After long labours brought to end,
With their two dames in joyance spend
The blue June hours; Sir Agravaine
With Dame Laurell along the main
Seeks his new home; and Pelleas
Sits smiling calm in halls of glass
At Nimuë's knees. Good knights be these
Because they have their hearts at ease,
Because their lives and loves are join'd:
O if two hearts in one life were,
What life were that! . . . God let me find
Fair Urience with the yellow hair!

7.

Mere life is vile. I may have done
Deeds not unworthy, and have won
Unwilling fame, tho' all men blame
This heart's unrest which makes me shun
The calm content which good men take
From good deeds done for good deeds' sake,
Deeds that in doing of the deed
Do bless the doer, who should need
No bless beyond: but what to me
Is this, and that over land and sea
My name should fly? Or what care I
For the mere sake of climbing high,
To climb for ever steps that wind
Up empty towers? I only wear
Life hollow thus, unless I find
Fair Urience with the yellow hair.

8.

Sometimes, whom I to free from wrong
Have dragons fought, strange folk do throng
About my steed, and lightly lead
My horse and me, with shout and song,
In banner'd castle-courts; and there
From chambers cool come dames most fair,
Whose forms as thro' a cloud I see,
Whose voices seem far off to be,
Tho' near they stand, and bid me rest
Awhile within, where, richly drest,
In order stored, with goblets poured,
I see the sparkling banquet-board;
But far from these is all my mind,
For ..." What if faces I must scare
In noisome dew now seek to bind
Fair Urience with the yellow hair?"

9.

In deepest dark, when no moon shines
Thro' the blind night on the black pines
With bony boughs, if I, to drouze
(As sometimes mere despair inclines
A frame outworn) should slip from horse
And lay me down along the gorse
In some cold hollow far away
A little while—albeit I pray
Ere I lie down—my dreams are drear:
First comes a slowly-creeping fear,
Like icy dew, that seems to glue
My limbs to earth, and freeze them thro',
Then a long shriek on a wild wind,
And " 0," I think, " if hers it were,
And I a murder'd corpse should find
Fair Urience with the yellow hair!"

10.

Sometimes 'neath dropping white rose-leaves
I ride, and under gilded eaves,
Of garden bowers, where, plucking flowers,
With scarlet skirts and stiff gold sleeves,
Between green walls, and two by two,
Kings' daughters walk, whilst just a few
Faint harps make music mild, that falls
Like mist from off the ivied walls
Along the sultry coon, and stirs
The hearts of far-off harvesters;
Then, on the brink of hope, I shrink
With shuddering strange, the while I think
"O what if, after body and mind
Consumed in toil, and all my care,
Not a corpse, but a bride, I find
Fair Urience with the yellow hair?"

11.

But when at night's most lonely noon,
The ghost of an ill-buried moon
Frets in the shroud of a cold cloud,
And, like the echo of a tune,
Within my ear the silence makes
A yearning sound that throbs and aches,
A whisper-sigh ... " The grave is deep,
There is no better thing than sleep.
Life's fever speeds its own disease,
Let the male work: be thou at peace."
Yet why should this fair earth which is
So fair, so fit to furnish bliss,
Prove a mere failure—stuff design'd
By Hope to clothe her foe Despair?
And whence, if vain, this need to find
Fair Urience with the yellow hair?

12.

This grieving after unknown good,
Though but a sickness in the blood,
Cries from the dust. And God is just.
No rock denies the raven food.
And who would torture, night by night,
Some starving creature with the sight
Of bouquets fair with plenty spread,
Then mock ..." crawl empty thou to bed
And dream of viands not for thee!"
Yet night by night, dear God, to me
In wake or sleep such visions creep
To gnaw my heart with hunger deep.
How can I meet dull death, resign'd
So die the fool of dreams so fair?
Nay, love hath seen, and life shall find
Fair Urience with the yellow hair.

13.

Good Pilgrim to whatever shrine,
With whatsoever vows of thine,
Thou wendest, stay! I charge thee pray
That God may bless this guest of mine.
Sweet maidens, whom from losel hands
My own have faced in many lands,
I bid you each, when ye shall be
With your good knights, remember me I
And wish me well, that some day I
May find fair Urience; else I die
In love's defeat. To die were sweet,
If, dying, I might clasp her feet.
Death comes at last to all mankind,
Yet ere I die, I know not where,
I know not how, but I must find
Fair Urience with the yellow hair.

MICHAEL THE DRAGOON.

IN the year '49 I was major in the dragoon
regiment of which I have now the honour to be
colonel; but, owing to the great loss of officers
in the early part of the Hungarian campaign, was
virtually then in command. The rebels knew
our weak point. They were aware that men
could be supplied to the Austrian army in any
number, but that to cripple us effectually they