

Twin idols, worshipped of humanity.

VIII.

With dazzled eyes by fair and specious charm

Of fascination undefined, see led

From fond parental care to deathful harm

The youth, o’er whom a thousand tears are shed

The long and watchful night : nerved is his arm

For foul remorseless slaughter far bespread

Where rival monarchs strive, whose angry mood

Shall be appeased alone in rival blood.

IX.

And heedless of the heart-consuming pang

That tender mothers feel, or pure arms

Of sisters, who with fond endearment hang

Upon his neck with tears, War’s loud alarms,

Keen weapon-glare, and soul inspiring clang

Fire all his fancy with a thousand charms ;

His bosom pants, his heart throbs quick, his eye

Is fixed where Fame has reared her fane on high.

X.

Ah! cursed was He, dire origin of strife,

Who, awful hour ! first armed, and raised his hand

With envy fired to madness ‘gainst the life

Of his own fellow ! Hence the rancorous brand

Hath fleshed its vengeance, and with murders rife

And ruthless, deep empurpled all the land—

Alas that laurel wreaths alone should bloom

Where myriads rush to glut the greedy tomb !

XI.

Cease here thy wandering, Muse—for thou the tale

Must now recount of fair-haired Rosabelle,

And in sad strains her mourneful lot unveil,

And what herself and her true Knight befel :

And if that heart their hapless fate bewail,

And that dear bosom with a soft sigh swell,

Whose sympathy and loved applause I seek,

And a bright drop of pity dew her cheek,

XII.

I ask no more.—‘T is the sweet balmy hour

Of waking nature ;  the light vapour creeps

Along the mountain’s side, which a softer shower

Of dew late sprinkled, such as cold Night weeps,

When no dull clouds in the clear welkin lower,

And solemnly her sober state she keeps

And silently ; twilight, day’s harbinger,

Hath bid her speed her noiseless wheels afar.

XIII.

For lo! each luminous gem hath, one by one,

In heaven’s wide concave lost, retired from sight,

Warned by the faint read streak that eastward shone

And of their glory robbed, as, dazzling bright,

Their sovereign lord prepares his course to run,

And robe the hemisphere with warmth and light.

Ah! wonder ye, if erst in worship bowed

Mankind entic’d hath kissed the hand, and vowed,

XIV.

And reared an altar, as the boundless blaze

Of that uprising first his eye surveyed,

Ere Revelation’s high and hallowed rays

Her far more glorious torch from high displayed ?

If yon effulgence, hymned in strains of praise,

The Sabian in God’s attributes arrayed

And with rich offerings decked the golden fane,

Whence gods innumerous their impious reign

XV.

Spread far and wide ?  See all around the scene

Is forest vast, umbrageous ; mighty oak

And beech point heavenward, and of soberest green

And shade, dark yew, which the stout woodman’s stroke

Almost defies ; there heard, but oft unseen

Pours the rough torrent, or the rippling brook ;

And there, amid the woodland, to the glade

With fern and mingled heather wildly clad,

XVI.

From the close covert creeping, oft the deer,

Timorous and fleet of foot, would safely stray ;

And high and haught the stately stag uprear

His branching antlers, gaily tossed in play ;

Or ruminating lend attentive ear

To every sound that Zephyr’s wings convey,

Fearing th’insidious bolt of lurking foe,—

But death decreed were he should deal the blow

XVII.

Should do him scathe—sole prey of royale sport :—

For when no more the combat’s rude alarms

To the red field of hot contention court,

For luck of stirring strife and deathful harms,

In mimic warfare here oft made resort

Fair England’s kings equiped with sylvan arms;

In woodcraft skilled they chased of flight and fear

The dappled slaves, or roused the hour with spear,

XVIII.

Or tracked the wolf ferocious, who with care

By nature taught, her secret den within

Provides her couch of moss, deposing there

Her helpless young, secluded from the keen

And pitiless hunter, and the treacherous glare

Of daylight, whom she rears, and schools unseen ;

Till their fierce lesson conned, to seek their food,

She sends them forth for rapine ripe, and blood.

XIX.

But now these tracts of varied hill and dale,

Mountain and mighty rock, had long been found

For beasts a still retreat, nor swelled the gale

The horn, and full-tongued bay of the dread hound :

For civil jars the mourning land assail,

And sighs and groans alone are heard around ;

And Britain’s sons at loftier quarry strain

In steel arrayed—their prey alas ! is Man.—

XX.

Hah ? who is he, that form of hoary eld,

Crept from within yon grot of moss-clad stone

From curious eyes secluded, and concealed

With yew, and with holly overgrown ?

Long has he bowed his head and suppliant kneeled

With tearful eye and penitential groan,

Before the ragged Cross his pious care

Hath rudely framed, and hallowed, and placed there.—

XXI.

