The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme

The surly warder will awake,
The morning dawn, anon,--
My heart beginneth sore to quake,--
I fear we are undone!"

But Love is mightier than Fear:
The ladye hasteth not:
The magnet of her heart is near,
And peril is forgot!

She clingeth to her knight's brave breast
Like a lorn turtle-dove,
And 'mid the peril feeleth rest,--
The full, rapt rest of Love!

"I charge thee, hie thee hence, sir knight!"
The damsel shrilly cries;
"If this should meet her father's sight,
By Heaven! my lady dies."

The warrior rouseth all his pride,
And looseth his love's caress,--
Yet slowness of heart doth his strength betide
As he looks on her loveliness:--
But again the damsel their love-dream breaks,--
And, self-reproachingly,
The knight his resolve of its fetters shakes,
And his spirit now standeth free.

Then, came the last, absorbing kiss,
True Love can ne'er forego,--
That dreamy plenitude of bliss
Or antepa