fond parents' fearful hope for joy.

His name was Gugemar: as strength grew on,
To Arthur's court the sire consign'd his son.
There soon in feats of arms the youth excell'd,
Magnanimous, in sports, or deadly field.

Chief of the Table-round, from time to time
Illustrious Arthur mark'd his opening prime,
Then dealt him noble meed; the honour high,
From his own hand, of glorious chivalry.

Knightly in arms he was; one grievous blot,
So deem'd full many a courtly dame, I wot,
Cross'd the full growth of his aspiring days,
And dimm'd the lustre of meridian praise:
With bootless artifice their lures they troll'd;
Still, Gugemer lov'd not, or nothing told.
The court's accustom'd love and service done,
To his glad sire returns the welcome son.
Now with his father dwelt he, and pursued
Such pastimes as are meet for youth of noble blood.
The woods of Leon now would shrilly sound
Oft with his joyous shout and choral hound
At length, one morn his disadventurous dart,
Lanc'd, as the game was rous'd, at hind or hart,
Wing'd through the yielding air its weetless way,
And pierc'd unwares a metamorphos'd fay.
Lo! back recoiling straight, by fairy craft,
Back to its master speeds the reeking shaft;
Deep in his sinewy thigh inflicts a wound,
And strikes the astonish'd hunter to the ground,
While, with a voice which neither bray'd nor spoke,
Thus fearfully the beast her silence broke:--
"Pains, agonizing pains must thou endure,
Till wit of lady's love shall work the cure:
Wo, then, her fated guerdon she shall find
The heaviest that may light on womankind!"

Sir Gugemer, who strove, with courage vain,
Up from the earth to rise, distraught with pain,
While hies his varlet home for succour strong,
Crawls slow with trailing limb the sward along;
'Twas part precipitate, steep rocky shore;
Hoarse at its foot was heard old Ocean's roar;
And in a shelter'd cove at anchor rode,
Close into land, where slept the solemn flood,
A gallant bark, that with its silken sails
Just bellying, caught the gently rising gales,
And from its ebon sides shot dazzling sheen
Of silvery rays with mingled gold between.
A favouring fairy had beheld the blow
Dealt the young hunter by her mortal foe:
Thence grown his patroness, she vows to save,
And cleav