The Last Tournament

Dagonet, the fool, whom Gawain in his moodHad 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 carcanetOf ruby swaying to and fro, the prizeOf Tristram in the jousts of yesterday,Came Tristram, saying, “Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?”

For Arthur and Sir Lancelot riding onceFar down beneath a winding wall of rockHeard 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 airBearing an eagle’s nest: and through the treeRushed ever a rainy wind, and through the windPierced ever a child’s cry: and crag and treeScaling, Sir Lancelot from the perilous nest,This ruby necklace thrice around her neck,And all unscarred from beak or talon, broughtA maiden babe; which Arthur pitying took,Then gave it to his Queen to rear: the QueenBut coldly acquiescing, in her white armsReceived, and after loved it tenderly,And named it Nestling; so forgot herselfA moment, and her cares; till that young lifeBeing smitten in mid heaven with mortal coldPast from her; and in time the carcanetVext 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-borneDead nestling, and this honour after death,Following thy will! but, O my Queen, I museWhy ye not wear on arm, or neck, or zoneThose 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 outAbove the river—that unhappy childPast in her barge: but rosier luck will goWith these rich jewels, seeing that they cameNot from the skeleton of a brother-slayer,But the sweet body of a maiden babe.Perchance—who knows?—the purest of thy knightsMay win them for the purest of my maids.”

She ended, and the cry of a great joustsWith trumpet-blowings ran on all the waysFrom Camelot in among the faded fieldsTo furthest towers; and everywhere the knightsArmed for a day of glory before the King.

But on the hither side of that loud mornInto the hall staggered, his visage ribbedFrom ear to ear with dogwhip-weals, his noseBridge-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 beastHath 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 stumpPitch-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 KnightBrake in upon me and drave them to his tower;And when I called upon thy name as oneThat 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 IHave founded my Round Table in the North,And whatsoever his own knights have swornMy knights have sworn the counter to it—and sayMy tower is full of harlots, like his court,But mine are worthier, seeing they professTo be none other than themselves—and sayMy knights are all adulterers like his own,But mine are truer, seeing they professTo be none other; and say his hour is come,The heathen are upon him, his long lanceBroken, and his Excalibur a straw.’”

Then Arthur turned to Kay the seneschal,“Take thou my churl, and tend him curiouslyLike 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, whomThe wholesome realm is purged of otherwhere,Friends, through your manhood and your fealty,—nowMake their last head like Satan in the North.My younger knights, new-made, in whom your flowerWaits 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 placeEnchaired 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 leaveThe 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 KingTurned to him saying, “Is it then so well?Or mine the blame that oft I seem as heOf whom was written, ‘A sound is in his ears’?The foot that loiters, bidden go,—the glanceThat only seems half-loyal to command,—A manner somewhat fallen from reverence—Or have I dreamed the bearing of our knightsTells 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 turnedNorth 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 rhymeOf 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 calledThe 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 pureWhite samite, and by fountains running wine,Where children sat in white with cups of gold,Moved to the lists, and there, with slow sad stepsAscending, filled his double-dragoned chair.

He glanced and saw the stately galleries,Dame, damsel, each through worship of their QueenWhite-robed in honour of the stainless child,And some with scattered jewels, like a bankOf maiden snow mingled with sparks of fire.He looked but once, and vailed his eyes again.

The sudden trumpet sounded as in a dreamTo ears but half-awaked, then one low rollOf Autumn thunder, and the jousts began:And ever the wind blew, and yellowing leafAnd gloom and gleam, and shower and shorn plumeWent down it. Sighing weariedly, as oneWho 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 tournamentBroken, but spake not; once, a knight cast downBefore his throne of arbitration cursedThe 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 heardThe voice that billowed round the barriers roarAn ocean-sounding welcome to one knight,But newly-entered, taller than the rest,And armoured all in forest green, whereonThere tript a hundred tiny silver deer,And wearing but a holly-spray for crest,With ever-scattering berries, and on shieldA spear, a harp, a bugle—Tristram—lateFrom 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 painHis own against him, and now yearned to shakeThe burthen off his heart in one full shockWith Tristram even to death: his strong hands griptAnd 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 mockeriesStood, 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 handWherewith thou takest this, is red!” to whomTristram, half plagued by Lancelot’s languorous mood,Made answer, “Ay, but wherefore toss me thisLike a dry bone cast to some hungry hound?Lest be thy fair Queen’s fantasy. Strength of heartAnd 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 horseCaracole; then bowed his homage, bluntly saying,“Fair damsels, each to him who worships eachSole Queen of Beauty and of love, beholdThis day my Queen of Beauty is not here.”And most of these were mute, some angered, oneMurmuring, “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 dayWent glooming down in wet and weariness:But under her black brows a swarthy oneLaughed 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’sAnd Lancelot’s, at this night’s solemnityWith all the kindlier colours of the field.”

