Idylls of the KingPart 5 out of 6Down on the waste, and straight beyond the star I saw the spiritual city and all her spires And gateways in a glory like one pearl-- No larger, though the goal of all the saints-- Strike from the sea; and from the star there shot A rose-red sparkle to the city, and there Dwelt, and I knew it was the Holy Grail, Which never eyes on earth again shall see. Then fell the floods of heaven drowning the deep. And how my feet recrost the deathful ridge No memory in me lives; but that I touched The chapel-doors at dawn I know; and thence Taking my war-horse from the holy man, Glad that no phantom vext me more, returned To whence I came, the gate of Arthur's wars.' `O brother,' asked Ambrosius,--`for in sooth These ancient books--and they would win thee--teem, Only I find not there this Holy Grail, With miracles and marvels like to these, Not all unlike; which oftentime I read, Who read but on my breviary with ease, Till my head swims; and then go forth and pass Down to the little thorpe that lies so close, And almost plastered like a martin's nest To these old walls--and mingle with our folk; And knowing every honest face of theirs As well as ever shepherd knew his sheep, And every homely secret in their hearts, Delight myself with gossip and old wives, And ills and aches, and teethings, lyings-in, And mirthful sayings, children of the place, That have no meaning half a league away: Or lulling random squabbles when they rise, Chafferings and chatterings at the market-cross, Rejoice, small man, in this small world of mine, Yea, even in their hens and in their eggs-- O brother, saving this Sir Galahad, Came ye on none but phantoms in your quest, No man, no woman?' Then Sir Percivale: `All men, to one so bound by such a vow, And women were as phantoms. O, my brother, Why wilt thou shame me to confess to thee How far I faltered from my quest and vow? For after I had lain so many nights A bedmate of the snail and eft and snake, In grass and burdock, I was changed to wan And meagre, and the vision had not come; And then I chanced upon a goodly town With one great dwelling in the middle of it; Thither I made, and there was I disarmed By maidens each as fair as any flower: But when they led me into hall, behold, The Princess of that castle was the one, Brother, and that one only, who had ever Made my heart leap; for when I moved of old A slender page about her father's hall, And she a slender maiden, all my heart Went after her with longing: yet we twain Had never kissed a kiss, or vowed a vow. And now I came upon her once again, And one had wedded her, and he was dead, And all his land and wealth and state were hers. And while I tarried, every day she set A banquet richer than the day before By me; for all her longing and her will Was toward me as of old; till one fair morn, I walking to and fro beside a stream That flashed across her orchard underneath Her castle-walls, she stole upon my walk, And calling me the greatest of all knights, Embraced me, and so kissed me the first time, And gave herself and all her wealth to me. Then I remembered Arthur's warning word, That most of us would follow wandering fires, And the Quest faded in my heart. Anon, The heads of all her people drew to me, With supplication both of knees and tongue: "We have heard of thee: thou art our greatest knight, Our Lady says it, and we well believe: Wed thou our Lady, and rule over us, And thou shalt be as Arthur in our land." O me, my brother! but one night my vow Burnt me within, so that I rose and fled, But wailed and wept, and hated mine own self, And even the Holy Quest, and all but her; Then after I was joined with Galahad Cared not for her, nor anything upon earth.' Then said the monk, `Poor men, when yule is cold, Must be content to sit by little fires. And this am I, so that ye care for me Ever so little; yea, and blest be Heaven That brought thee here to this poor house of ours Where all the brethren are so hard, to warm My cold heart with a friend: but O the pity To find thine own first love once more--to hold, Hold her a wealthy bride within thine arms, Or all but hold, and then--cast her aside, Foregoing all her sweetness, like a weed. For we that want the warmth of double life, We that are plagued with dreams of something sweet Beyond all sweetness in a life so rich,-- Ah, blessd Lord, I speak too earthlywise, Seeing I never strayed beyond the cell, But live like an old badger in his earth, With earth about him everywhere, despite All fast and penance. Saw ye none beside, None of your knights?' `Yea so,' said Percivale: `One night my pathway swerving east, I saw The pelican on the casque of our Sir Bors All in the middle of the rising moon: And toward him spurred, and hailed him, and he me, And each made joy of either; then he asked, "Where is he? hast thou seen him--Lancelot?--Once," Said good Sir Bors, "he dashed across me--mad, And maddening what he rode: and when I cried, `Ridest thou then so hotly on a quest So holy,' Lancelot shouted, `Stay me not! I have been the sluggard, and I ride apace, For now there is a lion in the way.' So vanished." `Then Sir Bors had ridden on Softly, and sorrowing for our Lancelot, Because his former madness, once the talk And scandal of our table, had returned; For Lancelot's kith and kin so worship him That ill to him is ill to them; to Bors Beyond the rest: he well had been content Not to have seen, so Lancelot might have seen, The Holy Cup of healing; and, indeed, Being so clouded with his grief and love, Small heart was his after the Holy Quest: If God would send the vision, well: if not, The Quest and he were in the hands of Heaven. `And then, with small adventure met, Sir Bors Rode to the lonest tract of all the realm, And found a people there among their crags, Our race and blood, a remnant that were left Paynim amid their circles, and the stones They pitch up straight to heaven: and their wise men Were strong in that old magic which can trace The wandering of the stars, and scoffed at him And this high Quest as at a simple thing: Told him he followed--almost Arthur's words-- A mocking fire: "what other fire than he, Whereby the blood beats, and the blossom blows, And the sea rolls, and all the world is warmed?" And when his answer chafed them, the rough crowd, Hearing he had a difference with their priests, Seized him, and bound and plunged him into a cell Of great piled stones; and lying bounden there In darkness through innumerable hours He heard the hollow-ringing heavens sweep Over him till by miracle--what else?-- Heavy as it was, a great stone slipt and fell, Such as no wind could move: and through the gap Glimmered the streaming scud: then came a night Still as the day was loud; and through the gap The seven clear stars of Arthur's Table Round-- For, brother, so one night, because they roll Through such a round in heaven, we named the stars, Rejoicing in ourselves and in our King-- And these, like bright eyes of familiar friends, In on him shone: "And then to me, to me," Said good Sir Bors, "beyond all hopes of mine, Who scarce had prayed or asked it for myself-- Across the seven clear stars--O grace to me-- In colour like the fingers of a hand Before a burning taper, the sweet Grail Glided and past, and close upon it pealed A sharp quick thunder." Afterwards, a maid, Who kept our holy faith among her kin In secret, entering, loosed and let him go.' To whom the monk: `And I remember now That pelican on the casque: Sir Bors it was Who spake so low and sadly at our board; And mighty reverent at our grace was he: A square-set man and honest; and his eyes, An out-door sign of all the warmth within, Smiled with his lips--a smile beneath a cloud, But heaven had meant it for a sunny one: Ay, ay, Sir Bors, who else? But when ye reached The city, found ye all your knights returned, Or was there sooth in Arthur's prophecy, Tell me, and what said each, and what the King?' Then answered Percivale: `And that can I, Brother, and truly; since the living words Of so great men as Lancelot and our King Pass not from door to door and out again, But sit within the house. O, when we reached The city, our horses stumbling as they trode On heaps of ruin, hornless unicorns, Cracked basilisks, and splintered cockatrices, And shattered talbots, which had left the stones Raw, that they fell from, brought us to the hall. `And there sat Arthur on the das-throne, And those that had gone out upon the Quest, Wasted and worn, and but a tithe of them, And those that had not, stood before the King, Who, when he saw me, rose, and bad me hail, Saying, "A welfare in thine eye reproves Our fear of some disastrous chance for thee On hill, or plain, at sea, or flooding ford. So fierce a gale made havoc here of late Among the strange devices of our kings; Yea, shook this newer, stronger hall of ours, And from the statue Merlin moulded for us Half-wrenched a golden wing; but now--the Quest, This vision--hast thou seen the Holy Cup, That Joseph brought of old to Glastonbury?" `So when I told him all thyself hast heard, Ambrosius, and my fresh but fixt resolve To pass away into the quiet life, He answered not, but, sharply turning, asked Of Gawain, "Gawain, was this Quest for thee?" `"Nay, lord," said Gawain, "not for such as I. Therefore I communed with a saintly man, Who made me sure the Quest was not for me; For I was much awearied of the Quest: But found a silk pavilion in a field, And merry maidens in it; and then this gale Tore my pavilion from the tenting-pin, And blew my merry maidens all about With all discomfort; yea, and but for this, My twelvemonth and a day were pleasant to me." `He ceased; and Arthur turned to whom at first He saw not, for Sir Bors, on entering, pushed Athwart the throng to Lancelot, caught his hand, Held it, and there, half-hidden by him, stood, Until the King espied him, saying to him, "Hail, Bors! if ever loyal man and true Could see it, thou hast seen the Grail;" and Bors, "Ask me not, for I may not speak of it: I saw it;" and the tears were in his eyes. `Then there remained but Lancelot, for the rest Spake but of sundry perils in the storm; Perhaps, like him of Cana in Holy Writ, Our Arthur kept his best until the last; "Thou, too, my Lancelot," asked the king, "my friend, Our mightiest, hath this Quest availed for thee?" `"Our mightiest!" answered Lancelot, with a groan; "O King!"