As though I watch'd for news, feel as I did
Just half-an-hour ago, before this news.
How all the street is humming, some men sing,
And some men talk; some look up at the house,
Then lay their heads together and look grave:
Their laughter pains me sorely in the heart;
Their thoughtful talking makes my head turn round:
Yea, some men sing, what is it then they sing?
Eh? Launcelot, and love and fate and death:
They ought to sing of him who was as wight
As Launcelot or Wade, and yet avail'd
Just nothing, but to fail and fail and fail,
And so at last to die and leave me here,
Alone and wretched; yea, perhaps they will,
When many years are past, make songs of us:
God help me, though, truly I never thought
That I should make a story in this way,
A story that his eyes can never see.

[_One sings from outside._]

_Therefore be it believed
Whatsoever he grieved,
When his horse was relieved,
This Launcelot,_

_Beat down on his knee,
Right valiant was he
God's body to see,
Though he saw it not._

_Right valiant to move,
But for his sad love
The high God above
Stinted his praise._

_Yet so he was glad
That his son, Lord Galahad,
That high joyaunce had
All his life-days._

_Sing we therefore then
Launcelot's praise again,
For he wan crownes ten,
If he wan not twelve._

_To his death from his birth
He was mickle of worth,
Lay him in the cold earth,
A long grave ye may delve._

_Omnes homines benedicite!
This last fitte ye may see,
All men pray for me
Who made this history
Cunning and fairly._

RAPUNZEL

RAPUNZEL

THE PRINCE, _being in the wood near the tower, in the
evening_.

I could not even think
What made me weep that day,
When out of the council-hall
The courtiers pass'd away,--

THE WITCH.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair!

RAPUNZEL.

Is it not true that every day
She climbeth up the same strange way,
Her scarlet cloak spread broad and gay,
Over my golden hai