Was noble man but made ignoble talk.
He makes no friend who never made a foe.
But now it is my glory to have loved
One peerless, without stain: so let me pass,
1085 My father, howsoe’er I seem to you,
Not all unhappy, having loved God’s best
And greatest, tho’ my love had no return:
Yet, seeing you desire your child to live,
Thanks, but you work against your own desire;
1090 For if I could believe the things you say
I should but die the sooner; wherefore cease,
Sweet father, and bid call the ghostly man
Hither, and let me shrive me clean, and die.’
So when the ghostly man had come and gone,
1095 She with a face, bright as for sin forgiven,
Besought Lavaine to write as she devised
A letter, word for word; and when he ask’d
‘Is it for Lancelot, is it for my dear lord?
Then will I bear it gladly;’ she replied,
1100 ‘For Lancelot and the Queen and all the world,
But I myself must bear it.’ Then he wrote
The letter she devised; which being writ
And folded, ‘O sweet father, tender and true,
Deny me not,’ she said – ‘ye never yet
1105 Denied my fancies – this, however strange,
My latest: lay the letter in my hand
A little ere I die, and close the hand
Upon it; I shall guard it even in death.
And when the heat is gone from out my heart,
1110 Then take the little bed on which I died
For Lancelot’s love, and deck it like the Queen’s
For richness, and me also like the Queen
In all I have of rich, and lay me on it.
And let there be prepared a chariot-bier
1115 To take me to the river, and a barge
Be ready on the river, clothed in black.
I go in state to court, to meet the Queen.
There surely I shall speak for mine own self,
And none of you can speak for me so well.
1120 And therefore let our dumb old man alone
Go with me, he can steer and row, and he
Will guide me to that palace, to the doors.’
She ceased: her father promised; whereupon
She grew so cheerful that they deem’d her death
1125 Was rather in the fantasy than the blood.
But ten slow mornings past, and on the eleventh
Her father laid the letter in her hand,
And closed the hand upon it, and she died.
So that day there was dole in Astolat.
But when the next sun brake from underground,
1130 Then, those two brethren slowly with bent brows
Accompanying, the sad chariot-bier
Past like a shadow thro’ the field, that shone
Full-summer, to that stream whereon the barge,
1135 Pall’d all its length in blackest samite, lay.
There sat the lifelong creature of the house,
Loyal, the dumb old servitor, on deck,
Winking his eyes, and twisted all his face.
So those two brethren from the chariot took
1140 And on the black decks laid her in her bed,
Set in her hand a lily, o’er her hung
The silken case with braided blazonings,
And kiss’d her quiet brows, and saying to her
‘Sister, farewell for ever,’ and again
1145 ’Farewell, sweet sister,’ parted all in tears.
Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead,
Oar’d by the dumb, went upward with the flood –
In her right hand the lily, in her left
The letter – all her bright hair streaming down –
1150 And all the coverlid was cloth of gold
Drawn to her waist, and she herself in white
All but her face, and that clear-featured face
Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead,
But fast asleep, and lay as tho’ she smiled.
1155 That day Sir Lancelot at the palace craved
Audience of Guinevere, to give at last
The price of half a realm, his costly gift,
Hard-won and hardly won with bruise and blow
With deaths of others, and almost his own,
1160 The nine-years-fought-for diamonds: for he saw
One of her house, and sent him to the Queen
Bearing his wish, whereto the Queen agreed
With such and so unmoved a majesty
She might have seem’d her statue, but that he,
For loyal awe, saw with a sidelong eye
The shadow of some piece of pointed lace,
In the Queen’s shadow, vibrate on the walls,
And parted, laughing in his courtly heart.
1170 All in an oriel on the summer side,
Vine-clad, of Arthur’s palace toward the stream,
They met, and Lancelot kneeling utter’d, ‘Queen,
Lady, my liege, in whom I have my joy,
Take, what I had not won except for you,
1175 These jewels, and make me happy, making them
An armlet for the roundest arm on earth,
Or necklace for a neck to which the swan’s
Is tawnier than her cygnet’s: these are words:
Your beauty is your beauty, and I sin
1180 In speaking, yet O grant my worship of it
Words, as we grant grief tears. Such sin in words
Perchance, we both can pardon: but, my Queen,
I hear of rumours flying thro’ your court.
Our bond, as not the bond of man and wife,
1185 Should have in it an absoluter trust
To make up that defect: let rumours be:
When did not rumours fly? these, as I trust
That you trust me in your own nobleness,
I may not well believe that you believe.’
1190 While thus he spoke, half turn’d away, the Queen
Brake from the vast oriel-embowering vine
Leaf after leaf, and tore, and cast them off,
Till all the place whereon she stood was green;
Then, when he ceased, in one cold passive hand
1195 Received at once and laid aside the gems
There on a table near her, and replied:
‘It may be, I am quicker of belief
Than you believe me, Lancelot of the Lake.
