_
"Mock me not, for otherwhere than along the greenwood fair
Have I ridden fast with thee.
"Mock me not, for otherwhere than along the greenwood fair
Have I ridden fast with thee.
Elizabeth Browning
LXXVI.
"Now by womanhood's degree and by wifehood's verity"--
_Toll slowly. _
"In this hour if thou hast need of thy noble red-roan steed,
Thou hast also need of _me_.
LXXVII.
"By this golden ring ye see on this lifted hand pardie"--
_Toll slowly. _
"If, this hour, on castle-wall can be room for steed from stall,
Shall be also room for _me_.
LXXVIII.
"So the sweet saints with me be," (did she utter solemnly)--
_Toll slowly. _
"If a man, this eventide, on this castle wall will ride,
He shall ride the same with _me_. "
LXXIX.
Oh, he sprang up in the selle and he laughed out bitter-well--
_Toll slowly. _
"Wouldst thou ride among the leaves, as we used on other eves,
To hear chime a vesper-bell? "
LXXX.
She clung closer to his knee--"Ay, beneath the cypress-tree! "
_Toll slowly.
_
"Mock me not, for otherwhere than along the greenwood fair
Have I ridden fast with thee.
LXXXI.
"Fast I rode with new-made vows from my angry kinsman's house":
_Toll slowly. _
"What, and would you men should reck that I dared more for love's sake
As a bride than as a spouse?
LXXXII.
"What, and would you it should fall, as a proverb, before all"--
_Toll slowly. _
"That a bride may keep your side while through castle-gate you ride,
Yet eschew the castle-wall? "
LXXXIII.
Ho! the breach yawns into ruin and roars up against her suing--
_Toll slowly. _
With the inarticulate din and the dreadful falling in--
Shrieks of doing and undoing!
LXXXIV.
Twice he wrung her hands in twain, but the small hands closed again.
_Toll slowly. _
Back he reined the steed--back, back! but she trailed along his track
With a frantic clasp and strain.
