Lancelot, a poem

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Book . L_3-

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II

The flash of oak leaves over Guinevere That afternoon, with the sun going down, Made memories there for Lancelot, although The woman who in silence looked at him, Now seemed his inventory of the world That he must lose, or suffer to be lost For love of her who sat there in the shade, With oak leaves flashing in a golden light Over her face and over her golden hair. [16]

"Gawaine has all the graces, yet he knows;

He knows enough to be the end of us,

If so he would," she said. "He knows and laughs;

And we are at the mercy of a man

Who, if the stars went out, would only laugh."

She looked away at a small swinging blossom,

And then she looked intently at her fingers,

While a frown gathered slowly round her eyes,

And wrinkled her white forehead.

Lancelot, Scarce knowing whether to himself he spoke Or to the Queen, said emptily: "As for Gawaine, My question is, if any curious hind Or knight that is alive in Britain breathing, Or prince, or king, knows more of us, or less, Than Gawaine, in his gay complacency, [171

Knows or believes he knows. There's over much Of knowing in this realm of many tongues, Where deeds are less to those who tell of them Than are the words they sow; and you and I Are like to yield a granary of such words, For God knows what next harvesting. Gawaine I fear no more than Gareth, or Colgrevance; So far as it is his to be the friend Of any man, so far is he my friend — Till I have crossed him in some enterprise Unlikely and unborn. So fear not Gawaine, But let your primal care be now for one Whose name is yours."

The Queen, with her blue eyes Too bright for joy, still gazed on Lancelot, Who stared as if in angry malediction [181

Upon the shorn grass growing at his feet. "Why do you speak as if the grass had ears And I had none? What are you saying now, So darkly to the grass, of knights and hinds? Are you the Lancelot who rode, long since, Away from me on that unearthly Quest, Which left no man the same who followed it — Or none save Gawaine, who came back so soon That we had hardly missed him?" Faintly then She smiled a little, more in her defence, He knew, than for misprision of a man Whom yet she feared: "Why do you set this

day— This golden day, when all are not so golden — To tell me, with your eyes upon the ground, That idle words have been for idle tongues And ears a moment's idle entertainment? [19]

Have I become, and all at once, a thing

So new to courts, and to the buzz they make,

That I should hear no murmur, see no sign?

Where malice and ambition dwell with envy,

They go the farthest who believe the least;

So let them, — while I ask of you again,

Why this day for all this? Was yesterday

A day of ouphes and omens? Was it Friday?

I don't remember. Days are all alike

When I have you to look on; when you go,

There are no days but hours. You might say now

What Gawaine said, and say it in our language."

The sharp light still was in her eyes, alive

And anxious with a reminiscent fear.

Lancelot, like a strong man stricken hard With pain, looked up at her unhappily; [201

And slowly, on a low and final note, Said: "Gawaine laughs alike at what he knows, And at the loose convenience of his fancy; He sees in others what his humor needs To nourish it, and lives a merry life. Sometimes a random shaft of his will hit Nearer the mark than one a wise man aims With infinite address and reservation; So has it come to pass this afternoon."

Blood left the quivering cheeks of Guinevere As color leaves a cloud; and where white was Before, there was a ghostliness not white, But gray; and over it her shining hair Coiled heavily its mocking weight of gold. The pride of her forlorn light-heartedness Fled like a storm-blown feather; and her fear, [21]

Possessing her, was all that she possessed.

She sought for Lancelot, but he seemed gone.

There was a strong man glowering in a chair

Before her, but he was not Lancelot,

Or he would look at her and say to her

That Gawaine's words were less than chaff in the

wind — A nonsense about exile, birds, and bones, Born of an indolence of empty breath. "Say what has come to pass this afternoon," She said, " or I shall hear you all my life, Not hearing what it was you might have told."

He felt the trembling of her slow last words, And his were trembling as he answered them: "Why this day, why no other? So you ask, And so must I in honor tell you more —

For what end, I have yet no braver guess Than Modred has of immortality, Or you of Gawaine. Could I have him alone Between me and the peace I cannot know, My life were like the sound of golden bells Over still fields at sunset, where no storm Should ever blast the sky with fire again, Or thunder follow ruin for you and me, — As like it will, if I for one more day, Assume that I see not what I have seen, See now, and shall see. There are no more lies Left anywhere now for me to tell myself That I have not already told myself, And overtold, until today I seem To taste them as I might the poisoned fruit That Patrise had of Mador, and so died. And that same apple of death was to be food

For Gawaine; but he left it and lives on,

To make his joy of living your confusion.