--and when he paused, methought I spied A dying fire of madness in his eyes-- "O King, my friend, if friend of thine I be, Happier are those that welter in their sin, Swine in the mud, that cannot see for slime, Slime of the ditch: but in me lived a sin So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure, Noble, and knightly in me twined and clung Round that one sin, until the wholesome flower And poisonous grew together, each as each, Not to be plucked asunder; and when thy knights Sware, I sware with them only in the hope That could I touch or see the Holy Grail They might be plucked asunder. Then I spake To one most holy saint, who wept and said, That save they could be plucked asunder, all My quest were but in vain; to whom I vowed That I would work according as he willed. And forth I went, and while I yearned and strove To tear the twain asunder in my heart, My madness came upon me as of old, And whipt me into waste fields far away; There was I beaten down by little men, Mean knights, to whom the moving of my sword And shadow of my spear had been enow To scare them from me once; and then I came All in my folly to the naked shore, Wide flats, where nothing but coarse grasses grew; But such a blast, my King, began to blow, So loud a blast along the shore and sea, Ye could not hear the waters for the blast, Though heapt in mounds and ridges all the sea Drove like a cataract, and all the sand Swept like a river, and the clouded heavens Were shaken with the motion and the sound. And blackening in the sea-foam swayed a boat, Half-swallowed in it, anchored with a chain; And in my madness to myself I said, `I will embark and I will lose myself, And in the great sea wash away my sin.' I burst the chain, I sprang into the boat. Seven days I drove along the dreary deep, And with me drove the moon and all the stars; And the wind fell, and on the seventh night I heard the shingle grinding in the surge, And felt the boat shock earth, and looking up, Behold, the enchanted towers of Carbonek, A castle like a rock upon a rock, With chasm-like portals open to the sea, And steps that met the breaker! there was none Stood near it but a lion on each side That kept the entry, and the moon was full. Then from the boat I leapt, and up the stairs. There drew my sword. With sudden-flaring manes Those two great beasts rose upright like a man, Each gript a shoulder, and I stood between; And, when I would have smitten them, heard a voice, `Doubt not, go forward; if thou doubt, the beasts Will tear thee piecemeal.' Then with violence The sword was dashed from out my hand, and fell. And up into the sounding hall I past; But nothing in the sounding hall I saw, No bench nor table, painting on the wall Or shield of knight; only the rounded moon Through the tall oriel on the rolling sea. But always in the quiet house I heard, Clear as a lark, high o'er me as a lark, A sweet voice singing in the topmost tower To the eastward: up I climbed a thousand steps With pain: as in a dream I seemed to climb For ever: at the last I reached a door, A light was in the crannies, and I heard, `Glory and joy and honour to our Lord And to the Holy Vessel of the Grail.' Then in my madness I essayed the door; It gave; and through a stormy glare, a heat As from a seventimes-heated furnace, I, Blasted and burnt, and blinded as I was, With such a fierceness that I swooned away-- O, yet methought I saw the Holy Grail, All palled in crimson samite, and around Great angels, awful shapes, and wings and eyes. And but for all my madness and my sin, And then my swooning, I had sworn I saw That which I saw; but what I saw was veiled And covered; and this Quest was not for me." `So speaking, and here ceasing, Lancelot left The hall long silent, till Sir Gawain--nay, Brother, I need not tell thee foolish words,-- A reckless and irreverent knight was he, Now boldened by the silence of his King,-- Well, I will tell thee: "O King, my liege," he said, "Hath Gawain failed in any quest of thine? When have I stinted stroke in foughten field? But as for thine, my good friend Percivale, Thy holy nun and thou have driven men mad, Yea, made our mightiest madder than our least. But by mine eyes and by mine ears I swear, I will be deafer than the blue-eyed cat, And thrice as blind as any noonday owl, To holy virgins in their ecstasies, Henceforward." `"Deafer," said the blameless King, "Gawain, and blinder unto holy things Hope not to make thyself by idle vows, Being too blind to have desire to see. But if indeed there came a sign from heaven, Blessd are Bors, Lancelot and Percivale, For these have seen according to their sight. For every fiery prophet in old times, And all the sacred madness of the bard, When God made music through them, could but speak His music by the framework and the chord; And as ye saw it ye have spoken truth. `"Nay--but thou errest, Lancelot: never yet Could all of true and noble in knight and man Twine round one sin, whatever it might be, With such a closeness, but apart there grew, Save that he were the swine thou spakest of, Some root of knighthood and pure nobleness; Whereto see thou, that it may bear its flower. `"And spake I not too truly, O my knights? Was I too dark a prophet when I said To those who went upon the Holy Quest, That most of them would follow wandering fires, Lost in the quagmire?--lost to me and gone, And left me gazing at a barren board, And a lean Order--scarce returned a tithe-- And out of those to whom the vision came My greatest hardly will believe he saw; Another hath beheld it afar off, And leaving human wrongs to right themselves, Cares but to pass into the silent life. And one hath had the vision face to face, And now his chair desires him here in vain, However they may crown him otherwhere. `"And some among you held, that if the King Had seen the sight he would have sworn the vow: Not easily, seeing that the King must guard That which he rules, and is but as the hind To whom a space of land is given to plow. Who may not wander from the allotted field Before his work be done; but, being done, Let visions of the night or of the day Come, as they will; and many a time they come, Until this earth he walks on seems not earth, This light that strikes his eyeball is not light, This air that smites his forehead is not air But vision--yea, his very hand and foot-- In moments when he feels he cannot die, And knows himself no vision to himself, Nor the high God a vision, nor that One Who rose again: ye have seen what ye have seen." `So spake the King: I knew not all he meant.' Pelleas and Ettarre King Arthur made new knights to fill the gap Left by the Holy Quest; and as he sat In hall at old Caerleon, the high doors Were softly sundered, and through these a youth, Pelleas, and the sweet smell of the fields Past, and the sunshine came along with him. `Make me thy knight, because I know, Sir King, All that belongs to knighthood, and I love.' Such was his cry: for having heard the King Had let proclaim a tournament--the prize A golden circlet and a knightly sword, Full fain had Pelleas for his lady won The golden circlet, for himself the sword: And there were those who knew him near the King, And promised for him: and Arthur made him knight. And this new knight, Sir Pelleas of the isles-- But lately come to his inheritance, And lord of many a barren isle was he-- Riding at noon, a day or twain before, Across the forest called of Dean, to find Caerleon and the King, had felt the sun Beat like a strong knight on his helm, and reeled Almost to falling from his horse; but saw Near him a mound of even-sloping side, Whereon a hundred stately beeches grew, And here and there great hollies under them; But for a mile all round was open space, And fern and heath: and slowly Pelleas drew To that dim day, then binding his good horse To a tree, cast himself down; and as he lay At random looking over the brown earth Through that green-glooming twilight of the grove, It seemed to Pelleas that the fern without Burnt as a living fire of emeralds, So that his eyes were dazzled looking at it. Then o'er it crost the dimness of a cloud Floating, and once the shadow of a bird Flying, and then a fawn; and his eyes closed. And since he loved all maidens, but no maid In special, half-awake he whispered, `Where? O where? I love thee, though I know thee not. For fair thou art and pure as Guinevere, And I will make thee with my spear and sword As famous--O my Queen, my Guinevere, For I will be thine Arthur when we meet.' Suddenly wakened with a sound of talk And laughter at the limit of the wood, And glancing through the hoary boles, he saw, Strange as to some old prophet might have seemed A vision hovering on a sea of fire, Damsels in divers colours like the cloud Of sunset and sunrise, and all of them On horses, and the horses richly trapt Breast-high in that bright line of bracken stood: And all the damsels talked confusedly, And one was pointing this way, and one that, Because the way was lost. And Pelleas rose, And loosed his horse, and led him to the light. There she that seemed the chief among them said, `In happy time behold our pilot-star! Youth, we are damsels-errant, and we ride, Armed as ye see, to tilt against the knights There at Caerleon, but have lost our way: To right? to left? straight forward? back again? Which? tell us quickly.' Pelleas gazing thought, `Is Guinevere herself so beautiful?' For large her violet eyes looked, and her bloom A rosy dawn kindled in stainless heavens, And round her limbs, mature in womanhood; And slender was her hand and small her shape; And but for those large eyes, the haunts of scorn, She