Iseult, Iseult, by the long waterways,
Watching the wintry moon, white as a flower,
I have remembered how once at Tintagil
You heard the tread of Time hour after hour.
By casements hung with night, while all your women slept,
You turned toward Brittany, awake, alone,
In the high chamber, hushed, save where the candle dripped
With the slow patient sound of blood on stone.
The ache of empty arms was an old tale to you,
And all the tragic tunes that love can play, —
Yet with no woman born would you have changed your lot
Though there were greater queens who had been gay.