And weary patient feet with toil,
To screen some sweet, secluded vale,
And warm the air its flowers inhale;--
Reserve warns off approaching eyes
From where her choicer Eden lies.

"Such are the English knights, I cried,
Who all their better feelings hide;
Who muffle up their hearts with care,
To hide the virtues nestling there,
Who neither praise nor blame can bear.

"My hearers, though completely steel'd
For all the terrors of the field;
Mail'd for the arrow and the lance,
Bore not unharm'd my smiling glance;
At other times collected, brave,
Recoiled when I that picture gave;
As if their inmost heart, laid bare,
Shrank from the bleak, ungenial air.

"Proud of such prescience, on I went;--
The youthful monarch was content.
'Edgar de Langton, take this ring--
No! hither the young Minstrel bring:
Ourself can better still dispense
The honour and the recompence.'
I came, and, trembling, bent my knee.
He wonder'd that my looks were meek,
That blushes burnt upon my cheek!