Our bond is not the bond of man and wife.
1200 This good is in it, whatsoe’er of ill,
It can be broken easier. I for you
This many a year have done despite and wrong
To one whom ever in my heart of hearts
I did acknowledge nobler. What are these?
1205 Diamonds for me! they had been thrice their worth
Being your gift, had you not lost your own.
To loyal hearts the value of all gifts
Must vary as the giver’s. Not for me!
For her! for your new fancy. Only this
1210 Grant me, I pray you: have your joys apart.
I doubt not that however changed, you keep
So much of what is graceful: and myself
Would shun to break those bounds of courtesy
In which as Arthur’s Queen I move and rule:
1215 So cannot speak my mind. An end to this!
A strange one! yet I take it with Amen.
So pray you, add my diamonds to her pearls;
Deck her with these; tell her, she shines me down:
An armlet for an arm to which the Queen’s
1220 Is haggard, or a necklace for a neck
O as much fairer – as a faith once fair
Was richer than these diamonds �
�� hers not mine –
Nay, by the mother of our Lord himself,
Or hers or mine, mine now to work my will –
1225 She shall not have them.’
Saying which she seized,
And, thro’ the casement standing wide for heat,
Flung them, and down they flash’d, and smote the stream.
Then from the smitten surface flash’d, as it were,
Diamonds to meet them, and they past away.
1230 Then while Sir Lancelot leant, in half disdain
At love, life, all things, on the window ledge,
Close underneath his eyes, and right across
Where these had fallen, slowly past the barge
Whereon the lily maid of Astolat
1235 Lay smiling, like a star in blackest night.
But the wild Queen, who saw not, burst away
To weep and wail in secret; and the barge,
On to the palace-doorway sliding, paused.
There two stood arm’d, and kept the door; to whom,
1240 All up the marble stair, tier over tier,
Were added mouths that gaped, and eyes that ask’d
‘What is it?’ but that oarsman’s haggard face,
As hard and still as is the face that men
Shape to their fancy’s eye from broken rocks
1245 On some cliff-side, appall’d them, and they said,
‘He is enchanted, cannot speak – and she,
Look how she sleeps – the Fairy Queen, so fair!
Yea, but how pale! what are they? flesh and blood?
Or come to take the King to Fairyland?
1250 For some do hold our Arthur cannot die,
But that he passes into Fairyland.’
While thus they babbled of the King, the King
Came girt with knights: then turn’d the tongueless man
From the half-face to the full eye, and rose
1255 And pointed to the damsel, and the doors.
So Arthur bad the meek Sir Percivale
And pure Sir Galahad to uplift the maid;
And reverently they bore her into hall.
Then came the fine Gawain and wonder’d at her,
1260 And Lancelot later came and mused at her,
And last the Queen herself, and pitied her:
But Arthur spied the letter in her hand,
Stoopt, took, brake seal, and read it; this was all:
‘Most noble lord, Sir Lancelot of the Lake,
1265 I, sometime call’d the maid of Astolat,
Come, for you left me taking no farewell,
Hither, to take my last farewell of you.
I loved you, and my love had no return,
And therefore my true love has been my death.
1270 And therefore to our Lady Guinevere,
And to all other ladies, I make moan:
Pray for my soul, and yield me burial.
Pray for my soul thou too, Sir Lancelot,
As thou art a knight peerless.’
Thus he read;
1275 And ever in the reading, lords and dames
Wept, looking often from his face who read
To hers which lay so silent, and at times,
So touch’d were they, half-thinking that her lips,
Who had devised the letter, moved again.
1280 Then freely spoke Sir Lancelot to them all:
‘My lord liege Arthur, and all ye that hear,
Know that for this most gentle maiden’s death
Right heavy am I; for good she was and true,
But loved me with a love beyond all love
1285 In women, whomsoever I have known.
Yet to be loved makes not to love again;
Not at my years, however it hold in youth.
I swear by truth and knighthood that I gave
No cause, not willingly, for such a love:
1290 To this I call my friends in testimony,
Her brethren, and her father, who himself
Besought me to be plain and blunt, and use,
To break her passion, some discourtesy
Against my nature: what I could, I did.
1295 I left her and I bad her no farewell;
Tho’, had I dreamt the damsel would have died,
I might have put my wits to some rough use,
Anil help’d her from herself.’
Then said the Queen
(Sea was her wrath, yet working after storm)
1300 ‘Ye might at least have done her so much grace,
Fair lord, as would have help’d her from her death.’