So dame and damsel glittered at the feastVariously gay: for he that tells the taleLikened them, saying, as when an hour of coldFalls on the mountain in midsummer snows,And all the purple slopes of mountain flowersPass under white, till the warm hour returnsWith 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, glancedAbout the revels, and with mirth so loudBeyond all use, that, half-amazed, the Queen,And wroth at Tristram and the lawless jousts,Brake up their sports, then slowly to her bowerParted, 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 witMakes the world rotten, why, belike I skipTo know myself the wisest knight of all.”“Ay, fool,” said Tristram, “but ’tis eating dryTo dance without a catch, a roundelayTo dance to.” Then he twangled on his harp,And while he twangled little Dagonet stoodQuiet as any water-sodden logStayed 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 yearsSkip to the broken music of my brainsThan 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 yesterdayMade to run wine?—but this had run itselfAll out like a long life to a sour end—And them that round it sat with golden cupsTo 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 QueenLent to the King, and Innocence the KingGave for a prize—and one of those white slipsHanded 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 theyWho knew thee swine enow before I came,Smuttier than blasted grain: but when the KingHad made thee fool, thy vanity so shot upIt 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 neckIn lieu of hers, I’ll hold thou hast some touchOf music, since I care not for thy pearls.Swine? I have wallowed, I have washed—the worldIs flesh and shadow—I have had my day.The dirty nurse, Experience, in her kindHath 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 geeseTrooped round a Paynim harper once, who thrummedOn such a wire as musically as thouSome such fine song—but never a king’s fool.”

And Tristram, “Then were swine, goats, asses, geeseThe wiser fools, seeing thy Paynim bardHad such a mastery of his mysteryThat 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 thyselfDown! and two more: a helpful harper thou,That harpest downward! Dost thou know the starWe call the harp of Arthur up in heaven?”

And Tristram, “Ay, Sir Fool, for when our KingWas victor wellnigh day by day, the knights,Glorying in each new glory, set his nameHigh on all hills, and in the signs of heaven.”

And Dagonet answered, “Ay, and when the landWas freed, and the Queen false, ye set yourselfTo babble about him, all to show your wit—And whether he were King by courtesy,Or King by right—and so went harping downThe black king’s highway, got so far, and grewSo witty that ye played at ducks and drakesWith 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 talkFool’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 makeFigs out of thistles, silk from bristles, milkFrom 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 avenuesAnd solitary passes of the woodRode Tristram toward Lyonnesse and the west.Before him fled the face of Queen IsoltWith ruby-circled neck, but evermorePast, as a rustle or twitter in the woodMade dull his inner, keen his outer eyeFor all that walked, or crept, or perched, or flew.Anon the face, as, when a gust hath blown,Unruffling waters re-collect the shapeOf 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 lawnThrough many a league-long bower he rode. At lengthA lodge of intertwisted beechen-boughsFurze-crammed, and bracken-rooft, the which himselfBuilt for a summer day with Queen IsoltAgainst a shower, dark in the golden groveAppearing, sent his fancy back to whereShe 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 shameHer warrior Tristram, spake not any word,But bode his hour, devising wretchedness.

And now that desert lodge to Tristram looktSo sweet, that halting, in he past, and sankDown on a drift of foliage random-blown;But could not rest for musing how to smootheAnd sleek his marriage over to the Queen.Perchance in lone Tintagil far from allThe tonguesters of the court she had not heard.But then what folly had sent him overseasAfter she left him lonely here? a name?Was it the name of one in Brittany,Isolt, the daughter of the King? “IsoltOf the white hands” they called her: the sweet nameAllured him first, and then the maid herself,Who served him well with those white hands of hers,And loved him well, until himself had thoughtHe loved her also, wedded easily,But left her all as easily, and returned.The black-blue Irish hair and Irish eyesHad drawn him home—what marvel? then he laidHis brows upon the drifted leaf and dreamed.

He seemed to pace the strand of BrittanyBetween Isolt of Britain and his bride,And showed them both the ruby-chain, and bothBegan to struggle for it, till his QueenGraspt 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 hotWith 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 thenA whimpering of the spirit of the child,Because the twain had spoiled her carcanet.

He dreamed; but Arthur with a hundred spearsRode far, till o’er the illimitable reed,And many a glancing plash and sallowy isle,The wide-winged sunset of the misty marshGlared on a huge machicolated towerThat stood with open doors, whereout was rolledA roar of riot, as from men secureAmid their marshes, ruffians at their easeAmong 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 RoundSwung by the neck: and on the boughs a shieldShowing a shower of blood in a field noir,And therebeside a horn, inflamed the knightsAt 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 aloftAn ever upward-rushing storm and cloudOf 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 KingWho fain had clipt free manhood from the world—The woman-worshipper? Yea, God’s curse, and I!Slain was the brother of my paramourBy a knight of thine, and I that heard her whineAnd 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 foughtAnd tumbled. Art thou King? —Look to thy life!”

