Page:Troubadour.pdf/21

And bounding and crashing boughs declare
The stag and the hunter have enter'd there.
On, on they went, till a greenwood screen
Lay Amirald and his prey between:
He has heard the creature sink on the ground,
And the branches give way at his courser's bound.

    The spent stag on the grass is laid;
But over him is leant a maid,
Her arms and fair hair glistening
With the bright waters of the spring;
And Amirald paused, and gazed, as seeing
Were grown the sole sense of his being.

    At first she heard him not, but bent
Upon her pitying task intent;