Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)

LIKE souls that balance joy and pain,

With tears and smiles from heaven again

The maiden Spring upon the plain

Came in a sun-lit fall of rain.

In crystal vapor everywhere

Blue isles of heaven laughed between,

And far, in forest-deeps unseen,

The topmost elm-tree gathered green

From draughts of balmy air.

Sometimes the linnet piped his song;

Sometimes the throstle whistled strong;

Sometimes the sparhawk, wheeled along,

Hushed all the groves from fear of wrong:

By grassy capes with fuller sound

In curves the yellowing river ran,

And drooping chestnut-buds began

To spread into the perfect fan,

Above the teeming ground.

Then, in the boyhood of the year,

Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere

Rode thro’ the coverts of the deer,

With blissful treble ringing clear.

She seemed a part of joyous Spring;

A gown of grass-green silk she wore,

Buckled with golden clasps before;

A light-green tuft of plumes she bore

Closed in a golden ring.

Now on some twisted ivy-net,

Now by some tinkling rivulet,

In mosses mixed with violet

Her cream-white mule his pastern set:

And fleeter now she skimmed the plains

Than she whose elfin prancer springs

By night to eery warblings,

When all the glimmering moorland rings

With jingling bridle-reins.

As fast she fled thro’ sun and shade,

The happy winds upon her played,

Blowing the ringlet from the braid:

She looked so lovely, as she swayed

The rein with dainty finger-tips,

A man had given all other bliss,

And all his worldly worth for this,

To waste his whole heart in one kiss

Upon her perfect lips.