Nature hath formed his temple ; far extend

The chestnut’s branches o’er him, and afford

O’ershadowing voute high arched, and darkly lend

A sober dignity where heaven’s high lord

May deign to dwell, and pilgrims lowly bend,

Who come to list that holy hermit’s word,

Fraught with Devotion’s pure and hallowed flame ,

And seek for peace in Jesu’s sacred name.

XXII.

Hark ! as the good prays, a rustling near

Precedes th’approach of footfall — see, o see,

He heeds it not, he hath not sense to hear,

Or will to rise from his yet bended knee ; —

His thought is fled beyond this humbler sphere.

A sylphid form is standing silently

Behind the prostrate suppliant, and her look

Is upwards cast, as she that prayer partook.

XXIII.

And in her eye a liquid crystal glows,

Pure as the spring from whence its gems drew birth ;

Which with succession quick of pearls o’erflows,

Bright as Morn’s tears, which spangle the green earth ;

Whilst fair to view her every feature shews

A meek display of gentleness and worth,

And with harmonious tone and fervent strain,

Her opening lips breathe sweetly forth, Amen.

XXIV.

It is a lovely sight that face to see

It is a boon conferred that voice to hear ;

Calm as o’erhead the heaven’s blue canopy,

Sweet as the ascending lark, when skies are clear,

Pours forth her notes of grateful melody

Upon the silence of the listening sphere,

As far on high upon wing upborn,

She pays the tribute of her praise at morn.

XXV.

The prayer is o’er, the well known voice is heard,

The man of God arising hastes to meet

His beauteous visitant with gentle word

And smile benignant :—“Seek’st thou this retreat,

Fair Rosabelle, e’er yet the wakeful bird

(God’s mother guard thee!) hath aroused to greet

The day’s first streak across the welkin borne—

Say for what cause thou bravest the briar and thorn

To be continued . . .

The Tomb of Jenkin Wyrhale

This piece is from volume IV of a series of books called “Antiquarian and Topographical Cabinet” published in 1806.

THE TOMB OF JENKIN WYRHALE, IN
NEWLAND CHURCHYARD,
GLOCESTERESHIRE

This Tomb appears to have been erected by King Henry VI as a mark of his approbation of the faithful services of Jenkin Wyrhale who held a respectable office in the forest of Dean to which he was first appointed by Henry IV. The inscription on the tomb points out his office and at the same time well describes his character :

“ Here lies Jenkin Wyrhale, chief forester in fee,
A braver fellow never lived, nor will there ever be.”

He was buried by his own desire at Newland although his residence was in the parish of Bicknor where he built a seat called Bicknor Court and where the family still resides. The ancient house has been taken down and a more modern edifice erected in its place.

Newland is a pleasing village, forming an irregular square round the church, and inhabited by many respectable families. The Church, dedicated to All Saints, is a spacious building, with a tower at the west end, neatly ornamented with pinnacles and open-work battlements. On the west side of the church is a grammar-school, founded in 1632 by Edward Bell, gent. with a house and endowment for a master. Here is also an alm’s-house, founded by the same gentleman, for eight poor people. The principle houses being detached and interspersed with trees and gardens, gives this village an air of rural elegance but seldom seen. There are carried on at this place extensive iron and coal works, which give employment to several hundred persons. The inhabitants of this parish, as returned under the late act, amount to 2454, the number of houses to 522.

from:

Antiquarian and Topographical Cabinet,
Containing a Series of Elegant Views
of the Most Interesting Objects of Curiosity in Great Britain
Accompanied with Letter-Press Descriptions. VOL. IV.
James Storer & John Grieg
LONDON
Published for the Proprietors by
W. Clarke, New Bond Street
J. Carpenter, Old Bond Street
Sherwood, Neely and Jones, Paternoster Row.
1806.

Boy’s Grave

The legend has it that a gypsy boy, camping nearby, went to the spring to drink and fell on his knife, killing himself.
He is said to be buried by an old oak that has long since disappeared.
The oak may have marked the boundary of one of the areas, once called bailiwicks, of the Forest.

A more likely explanation of the name is that it comes from the Norman French ‘Bois Greve’ meaning a sloping wood.

This text was written by B.V.Cave of the Wilderness Wildlife Centre Mitcheldean
and M.J. Dunn, Forest Warden, for the Forestry Commission ‘Boy’s Grave and Forest Trail’ © 1974.

Forest of Dean in Verse

Michael Drayton, Catherine Drew, John Haines, F.W. Harvey and Alfred Lord Tennyson

*

Michael Drayton

from Poly-Olbion

Here (The queen of forests all, that west of Severne lie);
Her broad and bushy top Deane holdeth up so high,
The lesser are not seen, she is so tall and large.
And standing in such state upon the winding marge.

