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e, Why will ye never ask some other boon? Yea, by God's rood, I trusted you too much.' And Vivien, like the tenderest-hearted maid That ever bided tryst at village stile, Made answer, either eyelid wet with tears: 'Nay, Master, be not wrathful with your maid; Caress her: let her feel herself forgiven Who feels no heart to ask another boon. I think ye hardly know the tender rhyme Of "trust me not at all or all in all." I heard the great Sir Lancelot sing it once, And it shall answer for me. Listen to it. "In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours, Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers: Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all. "It is the little rift within the lute, That by and by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all. "The little rift within the lover's lute Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit, That rotting inward slowly moulders all. "It is not worth the keeping: let it go: But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no. And trust me not at all or all in all." O Master, do ye love my tender rhyme?' And Merlin looked and half believed her true, So tender was her voice, so fair her face, So sweetly gleamed her eyes behind her tears Like sunlight on the plain behind a shower: And yet he answered half indignantly: 'Far other was the song that once I heard By this huge oak, sung nearly where we sit: For here we met, some ten or twelve of us, To chase a creature that was current then In these wild woods, the hart with golden horns. It was the time when first the question rose About the founding of a Table Round, That was to be, for love of God and men And noble deeds, the flower of all the world. And each incited each to noble deeds. And while we waited, one, the youngest of us, We could not keep him silent, out he flashed, And into such a song, such fire for fame, Such trumpet-glowings in it, coming down To such a stern and iron-clashing close, That when he stopt we longed to hurl together, And should have done it; but the beauteous beast Scared by the noise upstarted at our feet, And like a silver shadow slipt away Through the dim land; and all day long we rode Through the dim land against a rushing wind, That glorious roundel echoing in our ears, And chased the flashes of his golden horns Till they vanished by the fairy well T
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