"And the steed shall be red roan,
And the lover shall be noble,

With an eye that takes the breath.
And the lute1 he plays upon
Shall strike ladies into trouble,

As his sword strikes men to death.

"And the steed it shall be shod
All in silver, housed in azure;2

And the mane shall swim the wind;

And the hoofs along the sod

Shall flash onward, and keep measure,
Till the shepherds look behind.

"But my lover will not prize
All the glory that he rides in,
When he gazes in my face.

He will say, 'O Love, thine eyes
Build the shrine my soul abides in,
And I kneel here for thy grace!'

"Then, aye, then shall he kneel low,
With the red-roan steed anear him,
Which shall seem to understand,

Till I answer, 'Rise and go!

For the world must love and fear him

Whom I gift with heart and hand.'

1. It would seem strange to us now if a soldier rode about playing upon a lute; but in the old days of chivalry about which little Ellie had been reading, it was looked upon as almost necessary for a knight to be able to play and sing sweet songs to his lady.

2. The saddle-cloth or housing of the medieval knights was sometimes very large and gorgeous.

"Then he will arise so pale,

I shall feel my own lips tremble
With a yes I must not say:
Nathless maiden-brave, 'Farewell,'
I will utter, and dissemble-
'Light to-morrow with to-day!'

"Then he'll ride among the hills
To the wide world past the river,
There to put away all wrong,
To make straight distorted wills,
And to empty the broad quiver
Which the wicked bear along.

"Three times shall a young foot page Swim the stream, and climb the mountain, And kneel down beside my feet:

'Lo! my master sends this gage,

Lady, for thy pity's counting.
What wilt thou exchange for it?'

"And the first time I will send
A white rosebud for a guerdon-
And the second time, a glove;
But the third time-I may bend
From my pride, and answer-‘Pardon,
If he comes to take my love.'

3. Nathless is an old word meaning nevertheless. Mrs. Browning uses an occasional old word, in order to give the atmosphere of the tales of chivalry.

4. The gage was a cap or glove, or some other symbol to show that he had performed the deeds which Ellie had demanded of him.

5. Guerdon means reward.

"Then the

young foot page

will run

Then my lover will ride faster,

Till he kneeleth at my knee:

'I am a duke's eldest son!

Thousand serfs do call me master,-
But, O Love, I love but thee!".

Little Ellie, with her smile

Not yet ended, rose up gayly,

Tied the bonnet, donned the shoe,
And went homeward, round a mile,
Just to see, as she did daily,

What more eggs were with the two.

Pushing through the elm-tree copse,
Winding up the stream, light-hearted,
Where the osier pathway leads,
Past the boughs she stoops, and stops.
Lo, the wild swan had deserted,
And a rat had gnawed the reeds!

Ellie went home sad and slow.
If she found the lover ever,

With his red-roan steed of steeds,

Sooth I know not; but I know

She could never show him-never,

That swan's nest among the reeds.

Mrs. Browning tells us very little of Ellie directly, yet she leaves us with a charming picture of an innocent, imaginative, romantic child. Ellie has been reading or listening to tales of knight-errantry, and her mind is full of them,

so that the "sweetest pleasure for her future" is a lover riding straight out of one of the romances. That she is only a child, with a child's ideas, we may see from the fact that she can think, in her simplicity, of no greater reward for her noble lover than a sight of the swan's nest among the reeds, of which she alone knows.

Mrs. Browning had a purpose in writing this little story in verse; she wanted to show us how suddenly and how rudely unpleasant facts can break in upon our dreams. Ellie could never show her lover the swan's nest, as she had planned; and we are left with the feeling that she never found the lover of whom she dreamed —that all of her dream proved as false as the beautiful thought about the swan's nest.