Alfred Lord Tennyson - Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
LIKE souls that balance joy and pain, <br />With tears and smiles from heaven again <br />The maiden Spring upon the plain <br />Came in a sun-lit fall of rain. <br /> In crystal vapour everywhere <br />Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between, <br />And far, in forest-deeps unseen, <br />The topmost elm-tree gather'd green <br /> From draughts of balmy air. <br /> <br />Sometimes the linnet piped his song: <br />Sometimes the throstle whistled strong: <br />Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along, <br />Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong: <br /> By grassy capes with fuller sound <br />In curves the yellowing river ran, <br />And drooping chestnut-buds began <br />To spread into the perfect fan, <br /> Above the teeming ground. <br /> <br />Then, in the boyhood of the year, <br />Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere <br />Rode thro' the coverts of the deer, <br />With blissful treble ringing clear. <br /> She seem'd a part of joyous Spring: <br />A gown of grass-green silk she wore, <br />Buckled with golden clasps before; <br />A light-green tuft of plumes she bore <br /> Closed in a golden ring. <br /> <br />Now on some twisted ivy-net, <br />Now by some tinkling rivulet, <br />In mosses mixt with violet <br />Her cream-white mule his pastern set: <br /> And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains <br />Than she whose elfin prancer springs <br />By night to eery warblings, <br />When all the glimmering moorland rings <br /> With jingling bridle-reins. <br /> <br />As she fled fast thro' sun and shade, <br />The happy winds upon her play'd, <br />Blowing the ringlet from the braid: <br />She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd <br /> The rein with dainty finger-tips, <br />A man had given all other bliss, <br />And all his worldly worth for this, <br />To waste his whole heart in one kiss <br /> Upon her perfect lips.<br /><br />Alfred Lord Tennyson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sir-launcelot-and-queen-guinevere-2/