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Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems

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<hr style="width: 65%;" />[Pg 182] <h2>SPELL-BOUND</h2> <div class="cpoem22"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> HOW weary is it none can tell, How dismally the days go by! I hear the tinkling of the bell, I see the cross against the sky. </div> <div class="stanza"> The year wears round to Autumn-tide, Yet comes no reaper to the corn; The golden land is like a bride When first she knows herself forlorn; </div> <div class="stanza"> She sits and weeps with all her hair Laid downward over tender hands; For stainèd silk she hath no care, No care for broken ivory wands; [Pg 183]</div> <div class="stanza"> The silver cups beside her stand; The golden stars on the blue roof Yet glitter, though against her hand His cold sword presses for a proof </div> <div class="stanza"> He is not dead, but gone away. How many hours did she wait For me, I wonder? Till the day Had faded wholly, and the gate </div> <div class="stanza"> Clanged to behind returning knights? I wonder did she raise her head And go away, fleeing the lights; And lay the samite on her bed, </div> <div class="stanza"> The wedding samite strewn with pearls: Then sit with hands laid on her knees, Shuddering at half-heard sound of girls That chatter outside in the breeze? </div> <div class="stanza"> I wonder did her poor heart throb At distant tramp of coming knight? How often did the choking sob Raise up her head and lips? The light, [Pg 184]</div> <div class="stanza"> Did it come on her unawares, And drag her sternly down before People who loved her not? in prayers Did she say one name and no more? </div> <div class="stanza"> And once, all songs they ever sung, All tales they ever told to me, This only burden through them rung: O golden love that waitest me! </div> <div class="stanza"> The days pass on, pass on apace, Sometimes I have a little rest In fairest dreams, when on thy face My lips lie, or thy hands are prest </div> <div class="stanza"> About my forehead, and thy lips Draw near and nearer to mine own; But when the vision from me slips, In colourless dawn I lie and moan, </div> <div class="stanza"> And wander forth with fever'd blood, That makes me start at little things, The blackbird screaming from the wood, The sudden whirr of pheasants' wings. [Pg 185]</div> <div class="stanza"> O dearest, scarcely seen by me! But when that wild time had gone by, And in these arms I folded thee, Who ever thought those days could die? </div> <div class="stanza"> Yet now I wait, and you wait too, For what perchance may never come; You think I have forgotten you, That I grew tired and went home. </div> <div class="stanza"> But what if some day as I stood Against the wall with strainèd hands, And turn'd my face toward the wood, Away from all the golden lands; </div> <div class="stanza"> And saw you come with tired feet, And pale face thin and wan with care, And stainèd raiment no more neat, The white dust lying on your hair: </div> <div class="stanza"> Then I should say, I could not come; This land was my wide prison, dear; I could not choose but go; at home There is a wizard whom I fear: [Pg 186]</div> <div class="stanza"> He bound me round with silken chains I could not break; he set me here Above the golden-waving plains, Where never reaper cometh near. </div> <div class="stanza"> And you have brought me my good sword, Wherewith in happy days of old I won you well from knight and lord; My heart upswells and I grow bold. </div> <div class="stanza"> But I shall die unless you stand, Half lying now, you are so weak, Within my arms, unless your hand Pass to and fro across my cheek. </div> </div></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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