Strong summer, dumb with rapture, bound
With golden calm the woodlands round
Wherethrough the knight forth faring found
A knight that on the greenwood ground
⁠Sat mourning: fair he was to see,
And moulded as for love or fight
A maiden's dreams might frame her knight;
But sad in joy's far-flowering sight
⁠As grief's blind thrall might be.

'God save you,' Balen softly said,
'What grief bows down your heart and head
Thus, as one sorrowing for his dead?
Tell me, if haply I may stead
⁠In aught your sorrow, that I may.'
'Sir knight,' that other said, 'thy word
Makes my grief heavier that I heard.'
And pity and wonder inly stirred
⁠Drew Balen thence away.