So Isolt watched now: long she leant
From her high tower that hapless dawn:
Above her bloomed the firmament,
Below, the world was dewy wan.
She saw a long lake where the stags
Came down to drink: and woods of pines
Beyond which mountains loomed, whose crags,--
Gaunt guardians of Mark's boundary lines,--
Gray watch-towers, hawk-like, overhung;
And 'mid the pines, wild, ivy-clung,
She saw a castle lift its old
Green walls of ruin, now a cave
For bandits, and a robber-hold
Of lust, beside a torrent's wave.
Then o'er a bridge, whose granite arched
The torrent's foam, she saw a knight,--
Behind whom spear-armed followers marched,--
Like Galahad, in glittering white,
Ride from the forest-covered height.