His life is his religion; he loves life

With such a manifold exuberance

That poison shuns him and seeks out a way

To wreak its evil upon innocence.

There may be chance in this, there may be law.

Be what there be, I do not fear Gawaine."

The Queen, with an indignant little foot, Struck viciously the unoffending grass And said: "Why not let Gawaine go his way? I'll think of him no more, fear him no more, And hear of him no more. I'll hear no more Of any now save one who is, or was, All men to me. And he said once to me That he would say why this day, of all days, [U]

Was more mysteriously felicitous For solemn commination than another." Again she smiled, but her blue eyes were telling No more their story of old happiness.

"For me today is not as other days," He said, "because it is the first, I find, That has empowered my will to say to you What most it is that you must hear and heed. When Arthur, with a faith unfortified, Sent me alone of all he might have sent, That May-day to Leodogran your father, I went away from him with a sore heart; For in my heart I knew that I should fail My King, who trusted me too far beyond The mortal outpost of experience. And this was after Merlin's admonition, [25]

Which Arthur, in his passion, took for less

Than his inviolable majesty.

When I rode in between your father's guards

And heard his trumpets blown for my loud honor,

I sent my memory back to Camelot,

And said once to myself, 'God save the King!'

But the words tore my throat and were like

blood Upon my tongue. Then a great shout went up From shining men around me everywhere; And I remember more fair women's eyes Than there are stars in autumn, all of them Thrown on me for a glimpse of that high knight Sir Lancelot — Sir Lancelot of the Lake. I saw their faces and I saw not one To sever a tendril of my integrity; But I thought once again, to make myself [M]

Believe a silent lie, 'God save the King' .... I saw your face, and there were no more kings."

The sharp light softened in the Queen's blue eyes, And for a moment there was joy in them: "Was I so menacing to the peace, I wonder, Of anyone else alive? But why go back? I tell you that I fear Gawaine no more; And if you fear him not, and I fear not What you fear not, what have we then to fear?" Fatigued a little with her reasoning, She waited longer than a woman waits, Without a cloudy sign, for Lancelot's Unhurried answer: "Whether or not you fear, Know always that I fear for me no stroke Maturing for the joy of any knave Who sees the world, with me alive in it, [27]

A place too crowded for the furtherance

Of his inflammatory preparations.

But Lot of Orkney had a wife, a dark one;

And rumor says no man who gazed at her,

Attentively, might say his prayers again

Without a penance or an absolution.

I know not about that; but the world knows

That Arthur prayed in vain once, if he prayed,

Or we should have no Modred watching us.

Know then that what you fear to call my fear

Is all for you; and what is all for you

Is all for love, which were the same to me

As life — had I not seen what I have seen.

But first I am to tell you what I see,

And what I mean by fear. It is yourself

That I see now; and if I saw you only,

I might forego again all other service,

And leave to Time, who is Love's almoner, The benefaction of what years or days Remaining might be found unchronicled For two that have not always watched or seen The sands of gold that flow for golden hours. If I saw you alone! But I know now That you are never more to be alone. The shape of one infernal foul attendant Will be for ever prowling after you, To leer at me like a damned thing whipped out Of the last cave in hell. You know his name. Over your shoulder I could see him now, Adventuring his misbegotten patience For one destroying word in the King's ear — The word he cannot whisper there quite yet, Not having it yet to say. If he should say it, Then all this would be over, and our days [29]

Of life, your days and mine, be over with it. No day of mine that were to be for you Your last, would light for me a longer span Than for yourself; and there would be no twilight.'