might have seemed a toy to trifle with, And pass and care no more. But while he gazed The beauty of her flesh abashed the boy, As though it were the beauty of her soul: For as the base man, judging of the good, Puts his own baseness in him by default Of will and nature, so did Pelleas lend All the young beauty of his own soul to hers, Believing her; and when she spake to him, Stammered, and could not make her a reply. For out of the waste islands had he come, Where saving his own sisters he had known Scarce any but the women of his isles, Rough wives, that laughed and screamed against the gulls, Makers of nets, and living from the sea. Then with a slow smile turned the lady round And looked upon her people; and as when A stone is flung into some sleeping tarn, The circle widens till it lip the marge, Spread the slow smile through all her company. Three knights were thereamong; and they too smiled, Scorning him; for the lady was Ettarre, And she was a great lady in her land. Again she said, `O wild and of the woods, Knowest thou not the fashion of our speech? Or have the Heavens but given thee a fair face, Lacking a tongue?' `O damsel,' answered he, `I woke from dreams; and coming out of gloom Was dazzled by the sudden light, and crave Pardon: but will ye to Caerleon? I Go likewise: shall I lead you to the King?' `Lead then,' she said; and through the woods they went. And while they rode, the meaning in his eyes, His tenderness of manner, and chaste awe, His broken utterances and bashfulness, Were all a burthen to her, and in her heart She muttered, `I have lighted on a fool, Raw, yet so stale!' But since her mind was bent On hearing, after trumpet blown, her name And title, `Queen of Beauty,' in the lists Cried--and beholding him so strong, she thought That peradventure he will fight for me, And win the circlet: therefore flattered him, Being so gracious, that he wellnigh deemed His wish by hers was echoed; and her knights And all her damsels too were gracious to him, For she was a great lady. And when they reached Caerleon, ere they past to lodging, she, Taking his hand, `O the strong hand,' she said, `See! look at mine! but wilt thou fight for me, And win me this fine circlet, Pelleas, That I may love thee?' Then his helpless heart Leapt, and he cried, `Ay! wilt thou if I win?' `Ay, that will I,' she answered, and she laughed, And straitly nipt the hand, and flung it from her; Then glanced askew at those three knights of hers, Till all her ladies laughed along with her. `O happy world,' thought Pelleas, `all, meseems, Are happy; I the happiest of them all.' Nor slept that night for pleasure in his blood, And green wood-ways, and eyes among the leaves; Then being on the morrow knighted, sware To love one only. And as he came away, The men who met him rounded on their heels And wondered after him, because his face Shone like the countenance of a priest of old Against the flame about a sacrifice Kindled by fire from heaven: so glad was he. Then Arthur made vast banquets, and strange knights From the four winds came in: and each one sat, Though served with choice from air, land, stream, and sea, Oft in mid-banquet measuring with his eyes His neighbour's make and might: and Pelleas looked Noble among the noble, for he dreamed His lady loved him, and he knew himself Loved of the King: and him his new-made knight Worshipt, whose lightest whisper moved him more Than all the rangd reasons of the world. Then blushed and brake the morning of the jousts, And this was called `The Tournament of Youth:' For Arthur, loving his young knight, withheld His older and his mightier from the lists, That Pelleas might obtain his lady's love, According to her promise, and remain Lord of the tourney. And Arthur had the jousts Down in the flat field by the shore of Usk Holden: the gilded parapets were crowned With faces, and the great tower filled with eyes Up to the summit, and the trumpets blew. There all day long Sir Pelleas kept the field With honour: so by that strong hand of his The sword and golden circlet were achieved. Then rang the shout his lady loved: the heat Of pride and glory fired her face; her eye Sparkled; she caught the circlet from his lance, And there before the people crowned herself: So for the last time she was gracious to him. Then at Caerleon for a space--her look Bright for all others, cloudier on her knight-- Lingered Ettarre: and seeing Pelleas droop, Said Guinevere, `We marvel at thee much, O damsel, wearing this unsunny face To him who won thee glory!' And she said, `Had ye not held your Lancelot in your bower, My Queen, he had not won.' Whereat the Queen, As one whose foot is bitten by an ant, Glanced down upon her, turned and went her way. But after, when her damsels, and herself, And those three knights all set their faces home, Sir Pelleas followed. She that saw him cried, `Damsels--and yet I should be shamed to say it-- I cannot bide Sir Baby. Keep him back Among yourselves. Would rather that we had Some rough old knight who knew the worldly way, Albeit grizzlier than a bear, to ride And jest with: take him to you, keep him off, And pamper him with papmeat, if ye will, Old milky fables of the wolf and sheep, Such as the wholesome mothers tell their boys. Nay, should ye try him with a merry one To find his mettle, good: and if he fly us, Small matter! let him.' This her damsels heard, And mindful of her small and cruel hand, They, closing round him through the journey home, Acted her hest, and always from her side Restrained him with all manner of device, So that he could not come to speech with her. And when she gained her castle, upsprang the bridge, Down rang the grate of iron through the groove, And he was left alone in open field. `These be the ways of ladies,' Pelleas thought, `To those who love them, trials of our faith. Yea, let her prove me to the uttermost, For loyal to the uttermost am I.' So made his moan; and darkness falling, sought A priory not far off, there lodged, but rose With morning every day, and, moist or dry, Full-armed upon his charger all day long Sat by the walls, and no one opened to him. And this persistence turned her scorn to wrath. Then calling her three knights, she charged them, `Out! And drive him from the walls.' And out they came But Pelleas overthrew them as they dashed Against him one by one; and these returned, But still he kept his watch beneath the wall. Thereon her wrath became a hate; and once, A week beyond, while walking on the walls With her three knights, she pointed downward, `Look, He haunts me--I cannot breathe--besieges me; Down! strike him! put my hate into your strokes, And drive him from my walls.' And down they went, And Pelleas overthrew them one by one; And from the tower above him cried Ettarre, `Bind him, and bring him in.' He heard her voice; Then let the strong hand, which had overthrown Her minion-knights, by those he overthrew Be bounden straight, and so they brought him in. Then when he came before Ettarre, the sight Of her rich beauty made him at one glance More bondsman in his heart than in his bonds. Yet with good cheer he spake, `Behold me, Lady, A prisoner, and the vassal of thy will; And if thou keep me in thy donjon here, Content am I so that I see thy face But once a day: for I have sworn my vows, And thou hast given thy promise, and I know That all these pains are trials of my faith, And that thyself, when thou hast seen me strained And sifted to the utmost, wilt at length Yield me thy love and know me for thy knight.' Then she began to rail so bitterly, With all her damsels, he was stricken mute; But when she mocked his vows and the great King, Lighted on words: `For pity of thine own self, Peace, Lady, peace: is he not thine and mine?' `Thou fool,' she said, `I never heard his voice But longed to break away. Unbind him now, And thrust him out of doors; for save he be Fool to the midmost marrow of his bones, He will return no more.' And those, her three, Laughed, and unbound, and thrust him from the gate. And after this, a week beyond, again She called them, saying, `There he watches yet, There like a dog before his master's door! Kicked, he returns: do ye not hate him, ye? Ye know yourselves: how can ye bide at peace, Affronted with his fulsome innocence? Are ye but creatures of the board and bed, No men to strike? Fall on him all at once, And if ye slay him I reck not: if ye fail, Give ye the slave mine order to be bound, Bind him as heretofore, and bring him in: It may be ye shall slay him in his bonds.' She spake; and at her will they couched their spears, Three against one: and Gawain passing by, Bound upon solitary adventure, saw Low down beneath the shadow of those towers A villainy, three to one: and through his heart The fire of honour and all noble deeds Flashed, and he called, `I strike upon thy side-- The caitiffs!' `Nay,' said Pelleas, `but forbear; He needs no aid who doth his lady's will.' So Gawain, looking at the villainy done, Forbore, but in his heat and eagerness Trembled and quivered, as the dog, withheld A moment from the vermin that he sees Before him, shivers, ere he springs and kills. And Pelleas overthrew them, one to three; And they rose up, and bound, and brought him in. Then first her anger, leaving Pelleas, burned Full on her knights in many an evil name Of craven, weakling, and thrice-beaten hound: `Yet, take him, ye that scarce are fit to touch, Far less to bind, your victor, and thrust him out, And let who will release him from his bonds. And if he comes again'--there she brake short; And Pelleas answered, `Lady, for indeed I loved you and I deemed you beautiful, I cannot brook to see your beauty marred Through evil spite: and if ye love me not, I cannot bear to dream you so forsworn: I had liefer ye were worthy of my love, Than to be loved again of you--farewell; And though ye kill my hope, not yet my love, Vex not yourself: ye will not see me more.' While thus he spake, she gazed upon the man Of princely bearing, though in bonds, and