{"collection":"Northern European Mythology","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/arthur/art041.htm","path":"neu/arthur/art041.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/neu/arthur/art041.htm","text":"Sacred Texts\u00a0\n Legends/Sagas\u00a0\n England\u00a0\n Index\u00a0\n Previous\u00a0\n Next\u00a0\n \n \n An Arthurian Miscellany\n GUINEVERE TO LANCELOT\n by\n H. C. C.\n \n The night is here, and thou art with me still,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Loved one, although beyond the reach of hands\n Eager to clasp thee; and I long to fill\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Again this soul more dry than desert sands\n Now thou art gone, with the deep-flowing streams\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of thy most gracious prescence. Soon it will\n Return all life-like in the land of dreams.\n \n How shall our struggling hearts, so many years\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As may perchance be thine and mine, sweet Love,\n Out-face this ceaseless storm of hopes and fears,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For aye within us, round, below, above?\n Oh ask me not; for whether joy or tears\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Remain for us, we must bear silently,\n Dearest, and with a love that cannot die.\n \n How do the angels reason of our love?\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And those blest spirits that are gone before,\n Who, now rejoicing in their place above,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Walked with us on this melancoly shore\n Of life, years, years ago; will they forgive\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In us such earth-born folly? Or once more\n Could we with such as they are choose to live?\n \n Ah weary hearts, encrusted o'er with dross\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Caught up from this vile world! Can we be sure,\n When of this lower life we suffer loss,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They will beat freely in an air so pure,\n Fit for the souls who enter into light?\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Such dross is in the grain; it must endure\n Our own, unchanging still, in death's despite.\n \n But come what will, to the last agony,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My choice is made; I cannot yield thee up.\n Dross or pure gold, I give it all to thee.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The pearls of all my life shall in thy cup\n Be thrown and melted; they are nought to me,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Save as they make some bubbling sparkle rise\n To see itself one instant in thine eyes.\n \n \n \n Next: An Epigram, by Thomas Campion [1607]","title":"Arthurian Miscellany: Guinevere to Lancelot, by H. C. C. [1869]","type":"page"}