The Queen's implacable calm eyes betrayed The doubt that had as yet for what he said No healing answer: " If I fear no more Gawaine, I fear your Modred even less. Your fear, you say, is for an end outside Your safety; and as much as that I grant you. And I believe in your belief, moreover, That some far-off unheard-of retribution Hangs over Camelot, even as this oak-bough, That I may almost reach, hangs overhead, All dark now. Only a small time ago The light was falling through it, and on me. 1301

Another light, a longer time ago, Was living in your eyes, and we were happy. Yet there was Modred then as he is now, As much a danger then as he is now, And quite as much a nuisance. Let his eyes Have all the darkness in them they may hold, And there will be less left of it outside For fears to grope and thrive in. Lancelot, I say the dark is not what you fear most. There is a Light that you fear more today Than all the darkness that has ever been; Yet I doubt not that your Light will burn on For some time yet without your ministration. I'm glad for Modred, — though I hate his eyes, — That he should hold me nearer to your thoughts Than I should hold myself, I fear, without him;

I'm glad for Gawaine, also, — who, you tell me, Misled my fancy with his joy of living."

Incredulous of her voice and of her lightness,

He saw now in the patience of her smile

A shining quiet of expectancy

That made as much of his determination

As he had made of giants and Sir Peris.

"But I have more to say than you have heard,"

He faltered — "though God knows what you have

heard Should be enough."

"I see it now," she said; "I see it now as always women must Who cannot hold what holds them any more. If Modred's hate were now the only hazard — [32]

The only shadow between you and me — How long should I be saying all this to you, Or you be listening? No, Lancelot, — no. I knew it coming for a longer time Than you fared for the Grail. You told yourself, When first that wild light came to make men mad Round Arthur's Table — as Gawaine told himself, And many another tired man told himself — That it was God, not something new, that called you. Well, God was something new to most of them, And so they went away. But you were changing Long before you, or Bors, or Percival, Or Galahad rode away — or poor Gawaine, Who came back presently; and for a time Before you went — albeit for no long time — I may have made for your too loyal patience A jealous exhibition of my folly — [33]

All for those two Elaines; and one of them Is dead, poor child, for you. How do you feel, You men, when women die for you? They do, Sometimes, you know. Not often, but sometimes."

Discomfiture, beginning with a scowl And ending in a melancholy smile, Crept over Lancelot's face the while he stared, More like a child than like the man he was, At Guinevere's demure serenity Before him in the shadow, soon to change Into the darkness of a darker night Than yet had been since Arthur was a king. "What seizure of an unrelated rambling Do you suppose it was that had you then?" He said; and with a frown that had no smile Behind it, he sat brooding. [341

The Queen laughed, And looked at him again with lucent eyes That had no sharpness in them; they were soft

now, And a blue light, made wet with happiness, Distilled from pain into abandonment, Shone out of them and held him while she smiled, Although they trembled with a questioning Of what his gloom foretold: "All that I saw Was true, and I have paid for what I saw — More than a man may know. Hear me, and listen: You cannot put me or the truth aside, With half -told words that I could only wish No man had said to me; not you, of all men. If there were only Modred in the way, Should I see now, from here and in this light, So many furrows over your changed eyes? F351

Why do you fear for me when all my fears

Are for the needless burden you take on?

To put me far away, and your fears with me,

Were surely no long toil, had you the will

To say what you have known and I have known

Longer than I dare guess. Have little fear :

Never shall I become for you a curse

Laid on your conscience to be borne for ever;

Nor shall I be a weight for you to drag

On always after you, as a poor slave

Drags iron at his heels. Therefore, today,

These ominous reassurances of mine

WTould seem to me to be a waste of life,

And more than life.''

Lancelot's memory wandered Into the blue and wistful distances [361

That her soft eyes unveiled. He knew their trick, As he knew the great love that fostered it, And the wild passionate fate that hid itself In all the perilous calm of white and gold That was her face and hair, and might as well Have been of gold and marble for the world, And for the King. Before he knew, she stood Behind him with her warm hands on his cheeks, And her lips on his lips; and though he heard Not half of what she told, he heard enough To make as much of it, or so it seemed, As man was ever told, or should be told, Or need be, until everything was told, And all the mystic silence of the stars Had nothing more to keep or to reveal. "If there were only Modred in the way," She murmured, "would you come to me tonight? [371

The King goes to Carleon or Carlisle,

Or some place where there's hunting. Would you

come, If there were only Modred in the way?" She felt his hand on hers and laid her cheek Upon his forehead, where the furrows were: "All these must go away, and so must I — Before there are more, shadows. You will come, And you may tell me everything you must That I must hear you tell me — if I must — Of bones and horrors and of horrid waves That break for ever on the world's last edge."