thought, `Why have I pushed him from me? this man loves, If love there be: yet him I loved not. Why? I deemed him fool? yea, so? or that in him A something--was it nobler than myself? Seemed my reproach? He is not of my kind. He could not love me, did he know me well. Nay, let him go--and quickly.' And her knights Laughed not, but thrust him bounden out of door. Forth sprang Gawain, and loosed him from his bonds, And flung them o'er the walls; and afterward, Shaking his hands, as from a lazar's rag, `Faith of my body,' he said, `and art thou not-- Yea thou art he, whom late our Arthur made Knight of his table; yea and he that won The circlet? wherefore hast thou so defamed Thy brotherhood in me and all the rest, As let these caitiffs on thee work their will?' And Pelleas answered, `O, their wills are hers For whom I won the circlet; and mine, hers, Thus to be bounden, so to see her face, Marred though it be with spite and mockery now, Other than when I found her in the woods; And though she hath me bounden but in spite, And all to flout me, when they bring me in, Let me be bounden, I shall see her face; Else must I die through mine unhappiness.' And Gawain answered kindly though in scorn, `Why, let my lady bind me if she will, And let my lady beat me if she will: But an she send her delegate to thrall These fighting hands of mine--Christ kill me then But I will slice him handless by the wrist, And let my lady sear the stump for him, Howl as he may. But hold me for your friend: Come, ye know nothing: here I pledge my troth, Yea, by the honour of the Table Round, I will be leal to thee and work thy work, And tame thy jailing princess to thine hand. Lend me thine horse and arms, and I will say That I have slain thee. She will let me in To hear the manner of thy fight and fall; Then, when I come within her counsels, then From prime to vespers will I chant thy praise As prowest knight and truest lover, more Than any have sung thee living, till she long To have thee back in lusty life again, Not to be bound, save by white bonds and warm, Dearer than freedom. Wherefore now thy horse And armour: let me go: be comforted: Give me three days to melt her fancy, and hope The third night hence will bring thee news of gold.' Then Pelleas lent his horse and all his arms, Saving the goodly sword, his prize, and took Gawain's, and said, `Betray me not, but help-- Art thou not he whom men call light-of-love?' `Ay,' said Gawain, `for women be so light.' Then bounded forward to the castle walls, And raised a bugle hanging from his neck, And winded it, and that so musically That all the old echoes hidden in the wall Rang out like hollow woods at hunting-tide. Up ran a score of damsels to the tower; `Avaunt,' they cried, `our lady loves thee not.' But Gawain lifting up his vizor said, `Gawain am I, Gawain of Arthur's court, And I have slain this Pelleas whom ye hate: Behold his horse and armour. Open gates, And I will make you merry.' And down they ran, Her damsels, crying to their lady, `Lo! Pelleas is dead--he told us--he that hath His horse and armour: will ye let him in? He slew him! Gawain, Gawain of the court, Sir Gawain--there he waits below the wall, Blowing his bugle as who should say him nay.' And so, leave given, straight on through open door Rode Gawain, whom she greeted courteously. `Dead, is it so?' she asked. `Ay, ay,' said he, `And oft in dying cried upon your name.' `Pity on him,' she answered, `a good knight, But never let me bide one hour at peace.' `Ay,' thought Gawain, `and you be fair enow: But I to your dead man have given my troth, That whom ye loathe, him will I make you love.' So those three days, aimless about the land, Lost in a doubt, Pelleas wandering Waited, until the third night brought a moon With promise of large light on woods and ways. Hot was the night and silent; but a sound Of Gawain ever coming, and this lay-- Which Pelleas had heard sung before the Queen, And seen her sadden listening--vext his heart, And marred his rest--`A worm within the rose.' `A rose, but one, none other rose had I, A rose, one rose, and this was wondrous fair, One rose, a rose that gladdened earth and sky, One rose, my rose, that sweetened all mine air-- I cared not for the thorns; the thorns were there. `One rose, a rose to gather by and by, One rose, a rose, to gather and to wear, No rose but one--what other rose had I? One rose, my rose; a rose that will not die,-- He dies who loves it,--if the worm be there.' This tender rhyme, and evermore the doubt, `Why lingers Gawain with his golden news?' So shook him that he could not rest, but rode Ere midnight to her walls, and bound his horse Hard by the gates. Wide open were the gates, And no watch kept; and in through these he past, And heard but his own steps, and his own heart Beating, for nothing moved but his own self, And his own shadow. Then he crost the court, And spied not any light in hall or bower, But saw the postern portal also wide Yawning; and up a slope of garden, all Of roses white and red, and brambles mixt And overgrowing them, went on, and found, Here too, all hushed below the mellow moon, Save that one rivulet from a tiny cave Came lightening downward, and so spilt itself Among the roses, and was lost again. Then was he ware of three pavilions reared Above the bushes, gilden-peakt: in one, Red after revel, droned her lurdane knights Slumbering, and their three squires across their feet: In one, their malice on the placid lip Frozen by sweet sleep, four of her damsels lay: And in the third, the circlet of the jousts Bound on her brow, were Gawain and Ettarre. Back, as a hand that pushes through the leaf To find a nest and feels a snake, he drew: Back, as a coward slinks from what he fears To cope with, or a traitor proven, or hound Beaten, did Pelleas in an utter shame Creep with his shadow through the court again, Fingering at his sword-handle until he stood There on the castle-bridge once more, and thought, `I will go back, and slay them where they lie.' And so went back, and seeing them yet in sleep Said, `Ye, that so dishallow the holy sleep, Your sleep is death,' and drew the sword, and thought, `What! slay a sleeping knight? the King hath bound And sworn me to this brotherhood;' again, `Alas that ever a knight should be so false.' Then turned, and so returned, and groaning laid The naked sword athwart their naked throats, There left it, and them sleeping; and she lay, The circlet of her tourney round her brows, And the sword of the tourney across her throat. And forth he past, and mounting on his horse Stared at her towers that, larger than themselves In their own darkness, thronged into the moon. Then crushed the saddle with his thighs, and clenched His hands, and maddened with himself and moaned: `Would they have risen against me in their blood At the last day? I might have answered them Even before high God. O towers so strong, Huge, solid, would that even while I gaze The crack of earthquake shivering to your base Split you, and Hell burst up your harlot roofs Bellowing, and charred you through and through within, Black as the harlot's heart--hollow as a skull! Let the fierce east scream through your eyelet-holes, And whirl the dust of harlots round and round In dung and nettles! hiss, snake--I saw him there-- Let the fox bark, let the wolf yell. Who yells Here in the still sweet summer night, but I-- I, the poor Pelleas whom she called her fool? Fool, beast--he, she, or I? myself most fool; Beast too, as lacking human wit--disgraced, Dishonoured all for trial of true love-- Love?--we be all alike: only the King Hath made us fools and liars. O noble vows! O great and sane and simple race of brutes That own no lust because they have no law! For why should I have loved her to my shame? I loathe her, as I loved her to my shame. I never loved her, I but lusted for her-- Away--' He dashed the rowel into his horse, And bounded forth and vanished through the night. Then she, that felt the cold touch on her throat, Awaking knew the sword, and turned herself To Gawain: `Liar, for thou hast not slain This Pelleas! here he stood, and might have slain Me and thyself.' And he that tells the tale Says that her ever-veering fancy turned To Pelleas, as the one true knight on earth, And only lover; and through her love her life Wasted and pined, desiring him in vain. But he by wild and way, for half the night, And over hard and soft, striking the sod From out the soft, the spark from off the hard, Rode till the star above the wakening sun, Beside that tower where Percivale was cowled, Glanced from the rosy forehead of the dawn. For so the words were flashed into his heart He knew not whence or wherefore: `O sweet star, Pure on the virgin forehead of the dawn!' And there he would have wept, but felt his eyes Harder and drier than a fountain bed In summer: thither came the village girls And lingered talking, and they come no more Till the sweet heavens have filled it from the heights Again with living waters in the change Of seasons: hard his eyes; harder his heart Seemed; but so weary were his limbs, that he, Gasping, `Of Arthur's hall am I, but here, Here let me rest and die,' cast himself down, And gulfed his griefs in inmost sleep; so lay, Till shaken by a dream, that Gawain fired The hall of Merlin, and the morning star Reeled in the smoke, brake into flame, and fell. He woke, and being ware of some one nigh, Sent hands upon him, as to tear him, crying, `False! and I held thee pure as Guinevere.' But Percivale stood near him and replied, `Am I but false as Guinevere is pure? Or art thou mazed with dreams? or being one Of our free-spoken Table hast not heard That Lancelot'--there he checked himself and paused. Then fared it with Sir Pelleas as with one Who gets a wound in battle, and the sword That made it plunges through the wound again, And pricks it deeper: and he shrank and wailed, `Is the Queen false?' and Percivale was mute. `Have any of our Round Table held their vows?' And Percivale made answer