Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE KNIGHTS AT RINGSTEAD: 4. THE KNIGHT BEAUCLERC TO THE LADY GLORIA, by RACHEL ANNAND TAYLOR



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE KNIGHTS AT RINGSTEAD: 4. THE KNIGHT BEAUCLERC TO THE LADY GLORIA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When that the queen with all her maids came / singing
Last Line: Farewell! Farewell! But I have loved you best.
Subject(s): Beauty; Courts & Courtiers; Crowns; Dreams; Flowers; Knights & Knighthood; Love; Roses; Nightmares


I.

WHEN that the Queen with all her maids came singing
Across the daisies, through a dusk of May,
Their spoils of fairy gold and silver bringing,
You rang no chime in that sweet roundelay:—
But held yourself a little way apart,
Your hands above your heart,—
A fair frail image robed in royal scarlet,
Dreaming of splendours insolent and war-lit,
Dreaming of crowns to wear,—
Although your drooping head could hardly bear
Its crown-imperial of yellow hair.

II.

Crowns, crowns of tournaments to lay before you!
What was a wistful singer to your pride,
A clerkly dreamer-Knight? Ah, to adore you,
I gripped the lance, and threw the pen aside.—
But oh! the crown of song is loveliest.
Yea! I have loved you best,—
Crowned you in dreams with faint white stars of glory,
Kisses imagined from all antique story;
—But you as bindweed hold
My rare dream-jasmine. You would circlets cold
Of wounding laurel and of bruising gold.

III.

Therefore I lie here vanquished. Let the victor
Carry the crown before your red-shod feet:
Love is a cruel god,—hath many a lictor
To scourge with briar who found the Rose too sweet.
Yon ring of hard bright faces hems me in,
Branding like bitter sin:
Yours flashes like a jewel,—crowned, unsated,
My shame your honour. Thus, then, was it fated,
O cold unheeding breast!—
And yet the crown of love is loveliest.
Farewell! Farewell! But I have loved you best.





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