Phantastes, A Faerie Romance

II "O lady, thy lover is dead," they cried;

"He is dead, but hath slain the foe;

He hath left his name to be magnified

In a song of wonder and woe."

"Alas! I am well repaid," said she,

"With a pain that stings like joy:

For I feared, from his tenderness to me,

That he was but a feeble boy.

"Now I shall hold my head on high,

The queen among my kind;

If ye hear a sound, 'tis only a sigh

For a glory left behind."

The first three times I sang these songs they both wept passionately.

But after the third time, they wept no more. Their eyes shone, and their

faces grew pale, but they never wept at any of my songs again.