not a word. `Is the King true?' `The King!' said Percivale. `Why then let men couple at once with wolves. What! art thou mad?' But Pelleas, leaping up, Ran through the doors and vaulted on his horse And fled: small pity upon his horse had he, Or on himself, or any, and when he met A cripple, one that held a hand for alms-- Hunched as he was, and like an old dwarf-elm That turns its back upon the salt blast, the boy Paused not, but overrode him, shouting, `False, And false with Gawain!' and so left him bruised And battered, and fled on, and hill and wood Went ever streaming by him till the gloom, That follows on the turning of the world, Darkened the common path: he twitched the reins, And made his beast that better knew it, swerve Now off it and now on; but when he saw High up in heaven the hall that Merlin built, Blackening against the dead-green stripes of even, `Black nest of rats,' he groaned, `ye build too high.' Not long thereafter from the city gates Issued Sir Lancelot riding airily, Warm with a gracious parting from the Queen, Peace at his heart, and gazing at a star And marvelling what it was: on whom the boy, Across the silent seeded meadow-grass Borne, clashed: and Lancelot, saying, `What name hast thou That ridest here so blindly and so hard?' `No name, no name,' he shouted, `a scourge am I To lash the treasons of the Table Round.' `Yea, but thy name?' `I have many names,' he cried: `I am wrath and shame and hate and evil fame, And like a poisonous wind I pass to blast And blaze the crime of Lancelot and the Queen.' `First over me,' said Lancelot, `shalt thou pass.' `Fight therefore,' yelled the youth, and either knight Drew back a space, and when they closed, at once The weary steed of Pelleas floundering flung His rider, who called out from the dark field, `Thou art as false as Hell: slay me: I have no sword.' Then Lancelot, `Yea, between thy lips--and sharp; But here I will disedge it by thy death.' `Slay then,' he shrieked, `my will is to be slain,' And Lancelot, with his heel upon the fallen, Rolling his eyes, a moment stood, then spake: `Rise, weakling; I am Lancelot; say thy say.' And Lancelot slowly rode his warhorse back To Camelot, and Sir Pelleas in brief while Caught his unbroken limbs from the dark field, And followed to the city. It chanced that both Brake into hall together, worn and pale. There with her knights and dames was Guinevere. Full wonderingly she gazed on Lancelot So soon returned, and then on Pelleas, him Who had not greeted her, but cast himself Down on a bench, hard-breathing. `Have ye fought?' She asked of Lancelot. `Ay, my Queen,' he said. `And hast thou overthrown him?' `Ay, my Queen.' Then she, turning to Pelleas, `O young knight, Hath the great heart of knighthood in thee failed So far thou canst not bide, unfrowardly, A fall from HIM?' Then, for he answered not, `Or hast thou other griefs? If I, the Queen, May help them, loose thy tongue, and let me know.' But Pelleas lifted up an eye so fierce She quailed; and he, hissing `I have no sword,' Sprang from the door into the dark. The Queen Looked hard upon her lover, he on her; And each foresaw the dolorous day to be: And all talk died, as in a grove all song Beneath the shadow of some bird of prey; Then a long silence came upon the hall, And Modred thought, `The time is hard at hand.' The Last Tournament Dagonet, the fool, whom Gawain in his mood Had made mock-knight of Arthur's Table Round, At Camelot, high above the yellowing woods, Danced like a withered leaf before the hall. And toward him from the hall, with harp in hand, And from the crown thereof a carcanet Of ruby swaying to and fro, the prize Of Tristram in the jousts of yesterday, Came Tristram, saying, `Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?' For Arthur and Sir Lancelot riding once Far down beneath a winding wall of rock Heard a child wail. A stump of oak half-dead, From roots like some black coil of carven snakes, Clutched at the crag, and started through mid air Bearing an eagle's nest: and through the tree Rushed ever a rainy wind, and through the wind Pierced ever a child's cry: and crag and tree Scaling, Sir Lancelot from the perilous nest, This ruby necklace thrice around her neck, And all unscarred from beak or talon, brought A maiden babe; which Arthur pitying took, Then gave it to his Queen to rear: the Queen But coldly acquiescing, in her white arms Received, and after loved it tenderly, And named it Nestling; so forgot herself A moment, and her cares; till that young life Being smitten in mid heaven with mortal cold Past from her; and in time the carcanet Vext her with plaintive memories of the child: So she, delivering it to Arthur, said, `Take thou the jewels of this dead innocence, And make them, an thou wilt, a tourney-prize.' To whom the King, `Peace to thine eagle-borne Dead nestling, and this honour after death, Following thy will! but, O my Queen, I muse Why ye not wear on arm, or neck, or zone Those diamonds that I rescued from the tarn, And Lancelot won, methought, for thee to wear.' `Would rather you had let them fall,' she cried, `Plunge and be lost--ill-fated as they were, A bitterness to me!--ye look amazed, Not knowing they were lost as soon as given-- Slid from my hands, when I was leaning out Above the river--that unhappy child Past in her barge: but rosier luck will go With these rich jewels, seeing that they came Not from the skeleton of a brother-slayer, But the sweet body of a maiden babe. Perchance--who knows?--the purest of thy knights May win them for the purest of my maids.' She ended, and the cry of a great jousts With trumpet-blowings ran on all the ways From Camelot in among the faded fields To furthest towers; and everywhere the knights Armed for a day of glory before the King. But on the hither side of that loud morn Into the hall staggered, his visage ribbed From ear to ear with dogwhip-weals, his nose Bridge-broken, one eye out, and one hand off, And one with shattered fingers dangling lame, A churl, to whom indignantly the King, `My churl, for whom Christ died, what evil beast Hath drawn his claws athwart thy face? or fiend? Man was it who marred heaven's image in thee thus?' Then, sputtering through the hedge of splintered teeth, Yet strangers to the tongue, and with blunt stump Pitch-blackened sawing the air, said the maimed churl, `He took them and he drave them to his tower-- Some hold he was a table-knight of thine-- A hundred goodly ones--the Red Knight, he-- Lord, I was tending swine, and the Red Knight Brake in upon me and drave them to his tower; And when I called upon thy name as one That doest right by gentle and by churl, Maimed me and mauled, and would outright have slain, Save that he sware me to a message, saying, "Tell thou the King and all his liars, that I Have founded my Round Table in the North, And whatsoever his own knights have sworn My knights have sworn the counter to it--and say My tower is full of harlots, like his court, But mine are worthier, seeing they profess To be none other than themselves--and say My knights are all adulterers like his own, But mine are truer, seeing they profess To be none other; and say his hour is come, The heathen are upon him, his long lance Broken, and his Excalibur a straw."' Then Arthur turned to Kay the seneschal, `Take thou my churl, and tend him curiously Like a king's heir, till all his hurts be whole. The heathen--but that ever-climbing wave, Hurled back again so often in empty foam, Hath lain for years at rest--and renegades, Thieves, bandits, leavings of confusion, whom The wholesome realm is purged of otherwhere, Friends, through your manhood and your fealty,--now Make their last head like Satan in the North. My younger knights, new-made, in whom your flower Waits to be solid fruit of golden deeds, Move with me toward their quelling, which achieved, The loneliest ways are safe from shore to shore. But thou, Sir Lancelot, sitting in my place Enchaired tomorrow, arbitrate the field; For wherefore shouldst thou care to mingle with it, Only to yield my Queen her own again? Speak, Lancelot, thou art silent: is it well?' Thereto Sir Lancelot answered, `It is well: Yet better if the King abide, and leave The leading of his younger knights to me. Else, for the King has willed it, it is well.' Then Arthur rose and Lancelot followed him, And while they stood without the doors, the King Turned to him saying, `Is it then so well? Or mine the blame that oft I seem as he Of whom was written, "A sound is in his ears"? The foot that loiters, bidden go,--the glance That only seems half-loyal to command,-- A manner somewhat fallen from reverence-- Or have I dreamed the bearing of our knights Tells of a manhood ever less and lower? Or whence the fear lest this my realm, upreared, By noble deeds at one with noble vows, From flat confusion and brute violences, Reel back into the beast, and be no more?' He spoke, and taking all his younger knights, Down the slope city rode, and sharply turned North by the gate. In her high bower the Queen, Working a tapestry, lifted up her head, Watched her lord pass, and knew not that she sighed. Then ran across her memory the strange rhyme Of bygone Merlin, `Where is he who knows? From the great deep to the great deep he goes.' But when the morning of a tournament, By these in earnest those in mockery called The Tournament of the Dead Innocence, Brake with a wet wind blowing, Lancelot, Round whose sick head all night, like birds of prey, The words of Arthur flying shrieked, arose, And down a streetway hung with folds of pure White samite, and by fountains running wine, Where children sat in white with cups of gold, Moved to the lists, and there, with slow sad steps Ascending, filled his double-dragoned chair. He glanced and saw the stately galleries, Dame, damsel, each through worship of their Queen White-robed in honour of the stainless child, And some with scattered jewels, like a bank Of maiden snow mingled with sparks of fire. He looked but once, and