Ill

Lancelot looked about him, but he saw No Guinevere. The place where she had sat Was now an empty chair that might have been The shadowy throne of an abandoned world, But for the living fragrance of a kiss That he remembered, and a living voice That hovered when he saw that she was gone. There was too much remembering while he felt Upon his cheek the warm sound of her words; There was too much regret; there was too much l?9]

Remorse. Regret was there for what had gone, Remorse for what had come. Yet there was time, That had not wholly come. There was time

enough Between him and the night — as there were shoals Enough, no doubt, that in the sea somewhere Were not yet hidden by the drowning tide. " So there is here between me and the dark Some twilight left," he said. He sighed, and said Again, "Time, tide, and twilight — and the dark; And then, for me, the Light. But what for her? I do not think of anything but life That I may give to her by going now; And if I look into her eyes^ again, Or feel her breath upon my face again, God knows if I may give so much as life; Or if the durance of her loneliness [40]

Would have it for the asking. What am I? What have I seen that I must leave behind So much of heaven and earth to burn itself Away in white and gold, until in time There shall be no more white and no more gold? I cannot think of such a time as that; I cannot — yet I must; for I am he That shall have hastened it and hurried on To dissolution all that wonderment — That envy of all women who have said She was a child of ice and ivory; And of all men, save one. And who is he? Who is this Lancelot that has betrayed His Eang, and served him with a cankered honor? Who is this Lancelot that sees the Light And waits now in the shadow for the dark? Who is this King, this Arthur, who believes [41]

That what has been, and is, will be for ever, — Who has no eye for what he will not see, And will see nothing but what's passing here In Camelot, which is passing? Why are we here? What are we doing — kings, queens, Camelots, And Lancelots? And what is this dim world That I would leave, and cannot leave tonight Because a Queen is in it and a King Has gone away to some place where there's hunting — Carleon or Carlisle! Who is this Queen, This pale witch-wonder of white fire and gold, This Guinevere that I brought back with me From Cameliard for Arthur, who knew then What Merlin told, as he forgets it now And rides away from her — God watch the world ! — To some place where there's hunting! What are kings?

And how much longer are there to be kings? When are the millions who are now like worms To know that kings are worms, if they are worms? When are the women who make toys of men To know that they themselves are less than toys When Time has laid upon their skins the touch Of his all-shrivelling fingers? When are they To know that men must have an end of them When men have seen the Light and left the world That I am leaving now. Yet here I am, And all because a king has gone a-hunting .... Carleon or Carlisle I"

So Lancelot Fed with a sullen rancor, which he knew To be as false as he was to the King, The passion and the fear that now in him [43]

Were burning like two slow infernal fires

That only flight and exile far away

From Camelot should ever cool again.

"Yet here I am," he said, — "and here I am.

Time, tide, and twilight; and there is no twilight —

And there is not much time. But there's enough

To eat and drink in; and there may be time

For me to frame a jest or two to prove

How merry a man may be who sees the Light.

And I must get me up and go along,

Before the shadows blot out everything,

And leave me stumbling among skeletons.

God, what a rain of ashes falls on him

Who sees the new and cannot leave the old!"

He rose and looked away into the south Where a gate was, by which he might go out, [44]

Now, if he would, while Time was yet there with

him — Time that was tearing minutes out of life While he stood shivering in his loneliness, And while the silver lights of memory- Shone faintly on a far-off eastern shore Where he had seen on earth for the last time The triumph and the sadness in the face Of Galahad, for whom the Light was waiting. Now he could see the face of him again, He fancied; and his flickering will adjured him To follow it and be free. He followed it Until it faded and there was no face, And there was no more light. Yet there was time That had not come, though he could hear it now Like ruining feet of marching conquerors That would be coming soon and were not men. [45]

Forlornly and unwillingly he came back To find the two dim chairs. In one of them Was Guinevere, and on her phantom face There fell a golden light that might have been The changing gleam of an unchanging gold That was her golden hair. He sprang to touch The wonder of it, but she too was gone, Like Galahad; he was alone again With shadows, and one face that he still saw. The world had no more faces now than one That for a moment, with a flash of pain, Had shown him what it is that may be seen In embers that break slowly into dust, Where for a time was fire. ^He saw it there Before him, and he knew it was not good That he should learn so late, and of this hour, What men may leave behind them in the eyes

Of women who have nothing more to give,

And may not follow after. Once again

He gazed away to southward, but the face

Of Galahad was not there. He turned, and saw

Before him, in the distance, many lights

In Arthur's palace; for the dark had come

To Camelot, while Time had come and gone.

