CANTO II

ELFINHART





CANTO II

ELFINHART

In Canto I. I followed the old rule
We learned from Horace when we went to school,
And took a headlong plunge _in medias res_,
As Maro did, and blind Mæonides;
And now, still following the ancient mode,
I come to the time-honored "episode,"
Retrace my way some twenty years or more,
And tell you what I should have told before.
It seems an awkward method, but it's art;--
Besides, it brings us back to Elfinhart.

In those dark days before King Arthur came,
When Britain was laid waste with sword and flame,
When cut-throats lurked behind the blossoming thorn,
And young maids cursed the day when they were born,
A lady, widowed in one hideous night,
Fled over heath and hill, and in her flight
Came to the magic willow-woods that stand