vailed his eyes again. The sudden trumpet sounded as in a dream To ears but half-awaked, then one low roll Of Autumn thunder, and the jousts began: And ever the wind blew, and yellowing leaf And gloom and gleam, and shower and shorn plume Went down it. Sighing weariedly, as one Who sits and gazes on a faded fire, When all the goodlier guests are past away, Sat their great umpire, looking o'er the lists. He saw the laws that ruled the tournament Broken, but spake not; once, a knight cast down Before his throne of arbitration cursed The dead babe and the follies of the King; And once the laces of a helmet cracked, And showed him, like a vermin in its hole, Modred, a narrow face: anon he heard The voice that billowed round the barriers roar An ocean-sounding welcome to one knight, But newly-entered, taller than the rest, And armoured all in forest green, whereon There tript a hundred tiny silver deer, And wearing but a holly-spray for crest, With ever-scattering berries, and on shield A spear, a harp, a bugle--Tristram--late From overseas in Brittany returned, And marriage with a princess of that realm, Isolt the White--Sir Tristram of the Woods-- Whom Lancelot knew, had held sometime with pain His own against him, and now yearned to shake The burthen off his heart in one full shock With Tristram even to death: his strong hands gript And dinted the gilt dragons right and left, Until he groaned for wrath--so many of those, That ware their ladies' colours on the casque, Drew from before Sir Tristram to the bounds, And there with gibes and flickering mockeries Stood, while he muttered, `Craven crests! O shame! What faith have these in whom they sware to love? The glory of our Round Table is no more.' So Tristram won, and Lancelot gave, the gems, Not speaking other word than `Hast thou won? Art thou the purest, brother? See, the hand Wherewith thou takest this, is red!' to whom Tristram, half plagued by Lancelot's languorous mood, Made answer, `Ay, but wherefore toss me this Like a dry bone cast to some hungry hound? Lest be thy fair Queen's fantasy. Strength of heart And might of limb, but mainly use and skill, Are winners in this pastime of our King. My hand--belike the lance hath dript upon it-- No blood of mine, I trow; but O chief knight, Right arm of Arthur in the battlefield, Great brother, thou nor I have made the world; Be happy in thy fair Queen as I in mine.' And Tristram round the gallery made his horse Caracole; then bowed his homage, bluntly saying, `Fair damsels, each to him who worships each Sole Queen of Beauty and of love, behold This day my Queen of Beauty is not here.' And most of these were mute, some angered, one Murmuring, `All courtesy is dead,' and one, `The glory of our Round Table is no more.' Then fell thick rain, plume droopt and mantle clung, And pettish cries awoke, and the wan day Went glooming down in wet and weariness: But under her black brows a swarthy one Laughed shrilly, crying, `Praise the patient saints, Our one white day of Innocence hath past, Though somewhat draggled at the skirt. So be it. The snowdrop only, flowering through the year, Would make the world as blank as Winter-tide. Come--let us gladden their sad eyes, our Queen's And Lancelot's, at this night's solemnity With all the kindlier colours of the field.' So dame and damsel glittered at the feast Variously gay: for he that tells the tale Likened them, saying, as when an hour of cold Falls on the mountain in midsummer snows, And all the purple slopes of mountain flowers Pass under white, till the warm hour returns With veer of wind, and all are flowers again; So dame and damsel cast the simple white, And glowing in all colours, the live grass, Rose-campion, bluebell, kingcup, poppy, glanced About the revels, and with mirth so loud Beyond all use, that, half-amazed, the Queen, And wroth at Tristram and the lawless jousts, Brake up their sports, then slowly to her bower Parted, and in her bosom pain was lord. And little Dagonet on the morrow morn, High over all the yellowing Autumn-tide, Danced like a withered leaf before the hall. Then Tristram saying, `Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?' Wheeled round on either heel, Dagonet replied, `Belike for lack of wiser company; Or being fool, and seeing too much wit Makes the world rotten, why, belike I skip To know myself the wisest knight of all.' `Ay, fool,' said Tristram, `but 'tis eating dry To dance without a catch, a roundelay To dance to.' Then he twangled on his harp, And while he twangled little Dagonet stood Quiet as any water-sodden log Stayed in the wandering warble of a brook; But when the twangling ended, skipt again; And being asked, `Why skipt ye not, Sir Fool?' Made answer, `I had liefer twenty years Skip to the broken music of my brains Than any broken music thou canst make.' Then Tristram, waiting for the quip to come, `Good now, what music have I broken, fool?' And little Dagonet, skipping, `Arthur, the King's; For when thou playest that air with Queen Isolt, Thou makest broken music with thy bride, Her daintier namesake down in Brittany-- And so thou breakest Arthur's music too.' `Save for that broken music in thy brains, Sir Fool,' said Tristram, `I would break thy head. Fool, I came too late, the heathen wars were o'er, The life had flown, we sware but by the shell-- I am but a fool to reason with a fool-- Come, thou art crabbed and sour: but lean me down, Sir Dagonet, one of thy long asses' ears, And harken if my music be not true. `"Free love--free field--we love but while we may: The woods are hushed, their music is no more: The leaf is dead, the yearning past away: New leaf, new life--the days of frost are o'er: New life, new love, to suit the newer day: New loves are sweet as those that went before: Free love--free field--we love but while we may." `Ye might have moved slow-measure to my tune, Not stood stockstill. I made it in the woods, And heard it ring as true as tested gold.' But Dagonet with one foot poised in his hand, `Friend, did ye mark that fountain yesterday Made to run wine?--but this had run itself All out like a long life to a sour end-- And them that round it sat with golden cups To hand the wine to whosoever came-- The twelve small damosels white as Innocence, In honour of poor Innocence the babe, Who left the gems which Innocence the Queen Lent to the King, and Innocence the King Gave for a prize--and one of those white slips Handed her cup and piped, the pretty one, "Drink, drink, Sir Fool," and thereupon I drank, Spat--pish--the cup was gold, the draught was mud.' And Tristram, `Was it muddier than thy gibes? Is all the laughter gone dead out of thee?-- Not marking how the knighthood mock thee, fool-- "Fear God: honour the King--his one true knight-- Sole follower of the vows"--for here be they Who knew thee swine enow before I came, Smuttier than blasted grain: but when the King Had made thee fool, thy vanity so shot up It frighted all free fool from out thy heart; Which left thee less than fool, and less than swine, A naked aught--yet swine I hold thee still, For I have flung thee pearls and find thee swine.' And little Dagonet mincing with his feet, `Knight, an ye fling those rubies round my neck In lieu of hers, I'll hold thou hast some touch Of music, since I care not for thy pearls. Swine? I have wallowed, I have washed--the world Is flesh and shadow--I have had my day. The dirty nurse, Experience, in her kind Hath fouled me--an I wallowed, then I washed-- I have had my day and my philosophies-- And thank the Lord I am King Arthur's fool. Swine, say ye? swine, goats, asses, rams and geese Trooped round a Paynim harper once, who thrummed On such a wire as musically as thou Some such fine song--but never a king's fool.' And Tristram, `Then were swine, goats, asses, geese The wiser fools, seeing thy Paynim bard Had such a mastery of his mystery That he could harp his wife up out of hell.' Then Dagonet, turning on the ball of his foot, `And whither harp'st thou thine? down! and thyself Down! and two more: a helpful harper thou, That harpest downward! Dost thou know the star We call the harp of Arthur up in heaven?' And Tristram, `Ay, Sir Fool, for when our King Was victor wellnigh day by day, the knights, Glorying in each new glory, set his name High on all hills, and in the signs of heaven.' And Dagonet answered, `Ay, and when the land Was freed, and the Queen false, ye set yourself To babble about him, all to show your wit-- And whether he were King by courtesy, Or King by right--and so went harping down The black king's highway, got so far, and grew So witty that ye played at ducks and drakes With Arthur's vows on the great lake of fire. Tuwhoo! do ye see it? do ye see the star?' `Nay, fool,' said Tristram, `not in open day.' And Dagonet, `Nay, nor will: I see it and hear. It makes a silent music up in heaven, And I, and Arthur and the angels hear, And then we skip.' `Lo, fool,' he said, `ye talk Fool's treason: is the King thy brother fool?' Then little Dagonet clapt his hands and shrilled, `Ay, ay, my brother fool, the king of fools! Conceits himself as God that he can make Figs out of thistles, silk from bristles, milk From burning spurge, honey from hornet-combs, And men from beasts--Long live the king of fools!' And down the city Dagonet danced away; But through the slowly-mellowing avenues And solitary passes of the wood Rode Tristram toward Lyonnesse and the west. Before him fled the face of Queen Isolt With ruby-circled neck, but evermore Past, as a rustle or twitter in the wood Made dull his inner, keen his outer eye For all that walked, or crept, or perched, or flew. Anon the face, as, when a gust hath blown, Unruffling waters re-collect the shape Of one that in them sees himself, returned; But at the slot or fewmets of a deer, Or even a fallen feather, vanished again. So on for all that day from lawn to lawn Through many a league-long bower he rode. At length A lodge of intertwisted beechen-boughs Furze-crammed, and bracken-rooft, the