IV

Not having viewed Carleon or Carlisle, The King came home to Camelot after midnight, Feigning an ill not feigned; and his return Brought Bedivere, and after him Gawaine, To the King's inner chamber, where they waited Through the grim light of dawn. Sir Bedivere, By nature stern to see, though not so bleak Within as to be frozen out of mercy, Sat with arms crossed and with his head weighed low

In heavy meditation. Once or twice His eyes were lifted for a careful glimpse Of Gawaine at the window, where he stood Twisting his fingers feverishly behind him, Like one distinguishing indignantly, For swift eclipse and for offence not his, The towers and roofs and the sad majesty Of Camelot in the dawn, for the last time.

Sir Bedivere, at last, with a long sigh That said less of his pain than of his pity, Addressed the younger knight who turned and

heard His elder, but with no large eagerness: "So it has come, Gawaine; and we are here. I find when I see backward something farther, By grace of time, than you are given to see — [49]

Though you, past any doubt, see much that I See not — I find that what the colder speech Of reason most repeated says to us Of what is in a way to come to us Is like enough to come. And we are here. Before the unseeing sun is here to mock us, Or the King here to prove us, we are here. We are the two, it seems, that are to make Of words and of our presences a veil Between him and the sight of what he does. Little have I to say that I may tell him: For what I know is what the city knows, Not what it says, — for it says everything. The city says the first of all who met The sword of Lancelot was Colgrevance, Who fell dead while he wept — a brave machine, Cranked only for the rudiments of war. [501

But some of us are born to serve and shift, And that's not well. The city says, also, That you and Lancelot were in the garden, Before the sun went down."

"Yes," Gawaine groaned; "Yes, we were there together in the garden, Before the sun went down; and I conceive A place among the possibilities For me with other causes unforeseen Of what may shake down soon to grief and ashes This kingdom and this empire. Bedivere, Could I have given a decent seriousness To Lancelot while he said things to me That pulled the heart half out of him by the roots, And left him, I see now, half sick with pity For my poor uselessness to serve a need [511

That I had never known, we might be now Asleep and easy in our beds at home, And we might hear no murmurs after sunrise Of what we are to hear. A few right words Of mine, if said well, might have been enough. That shall I never know. I shall know only That it was I who laughed at Lancelot When he said what lay heaviest on his heart. By now he might be far away from here, And farther from the world. But the Queen came; The Queen came, and I left them there together; And I laughed as I left them. After dark I met with Modred and said what I could, When I had heard him, to discourage him. His mother was my mother. I told Bors, And he told Lancelot; though as for that, My story would have been the same as his, [521

And would have had the same acknowledgment : 'Thanks, but no matter' — or to that effect. The Queen, of course, had fished him for his word, And had it on the hook when she went home; And after that, an army of red devils Could not have held the man away from her. And I'm to live as long as I'm to wonder What might have been, had I not been — myself. I heard him, and I laughed. Then the Queen came."

"Recriminations are not remedies,

Gawaine; and though you cast them at yourself,

And hurt yourself, you cannot end or swerve

The flowing of these minutes that leave hours

Behind us, as we leave our faded selves

And yesterdays. The surest- visioned of us

Are creatures of our dreams and inferences, And though it look to us a few go far For seeing far, the fewest and the farthest Of all we know go not beyond themselves. No, Gawaine, you are not the cause of this; And I have many doubts if what you said, Or what you in your lightness left unsaid, Would have unarmed the Queen. The Queen was

coming." — Gawaine looked up, and then looked down again: "Good God, if I had only said — said something!"

"Say nothing now, Gawaine." Bedivere sighed, And shook his head: "Morning is not in the west. The sun is rising and the King is coming; Now you may hear him in the corridor, Like a sick landlord shuffling to the light [54]

For one last look-out on his mortgaged hills. But hills and valleys are not what he sees; He sees with us the fire — the sign — the law. The King that is the father of the law Is weaker than his child, except he slay it. Not long ago, Gawaine, I had a dream Of a sword over kings, and of a world Without them." — "Dreams, dreams." — "Hush, Gawaine."