He raised his head, their eyes met and hers fell,
He adding,
‘Queen, she would not be content
Save that I wedded her, which could not be.
1305 Then might she follow me thro’ the world, she ask’d;
It could not be. I told her that her love
Was but the flash of youth, would darken down
To rise hereafter in a stiller flame
Toward one more worthy of her – then would I,
1310 More specially were he, she wedded, poor,
Estate them with large land and territory
In mine own realm beyond the narrow seas,
To keep them in all joyance: more than this
I could not; this she would not, and she died.’
1315 He pausing, Arthur answer’d, ‘O my knight,
It will be to thy worship, as my knight,
And mine, as head of all our Table Round,
To see that she be buried worshipfully.’
So toward that shrine which then in all the realm
1320 Was richest, Arthur leading, slowly went
The marshall’d Order of their Table Round,
And Lancelot sad beyond his wont, to see
The maiden buried, not as one unknown,
Nor meanly, but with gorgeous obsequies,
1325 And mass, and rolling music, like a queen.
And when the knights had laid her comely head
Low in the dust of half-forgotten kings,
Then Arthur spake among them, ‘Let her tomb
Be costly, and her image thereupon,
1330 And let the shield of Lancelot at her feet
Be carven, and her lily in her hand.
And let the story of her dolorous voyage
For all true hearts be blazon’d on her tomb
In letters gold and azure!’ which was wrought
1335 Thereafter; but when now the lords and dames
And people, from the high door streaming, brake
Disorderly, as homeward each, the Queen,
Who mark’d Sir Lancelot where he moved apart,
Drew near, and sigh’d in passing, ‘Lancelot,
1340 Forgive me; mine was jealousy in love.’
He answer’d with his eyes upon the ground,
‘That is love’s curse; pass on, my Queen, forgiven.’
But Arthur, who beheld his cloudy brows,
Approach’d him, and with full affection said,
1345 ‘Lancelot, my Lancelot, thou in whom I have
Most joy and most affiance, for I know
What thou hast been in battle by my side,
And many a time have watch’d thee at the tilt
Strike down the lusty and long practised knight,
1350 And let the younger and unskill’d go by
To win his honour and to make his name,
And loved thy courtesies and thee, a man
Made to be loved; but now I would to God,
Seeing the homeless trouble in thine eyes,
1355 Thou couldst have loved this maiden, shaped, it seems,
By God for thee alone, and from her face,
If one may judge the living by the dead,
Delicately pure and marvellously fair,
Who might have brought thee, now a lonely man
1360 Wifeless and heirless, noble issue, sons
Born to the glory of thy name and fame,
My knight, the great Sir Lancelot of the Lake.’
Then answer’d Lancelot, ‘Fair she was, my King,
Pure, as you ever wish your knights to be.
1365 To doubt her fairness were to want an eye,
To doubt her pureness were to want a heart –
Yea, to be loved, if what is worthy love
Could bind him, but free love will not be bound.’
‘Free love, so bound, were freëst,’ said the King.
1370 ‘Let love be free; free love is for the best:
And, after heaven, on our dull side of death,
What should be best, if not so pure a love
Clothed in so pure a loveliness? yet thee
She fail’d to bind, tho’ being, as I think,
1375 Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know.’
And Lancelot answer’d nothing, but he went,
And at the inrunning of a little brook
Sat by the river in a cove, and watch’d
The high reed wave, and lifted up his eyes
1380 And saw the barge that brought her moving down,
Far-off, a blot upon the stream, and said
Low in himself, ‘Ah simple heart and sweet,
Ye loved me, damsel, surely with a love
Far tenderer than my Queen’s. Pray for thy soul?
1385 Ay, that will I. Farewell too – now at last –
Farewell, fair lily. “Jealousy in love?”
Not rather dead love’s harsh heir, jealous pride?
Queen, if I grant the jealousy as of love,
May not your crescent fear for name and fame
1390 Speak, as it waxes, of a love that wanes?
Why did the King dwell on my name to me?
Mine own name shames me, seeming a reproach,
Lancelot, whom the Lady of the Lake
Caught from his mother’s arms – the wondrous one
1395 Who passes thro’ the vision of the night –
She chanted snatches of mysterious hymns
Heard on the winding waters, eve and morn
She kiss’d me saying, “Thou art fair, my child,
As a king’s son,” and often in her arms
1400 She bare me, pacing on the dusky mere.
Would she had drown’d me in it, where’er it be!
For what am I? what profits me my name
Of greatest knight? I fought for it, and have it:
Pleasure to have it, none; to lose it, pain;
1405 Now grown a part of me: but what use in it?
To make men worse by making my sin known?
Or sin seem less, the sinner seeming great?
Alas for Arthur’s greatest knight, a man
Not after Arthur’s heart! I needs must break