which himself Built for a summer day with Queen Isolt Against a shower, dark in the golden grove Appearing, sent his fancy back to where She lived a moon in that low lodge with him: Till Mark her lord had past, the Cornish King, With six or seven, when Tristram was away, And snatched her thence; yet dreading worse than shame Her warrior Tristram, spake not any word, But bode his hour, devising wretchedness. And now that desert lodge to Tristram lookt So sweet, that halting, in he past, and sank Down on a drift of foliage random-blown; But could not rest for musing how to smoothe And sleek his marriage over to the Queen. Perchance in lone Tintagil far from all The tonguesters of the court she had not heard. But then what folly had sent him overseas After she left him lonely here? a name? Was it the name of one in Brittany, Isolt, the daughter of the King? `Isolt Of the white hands' they called her: the sweet name Allured him first, and then the maid herself, Who served him well with those white hands of hers, And loved him well, until himself had thought He loved her also, wedded easily, But left her all as easily, and returned. The black-blue Irish hair and Irish eyes Had drawn him home--what marvel? then he laid His brows upon the drifted leaf and dreamed. He seemed to pace the strand of Brittany Between Isolt of Britain and his bride, And showed them both the ruby-chain, and both Began to struggle for it, till his Queen Graspt it so hard, that all her hand was red. Then cried the Breton, `Look, her hand is red! These be no rubies, this is frozen blood, And melts within her hand--her hand is hot With ill desires, but this I gave thee, look, Is all as cool and white as any flower.' Followed a rush of eagle's wings, and then A whimpering of the spirit of the child, Because the twain had spoiled her carcanet. He dreamed; but Arthur with a hundred spears Rode far, till o'er the illimitable reed, And many a glancing plash and sallowy isle, The wide-winged sunset of the misty marsh Glared on a huge machicolated tower That stood with open doors, whereout was rolled A roar of riot, as from men secure Amid their marshes, ruffians at their ease Among their harlot-brides, an evil song. `Lo there,' said one of Arthur's youth, for there, High on a grim dead tree before the tower, A goodly brother of the Table Round Swung by the neck: and on the boughs a shield Showing a shower of blood in a field noir, And therebeside a horn, inflamed the knights At that dishonour done the gilded spur, Till each would clash the shield, and blow the horn. But Arthur waved them back. Alone he rode. Then at the dry harsh roar of the great horn, That sent the face of all the marsh aloft An ever upward-rushing storm and cloud Of shriek and plume, the Red Knight heard, and all, Even to tipmost lance and topmost helm, In blood-red armour sallying, howled to the King, `The teeth of Hell flay bare and gnash thee flat!-- Lo! art thou not that eunuch-hearted King Who fain had clipt free manhood from the world-- The woman-worshipper? Yea, God's curse, and I! Slain was the brother of my paramour By a knight of thine, and I that heard her whine And snivel, being eunuch-hearted too, Sware by the scorpion-worm that twists in hell, And stings itself to everlasting death, To hang whatever knight of thine I fought And tumbled. Art thou King? --Look to thy life!' He ended: Arthur knew the voice; the face Wellnigh was helmet-hidden, and the name Went wandering somewhere darkling in his mind. And Arthur deigned not use of word or sword, But let the drunkard, as he stretched from horse To strike him, overbalancing his bulk, Down from the causeway heavily to the swamp Fall, as the crest of some slow-arching wave, Heard in dead night along that table-shore, Drops flat, and after the great waters break Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves, Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud, From less and less to nothing; thus he fell Head-heavy; then the knights, who watched him, roared And shouted and leapt down upon the fallen; There trampled out his face from being known, And sank his head in mire, and slimed themselves: Nor heard the King for their own cries, but sprang Through open doors, and swording right and left Men, women, on their sodden faces, hurled The tables over and the wines, and slew Till all the rafters rang with woman-yells, And all the pavement streamed with massacre: Then, echoing yell with yell, they fired the tower, Which half that autumn night, like the live North, Red-pulsing up through Alioth and Alcor, Made all above it, and a hundred meres About it, as the water Moab saw Came round by the East, and out beyond them flushed The long low dune, and lazy-plunging sea. So all the ways were safe from shore to shore, But in the heart of Arthur pain was lord. Then, out of Tristram waking, the red dream Fled with a shout, and that low lodge returned, Mid-forest, and the wind among the boughs. He whistled his good warhorse left to graze Among the forest greens, vaulted upon him, And rode beneath an ever-showering leaf, Till one lone woman, weeping near a cross, Stayed him. `Why weep ye?' `Lord,' she said, `my man Hath left me or is dead;' whereon he thought-- `What, if she hate me now? I would not this. What, if she love me still? I would not that. I know not what I would'--but said to her, `Yet weep not thou, lest, if thy mate return, He find thy favour changed and love thee not'-- Then pressing day by day through Lyonnesse Last in a roky hollow, belling, heard The hounds of Mark, and felt the goodly hounds Yelp at his heart, but turning, past and gained Tintagil, half in sea, and high on land, A crown of towers. Down in a casement sat, A low sea-sunset glorying round her hair And glossy-throated grace, Isolt the Queen. And when she heard the feet of Tristram grind The spiring stone that scaled about her tower, Flushed, started, met him at the doors, and there Belted his body with her white embrace, Crying aloud, `Not Mark--not Mark, my soul! The footstep fluttered me at first: not he: Catlike through his own castle steals my Mark, But warrior-wise thou stridest through his halls Who hates thee, as I him--even to the death. My soul, I felt my hatred for my Mark Quicken within me, and knew that thou wert nigh.' To whom Sir Tristram smiling, `I am here. Let be thy Mark, seeing he is not thine.' And drawing somewhat backward she replied, `Can he be wronged who is not even his own, But save for dread of thee had beaten me, Scratched, bitten, blinded, marred me somehow--Mark? What rights are his that dare not strike for them? Not lift a hand--not, though he found me thus! But harken! have ye met him? hence he went Today for three days' hunting--as he said-- And so returns belike within an hour. Mark's way, my soul!--but eat not thou with Mark, Because he hates thee even more than fears; Nor drink: and when thou passest any wood Close vizor, lest an arrow from the bush Should leave me all alone with Mark and hell. My God, the measure of my hate for Mark Is as the measure of my love for thee.' So, plucked one way by hate and one by love, Drained of her force, again she sat, and spake To Tristram, as he knelt before her, saying, `O hunter, and O blower of the horn, Harper, and thou hast been a rover too, For, ere I mated with my shambling king, Ye twain had fallen out about the bride Of one--his name is out of me--the prize, If prize she were--(what marvel--she could see)-- Thine, friend; and ever since my craven seeks To wreck thee villainously: but, O Sir Knight, What dame or damsel have ye kneeled to last?' And Tristram, `Last to my Queen Paramount, Here now to my Queen Paramount of love And loveliness--ay, lovelier than when first Her light feet fell on our rough Lyonnesse, Sailing from Ireland.' Softly laughed Isolt; `Flatter me not, for hath not our great Queen My dole of beauty trebled?' and he said, `Her beauty is her beauty, and thine thine, And thine is more to me--soft, gracious, kind-- Save when thy Mark is kindled on thy lips Most gracious; but she, haughty, even to him, Lancelot; for I have seen him wan enow To make one doubt if ever the great Queen Have yielded him her love.' To whom Isolt, `Ah then, false hunter and false harper, thou Who brakest through the scruple of my bond, Calling me thy white hind, and saying to me That Guinevere had sinned against the highest, And I--misyoked with such a want of man-- That I could hardly sin against the lowest.' He answered, `O my soul, be comforted! If this be sweet, to sin in leading-strings, If here be comfort, and if ours be sin, Crowned warrant had we for the crowning sin That made us happy: but how ye greet me--fear And fault and doubt--no word of that fond tale-- Thy deep heart-yearnings, thy sweet memories Of Tristram in that year he was away.' And, saddening on the sudden, spake Isolt, `I had forgotten all in my strong joy To see thee--yearnings?--ay! for, hour by hour, Here in the never-ended afternoon, O sweeter than all memories of thee, Deeper than any yearnings after thee Seemed those far-rolling, westward-smiling seas, Watched from this tower. Isolt of Britain dashed Before Isolt of Brittany on the strand, Would that have chilled her bride-kiss? Wedded her? Fought in her father's battles? wounded there? The King was all fulfilled with gratefulness, And she, my namesake of the hands, that healed Thy hurt and heart with unguent and caress-- Well--can I wish her any huger wrong Than having known thee? her too hast thou left To pine and waste in those sweet memories. O were I not my Mark's, by whom all men Are noble, I should hate thee more than love.' And Tristram, fondling her light hands, replied, `Grace, Queen, for being loved: she loved me well. Did I love her? the name at least I loved. Isolt?