any loved you well, down there,
Summer or winter through?
Down there, have you found any fair
Laid in the grave with you?
Is death's long kiss a richer kiss
Than mine was wont to be--
Or have you gone to some far bliss
And quite forgotten me?"

Of similar inspiration, but more pictorially and externally Gothic, are
such tales as "The Building of the Dream" and "Sir Floris" in Payne's
volume, "The Masque of Shadows." The former of these, introduced by a
quotation from Jehan du Mestre, is the history of a certain squire of
Poitou, who devotes himself to necromancy and discovers a spell in an old
Greek manuscript, whereby, having shod his horse with gold and ridden
seven days into the west, he comes to the enchanted land of Dame Venus
and dwells with her a season. But the bliss is insupportable by a
mortal, and he returns to his home and dies. The poem has analogies with
"The Earthly Paradise" and the Tannhaeuser legend. The ancient city of
Poitou, where the action begins, is elaborately described, with its "lazy
grace of old romance";

"Fair was the place and old
Beyond the memory of man, with roofs
Tall-peak'd and hung with woofs
Of dainty stone-work, jewell'd with the grace
Of casements, in the face
Of the white gables inlaid, in all hues
Of lovely reds and blues.
At every corner of the winding ways
A carven saint did gaze,
With mild sweet eyes, upon the quiet town,
From niche and shrine of brown;
And many an angel, graven for a charm
To save the folk from harm
Of evil sprites, stood sentinel above
High pinnacle and roof."

"Sir Floris" is an allegorical romaunt founded on a passage in "Le
Violier des Histoires Provenciaux." The dedication, to the author of
"Lohengrin," praises Wolfram von Eschenbach, the poet of "Parzival," as
"the sweetest of all bards." Sir Floris, obeying a voice heard in sleep,
followed a white dove to an enchanted garden, where he slew seven
monsters, symbolic of the seven deadly sins; from whose blood sprang up
the lily of chastity, the rose of love, the violet of humility, the
clematis of content, the marigold of largesse, the mystic marguerite, and
the holy vervain "that purgeth earth's desire." Sir Galahad then carries
him in a magic boat to the Orient city of Sarras, where the Grail is
enshrined and guarded by a company of virgin knights, Percival,
Lohengrin, Titurel, and Bors. Sir Floris sees the sacred