He ended: Arthur knew the voice; the faceWellnigh was helmet-hidden, and the nameWent wandering somewhere darkling in his mind.And Arthur deigned not use of word or sword,But let the drunkard, as he stretched from horseTo strike him, overbalancing his bulk,Down from the causeway heavily to the swampFall, as the crest of some slow-arching wave,Heard in dead night along that table-shore,Drops flat, and after the great waters breakWhitening for half a league, and thin themselves,Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud,From less and less to nothing; thus he fellHead-heavy; then the knights, who watched him, roaredAnd 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 sprangThrough open doors, and swording right and leftMen, women, on their sodden faces, hurledThe tables over and the wines, and slewTill 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 meresAbout it, as the water Moab sawCame round by the East, and out beyond them flushedThe 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 dreamFled with a shout, and that low lodge returned,Mid-forest, and the wind among the boughs.He whistled his good warhorse left to grazeAmong 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 manHath 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 LyonnesseLast in a roky hollow, belling, heardThe hounds of Mark, and felt the goodly houndsYelp at his heart, but turning, past and gainedTintagil, half in sea, and high on land,A crown of towers.

Down in a casement sat,A low sea-sunset glorying round her hairAnd glossy-throated grace, Isolt the Queen.And when she heard the feet of Tristram grindThe spiring stone that scaled about her tower,Flushed, started, met him at the doors, and thereBelted 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 hallsWho hates thee, as I him—even to the death.My soul, I felt my hatred for my MarkQuicken 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 wentToday 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 woodClose vizor, lest an arrow from the bushShould leave me all alone with Mark and hell.My God, the measure of my hate for MarkIs 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 spakeTo 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 brideOf 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 seeksTo 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 loveAnd loveliness—ay, lovelier than when firstHer light feet fell on our rough Lyonnesse,Sailing from Ireland.”

Softly laughed Isolt;“Flatter me not, for hath not our great QueenMy 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 lipsMost gracious; but she, haughty, even to him,Lancelot; for I have seen him wan enowTo make one doubt if ever the great QueenHave yielded him her love.”

To whom Isolt,“Ah then, false hunter and false harper, thouWho brakest through the scruple of my bond,Calling me thy white hind, and saying to meThat 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 sinThat made us happy: but how ye greet me—fearAnd fault and doubt—no word of that fond tale—Thy deep heart-yearnings, thy sweet memoriesOf Tristram in that year he was away.”

And, saddening on the sudden, spake Isolt,“I had forgotten all in my strong joyTo 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 theeSeemed those far-rolling, westward-smiling seas,Watched from this tower. Isolt of Britain dashedBefore 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 healedThy hurt and heart with unguent and caress—Well—can I wish her any huger wrongThan having known thee? her too hast thou leftTo pine and waste in those sweet memories.O were I not my Mark’s, by whom all menAre 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 towersSo 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 grossEven 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 lanceBecomes thee well—art grown wild beast thyself.How darest thou, if lover, push me evenIn fancy from thy side, and set me farIn 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 suckLies 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 powerWas once in vows when men believed the King!They lied not then, who sware, and through their vowsThe 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 MarkMore 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 thereofThan 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 firstI rode from our rough Lyonnesse, and beheldThat victor of the Pagan throned in hall—His hair, a sun that rayed from off a browLike 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 endAmazed me; then, his foot was on a stoolShaped as a dragon; he seemed to me no man,But Michael 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 knightBelieved 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 whenceHad 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 bloodOf our old kings: whence then? a doubtful lordTo bind them by inviolable vows,Which flesh and blood perforce would violate:For feel this arm of mine—the tide withinRed with free chase and heather-scented air,Pulsing full man; can Arthur make me pureAs any maiden child? lock up my tongueFrom uttering freely what I freely hear?Bind me to one? The wide world laughs at it.And worldling of the world am I, and knowThe ptarmigan that whitens ere his hourWoos his own end; we are not angels hereNor shall be: vows—I am woodman of the woods,And hear the garnet-headed yaffingaleMock 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 theeTo some one thrice as courteous as thyself—For courtesy wins woman all as wellAs valour may, but he that closes bothIs perfect, he is Lancelot—taller indeed,Rosier and comelier, thou—but say I lovedThis knightliest of all knights, and cast thee backThine 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 touchThe 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 bloodWith 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 showedAnd swung the ruby carcanet. She cried,“The collar of some Order, which our KingHath 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 fruitGrown on a magic oak-tree in mid-heaven,And won by Tristram as a tourney-prize,And hither brought by Tristram for his lastLove-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 sawThe great Queen’s bower was dark,—about his feetA voice clung sobbing till he questioned it,“What art thou?” and the voice about his feetSent up an answer, sobbing, “I am thy fool,And I shall never make thee smile again.”