--I fought his battles, for Isolt! The night was dark; the true star set. Isolt! The name was ruler of the dark--Isolt? Care not for her! patient, and prayerful, meek, Pale-blooded, she will yield herself to God.' And Isolt answered, `Yea, and why not I? Mine is the larger need, who am not meek, Pale-blooded, prayerful. Let me tell thee now. Here one black, mute midsummer night I sat, Lonely, but musing on thee, wondering where, Murmuring a light song I had heard thee sing, And once or twice I spake thy name aloud. Then flashed a levin-brand; and near me stood, In fuming sulphur blue and green, a fiend-- Mark's way to steal behind one in the dark-- For there was Mark: "He has wedded her," he said, Not said, but hissed it: then this crown of towers So shook to such a roar of all the sky, That here in utter dark I swooned away, And woke again in utter dark, and cried, "I will flee hence and give myself to God"-- And thou wert lying in thy new leman's arms.' Then Tristram, ever dallying with her hand, `May God be with thee, sweet, when old and gray, And past desire!' a saying that angered her. `"May God be with thee, sweet, when thou art old, And sweet no more to me!" I need Him now. For when had Lancelot uttered aught so gross Even to the swineherd's malkin in the mast? The greater man, the greater courtesy. Far other was the Tristram, Arthur's knight! But thou, through ever harrying thy wild beasts-- Save that to touch a harp, tilt with a lance Becomes thee well--art grown wild beast thyself. How darest thou, if lover, push me even In fancy from thy side, and set me far In the gray distance, half a life away, Her to be loved no more? Unsay it, unswear! Flatter me rather, seeing me so weak, Broken with Mark and hate and solitude, Thy marriage and mine own, that I should suck Lies like sweet wines: lie to me: I believe. Will ye not lie? not swear, as there ye kneel, And solemnly as when ye sware to him, The man of men, our King--My God, the power Was once in vows when men believed the King! They lied not then, who sware, and through their vows The King prevailing made his realm:--I say, Swear to me thou wilt love me even when old, Gray-haired, and past desire, and in despair.' Then Tristram, pacing moodily up and down, `Vows! did you keep the vow you made to Mark More than I mine? Lied, say ye? Nay, but learnt, The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself-- My knighthood taught me this--ay, being snapt-- We run more counter to the soul thereof Than had we never sworn. I swear no more. I swore to the great King, and am forsworn. For once--even to the height--I honoured him. "Man, is he man at all?" methought, when first I rode from our rough Lyonnesse, and beheld That victor of the Pagan throned in hall-- His hair, a sun that rayed from off a brow Like hillsnow high in heaven, the steel-blue eyes, The golden beard that clothed his lips with light-- Moreover, that weird legend of his birth, With Merlin's mystic babble about his end Amazed me; then, his foot was on a stool Shaped as a dragon; he seemed to me no man, But Micha l trampling Satan; so I sware, Being amazed: but this went by-- The vows! O ay--the wholesome madness of an hour-- They served their use, their time; for every knight Believed himself a greater than himself, And every follower eyed him as a God; Till he, being lifted up beyond himself, Did mightier deeds than elsewise he had done, And so the realm was made; but then their vows-- First mainly through that sullying of our Queen-- Began to gall the knighthood, asking whence Had Arthur right to bind them to himself? Dropt down from heaven? washed up from out the deep? They failed to trace him through the flesh and blood Of our old kings: whence then? a doubtful lord To bind them by inviolable vows, Which flesh and blood perforce would violate: For feel this arm of mine--the tide within Red with free chase and heather-scented air, Pulsing full man; can Arthur make me pure As any maiden child? lock up my tongue From uttering freely what I freely hear? Bind me to one? The wide world laughs at it. And worldling of the world am I, and know The ptarmigan that whitens ere his hour Woos his own end; we are not angels here Nor shall be: vows--I am woodman of the woods, And hear the garnet-headed yaffingale Mock them: my soul, we love but while we may; And therefore is my love so large for thee, Seeing it is not bounded save by love.' Here ending, he moved toward her, and she said, `Good: an I turned away my love for thee To some one thrice as courteous as thyself-- For courtesy wins woman all as well As valour may, but he that closes both Is perfect, he is Lancelot--taller indeed, Rosier and comelier, thou--but say I loved This knightliest of all knights, and cast thee back Thine own small saw, "We love but while we may," Well then, what answer?' He that while she spake, Mindful of what he brought to adorn her with, The jewels, had let one finger lightly touch The warm white apple of her throat, replied, `Press this a little closer, sweet, until-- Come, I am hungered and half-angered--meat, Wine, wine--and I will love thee to the death, And out beyond into the dream to come.' So then, when both were brought to full accord, She rose, and set before him all he willed; And after these had comforted the blood With meats and wines, and satiated their hearts-- Now talking of their woodland paradise, The deer, the dews, the fern, the founts, the lawns; Now mocking at the much ungainliness, And craven shifts, and long crane legs of Mark-- Then Tristram laughing caught the harp, and sang: `Ay, ay, O ay--the winds that bend the brier! A star in heaven, a star within the mere! Ay, ay, O ay--a star was my desire, And one was far apart, and one was near: Ay, ay, O ay--the winds that bow the grass! And one was water and one star was fire, And one will ever shine and one will pass. Ay, ay, O ay--the winds that move the mere.' Then in the light's last glimmer Tristram showed And swung the ruby carcanet. She cried, `The collar of some Order, which our King Hath newly founded, all for thee, my soul, For thee, to yield thee grace beyond thy peers.' `Not so, my Queen,' he said, `but the red fruit Grown on a magic oak-tree in mid-heaven, And won by Tristram as a tourney-prize, And hither brought by Tristram for his last Love-offering and peace-offering unto thee.' He spoke, he turned, then, flinging round her neck, Claspt it, and cried, `Thine Order, O my Queen!' But, while he bowed to kiss the jewelled throat, Out of the dark, just as the lips had touched, Behind him rose a shadow and a shriek-- `Mark's way,' said Mark, and clove him through the brain. That night came Arthur home, and while he climbed, All in a death-dumb autumn-dripping gloom, The stairway to the hall, and looked and saw The great Queen's bower was dark,--about his feet A voice clung sobbing till he questioned it, `What art thou?' and the voice about his feet Sent up an answer, sobbing, `I am thy fool, And I shall never make thee smile again.' Guinevere Queen Guinevere had fled the court, and sat There in the holy house at Almesbury Weeping, none with her save a little maid, A novice: one low light betwixt them burned Blurred by the creeping mist, for all abroad, Beneath a moon unseen albeit at full, The white mist, like a face-cloth to the face, Clung to the dead earth, and the land was still. For hither had she fled, her cause of flight Sir Modred; he that like a subtle beast Lay couchant with his eyes upon the throne, Ready to spring, waiting a chance: for this He chilled the popular praises of the King With silent smiles of slow disparagement; And tampered with the Lords of the White Horse, Heathen, the brood by Hengist left; and sought To make disruption in the Table Round Of Arthur, and to splinter it into feuds Serving his traitorous end; and all his aims Were sharpened by strong hate for Lancelot. For thus it chanced one morn when all the court, Green-suited, but with plumes that mocked the may, Had been, their wont, a-maying and returned, That Modred still in green, all ear and eye, Climbed to the high top of the garden-wall To spy some secret scandal if he might, And saw the Queen who sat betwixt her best Enid, and lissome Vivien, of her court The wiliest and the worst; and more than this He saw not, for Sir Lancelot passing by Spied where he couched, and as the gardener's hand Picks from the colewort a green caterpillar, So from the high wall and the flowering grove Of grasses Lancelot plucked him by the heel, And cast him as a worm upon the way; But when he knew the Prince though marred with dust, He, reverencing king's blood in a bad man, Made such excuses as he might, and these Full knightly without scorn; for in those days No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in scorn; But, if a man were halt or hunched, in him By those whom God had made full-limbed and tall, Scorn was allowed as part of his defect, And he was answered softly by the King And all his Table. So Sir Lancelot holp To raise the Prince, who rising twice or thrice Full sharply smote his knees, and smiled, and went: But, ever after, the small violence done Rankled in him and ruffled all his heart, As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long A little bitter pool about a stone On the bare coast. But when Sir Lancelot told This matter to the Queen, at first she laughed Lightly, to think of Modred's dusty fall, Then shuddered, as the village wife who cries `I shudder, some one steps across my grave;' Then laughed again, but faintlier, for indeed She half-foresaw that he, the subtle beast, Would track her guilt until he found, and hers Would be for evermore a name of scorn. Henceforward rarely could she front in hall, Or elsewhere, Modred's narrow foxy face, Heart-hiding smile, and gray persistent eye: Henceforward too, the Powers that tend the soul, To help it from the death that cannot die, And save it even in extremes, began To vex and plague her. Many a time for hours, Beside the placid breathings of the King, In the dead night, grim faces came and went Before her, or a vague spiritual fear-- Like to some doubtful noise of creaking doors,
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