A pale strip of cloth dips into a bowl of deep blue pigment.

Original artwork, not a still

George Eliot

Knightly love is blent with reverence As heavenly air is blent with heavenly blue.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

Chivalrous devotion, the speaker says, is not separate from awe; the two are mixed as completely as air is mixed with its blue. Love here carries respect within it, so tenderness and reverence form a single atmosphere rather than two feelings side by side.

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