_Tristram_. Chill blows the wind, the pleasaunce-walks° are drear-- °161 Madcap, what jest was this, to meet me here? Were feet like those made for so wild a way? The southern winter-parlour, by my fay,° °164 Had been the likeliest trysting-place to-day! 165 _"Tristram!--nay, nay--thou must not take my hand!-- Tristram!--sweet love!--we are betray'd--out-plann'd. Fly--save thyself--save me!--I dare not stay."_-- One last kiss first!--_"'Tis vain--to horse--away!"_
Ah! sweet saints, his dream doth move 170 Faster surely than it should, From the fever in his blood! All the spring-time of his love Is already gone and past, And instead thereof is seen 175 Its winter, which endureth still-- Tyntagel on its surge-beat hill, The pleasaunce-walks, the weeping queen, The flying leaves, the straining blast, And that long, wild kiss--their last.° °180 And this rough December-night, And his burning fever-pain, Mingle with his hurrying dream, Till they rule it, till he seem The press'd fugitive again, 185 The love-desperate banish'd knight With a fire in his brain Flying o'er the stormy main. --Whither does he wander now? Haply in his dreams the wind 190 Wafts him here, and lets him find The lovely orphan child° again° °192 In her castle by the coast; The youngest, fairest chatelaine,° °194 Whom this realm of France can boast, 195 Our snowdrop by the Atlantic sea, Iseult of Brittany. And--for through the haggard air, The stain'd arms, the matted hair Of that stranger-knight ill-starr'd,° °200 There gleam'd something, which recall'd The Tristram who in better days Was Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard°-- °203 Welcomed here,° and here install'd, °204 Tended of his fever here, 205 Haply he seems again to move His young guardian's heart with love In his exiled loneliness, In his stately, deep distress, Without a word, without a tear. 210 --Ah! 'tis well he should retrace His tranquil life in this lone place; His gentle bearing at the side Of his timid youthful bride; His long rambles by the shore 215 On winter-evenings, when the roar Of the near waves came, sadly grand, Through the dark, up the drown'd sand, Or his endless reveries In the woods, where the gleams play 220 On the grass under the trees, Passing the long summer's day Idle as a mossy stone In the forest-depths alone, The chase neglected, and his hound 225 Couch'd beside him on the ground.° °226 --Ah! what trouble's on his brow? Hither let him wander now; Hither, to the quiet hours Pass'd among these heaths of ours. 230 By the grey Atlantic sea; Hours, if not of ecstasy, From violent anguish surely free!