Take courage to entrust your love

To Him so Named, who guards above
Its ends and shall fulfil!

Breaking the narrow prayers that may
Befit your narrow hearts, away
In His broad, loving will.

THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE.

I.

A KNIGHT of gallant deeds

And a young page at his side,
From the holy war in Palestine
Did slow and thoughtful ride,

As each were a palmer and told for beads
The dews of the eventide.

II.

'O young page,' said the knight,

'A noble page art thou!

Thou fearest not to steep in blood

The curls upon thy brow;

And once in the tent, and twice in the fight, Didst ward me a mortal blow.'

III.

‘O brave knight,' said the page,

'Or ere we hither came,

We talked in tent, we talked in field,
Of the bloody battle-game;

But here, below this greenwood bough,
I cannot speak the same.

IV.

'Our troop is far behind,

The woodland calm is new;

Our steeds, with slow grass-muffled hoofs,
Tread deep the shadows through;
And in my mind, some blessing kind
Is dropping with the dew.

V.

"The woodland calm is pure—

I cannot choose but have

A thought from these, o' the beechen-trees Which in our England wave,

And of the little finches fine

Which sang there while in Palestine
The warrior hilt we drave.

VI.

'Methinks, a moment gone,
I heard my mother pray!

I heard, sir knight, the prayer for me
Wherein she passed away;

And I know the heavens are leaning down
To hear what I shall say.'

VII.

The page spake calm and high,
As of no mean degree.

Perhaps he felt in nature's broad

Full heart, his own was free.

And the knight looked up to his lifted eye, Then answered smilingly :

VIII.

'Sir page, I pray your grace!
Certes, I meant not so

To cross your pastoral mood, sir page,
With the crook of the battle bow;
But a night may speak of a lady's face,
ween, in any mood or place,

I

If the grasses die or grow.

IX.

'And this I meant to say,-
My lady's face shall shine

As ladies' faces use, to greet
My page from Palestine;

Or, speak she fair or prank she gay,
She is no lady of mine.

X.

'And this I meant to fear,

Her bower may suit thee ill!
For, sooth, in that same field and tent,
Thy talk was somewhat still;

And fitter thy hand for my knightly spear,
Than thy tongue for my lady's will.'

XI.

Slowly and thankfully

The young page bowed his head: His large eyes seemed to muse a smile, Until he blushed instead,

And no lady in her bower pardiè

Could blush more sudden red.

'Sir Knight,―thy lady's bower to me Is suited well,' he said.

VOL. I.-18

XII.

Beati, beati, mortui!

From the convent on the sea,
One mile off, or scarce as nigh,
Swells the dirge as clear and high
As if that, over brake and lea,
Bodily the wind did carry

The great altar of St. Mary,

And the fifty tapers burning o'er it,
And the lady Abbess dead before it,
And the chanting nuns whom yesterweek
Her voice did charge and bless,—
Chanting steady, chanting meek,
Chanting with a solemn breath
Because that they are thinking less
Upon the Dead than upon death!
Beati, beati, mortui!

Now the vision in the sound
Wheeleth on the wind around.
Now it sleepeth back, away-
The uplands will not let it stay
To dark the western sun.
Mortui!-away at last,—

Or ere the page's blush is past!

And the knight heard all, and the page heard none.

XIII.

'A boon, thou noble knight.

If ever I served thee!

Though thou art a knight and I am a page,

Now grant a boon to me;

And tell me sooth, if dark or bright,

If little loved or loved aright

Be the face of thy ladye.'

XIV.

Gloomily looked the knight;

'As a son thou hast servèd me, And would to none I had granted boon Except to only thee!

For haply then I should love aright,
For then I should know if dark or bright
Were the face of my ladye.

XV.

'Yet ill it suits my knightly tongue
To grudge that granted boon!
That heavy price from heart and life
I paid in silence down.

The hand that claimed it, cleared in fine
My father's fame: I swear by mine,
That price was nobly won.

XVI.

'Earl Walter was a brave old earl,—
He was my father's friend;

And while I rode the lists at court
And little guessed the end,
My noble father in his shroud,
Against a slanderer lying loud,
He rose up to defend.

XVII.

'Oh, calm, below the marble grey
My father's dust was strown!
Oh, meek, above the marble grey
His image prayed alone!