§ Within her hollow woods the Satyrs did won
In gloomy secret shades, not pierc’d with summer’s sun,
Under a false pretence the Nymphs to entertain,
Oft ravish’d the choice of Sabrin’s watr’y train;
And from their Mistress’; banks them taking as a prey,
Unto their woody caves have carried them away:
Then from her inner groves for succour when they cried,
She retchless of their wrongs (her Satyrs’; scapes to hide)
Unto their just complaint not once her ear inclines:
So fruitful in her woods, and wealthy in her mines,
That Leden which her way doth through the desert make,
Though near to Deane allied, determin’d to forsake
Her course, and her clear limbs amongst the bushes hide,
Lest by the Sylvans (should she chance to be espied)
She might unmaid’ned go unto her Sovereign flood:
So many were the rapes done on the wat’ry brood,
That Sabrine to her sire (great Neptune) forc’d to sue,
The riots to repress of this outrageous crew,
His arm’d orks he sent her milder stream to keep,
To drive them back to Deane that troubled all the deep.

Catherine Drew

In a little thatched cottage, as free as a King,
Near a green shady grove, where the birds used to sing
I was born and was bred, in the Forest of Dean
I knew nothing of town or what it did mean.

John Haines

And if you saw the foxgloves
Arrogant with bloom,
A hundred thousand purple torches
Lighting the forest gloom,
The green gloom of the royal oaks
In the ancient Forest of Dean,
You’d think the foxglove the finest flower
Your eyes had ever seen!

F W Harvey

In Devil’s Chapel they dug the Ore
A thousand years ago, and more.
Earth’s veins of gleaming metal showing
like crusted blood first set aglowing
Phoenician faces.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

PELLEAS AND ETTARRE

KING ARTHUR made new knights to fill the gap
Left by the Holy Quest ; and as he sat
In hall at old Caerleon, the high doors
Were softly sunder’d, and thro’ these a youth,
Pelleas, and the sweet smell of the fields
Past, and the sunshine came along with him.

   ‘Make me thy knight, because I know, Sir King,
All that belongs to knighthood, and I love. ’
Such was his cry : for having heard the King
Had let proclaim a tournament—the prize
A golden circlet and a knightly sword,
Full fain had Pelleas for his lady won
The golden circlet, for himself the sword :
And there were those who knew him near the King,
And promised for him : and Arthur made him knight.

   And this new knight, Sir Pelleas of the isles—
But lately come to his inheritance,
And lord of many a barren isle was he—
Riding at noon, a day or twain before,
Across the forest call’d of Dean, to find
Caerleon and the King, had felt the sun
Beat like a strong knight on his helm, and reel’d
Almost to falling from his horse ; but saw
Near him a mound of even-sloping side,
Whereon a hundred stately beeches grew,
And here and there great hollies under them ;
But for a mile all round was open space,
And fern and heath : and slowly Pelleas drew
To that dim day, then binding his good horse
To a tree, cast himself down ; and as he lay
At random looking over the brown earth
Thro’ that green-glooming twilight of the grove,
It seem’d to Pelleas that the fern without
Burnt as a living fire of emeralds,
So that his eyes were dazzled looking at it.
Then o’er it crost the dimness of a cloud
Floating, and once the shadow of a bird
Flying, and then a fawn ; and his eyes closed.
And since he loved all maidens, but no maid
In special, half-awake he whisper’d, ‘Where ?
O where ? I love thee, tho’ I know thee not.
For fair thou art and pure as Guinevere,
And I will make thee with my spear and sword
As famous—O my Queen, my Guinevere,
For I will be thine Arthur when we meet.’

   Suddenly waken’d with a sound of talk
And laughter at the limit of the wood,
And glancing thro’ the hoary boles, he saw,
Strange as to some old prophet might have seem’d
A vision hovering on a sea of fire,
Damsels in divers colours like the cloud
Of sunset and sunrise, and all of them
On horses, and the horses richly trapt
Breast-high in that bright line of bracken stood :
And all the damsels talk’d confusedly,
And one was pointing this way, and one that,
Because the way was lost.

                  And Pelleas rose,
And loosed his horse, and led him to the light.
There she that seem’d the chief among them said,
‘In happy time behold our pilot-star !
Youth, we are damsels-errant, and we ride,
Arm’d as ye see, to tilt against the knights
There at Caerleon, but have lost our way :
To right ? to left ? straight forward ? back again ?
Which ? tell us quickly.’

                  Pelleas gazing thought,
‘Is Guinevere herself so beautiful ?’
For large her violet eyes look’d, and her bloom
A rosy dawn kindled in stainless heavens,
And round her limbs, mature in womanhood ;
And slender was her hand and small her shape ;
And but for those large eyes, the haunts of scorn,
She might have seem’d a toy to trifle with,
And pass and care no more. But while he gazed
The beauty of her flesh abash’d the boy,
As tho’ it were the beauty of her soul :
For as the base man, judging of the good,
Puts his own baseness in him by default
Of will and nature, so did Pelleas lend
All the young beauty of his own soul to hers,
Believing her ; and when she spake to him,
Stammer’d, and could not make her a reply.
For out of the waste islands had he come,
Where saving his own sisters he had known
Scarce any but the women of his isles,
Rough wives, that laughed and screamed against the gulls,
Makers of nets, and living from the sea.