el she shall tell, and let me see
All the glories of the future, and the wonders that shall be.
Ho! Sir Butler, bring me quickly four men's shares of wine and meat,
That, as much as may suffice me for my journey, I may eat."
Seemed to him, as forth he journeyed, that the land was passing strange;
Was it sooth, or was it glamour that had worked so great a change?
For the moorland and the woodland, where with horse, and hound, and horn,
He had chased the boar and aurochs, glowed with summer's ripening corn;
At the well known fording-places stately bridges stemmed the tide,
Turnpikes, 'stead of knights or giants, barred his way on either side;
Feeble women, damp and dingy, for a trifle came to show
All the ruins of the castles he had kept with many a blow;
And where cross-roads met, and where the best adventures once had been,
Whitewashed sign-posts bade him turn to Frogmore Pound, or Pogis Green.
Now and then athwart his course came, with a rumble and a scream,
Green and golden creatures, glaring fierce, and breathing fire and steam,
Seemed that each was dragging on a thousand victims at the least:
"By my knighthood," quoth SIR LANCELOT, "this must be 'the questing
beast;'
Something rusty have I grown by dwelling there at peace so long,
For ever eating of the fat, and ever drinking of the strong,
Yet with stout and knightly valour I shall dress me to the fight;"
But, before his lance was couched, "the questing beast" was out of sight.
So he journeyed till, one evening, from the hill-top looking down--
As the setting sun in gold and crimson bathed the mighty town--
All the spires, and masts, and towers (that seemed as they had lent
the skies
Gauds from London's wealth to deck them) flashed upon his wond'ring eyes.
"This adventure," said SIR LANCELOT, "I may scarcely understand,"
So he wisely brought his good sword closer to his strong right hand.
To "LINETTE the damsel Sauvage" who abode on Ludgate Hill,
He arrived at length by dint of wondrous toil and care and skill;
In a four-pair back she dwelt, and it was noted on her door,
That she held "_mesmeriques seances_" every afternoon at four.
Seemed that she was greatly altered from the blooming girl who brought
Fair Dame LYONS and SIR GARETH home to Royal ARTHUR'S Court--
She whose witchcraft (witch they called her) in her beauty seemed to lie;
Red, but not with bloom, her cheek was; bright,