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,
430 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
435 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
440 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, howl’d to the King,
‘The teeth of Hell flay bare and gnash thee flat! –
Lo! art thou not that eunuch-hearted King
445 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,
450 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
455 Wellnigh was helmet-hidden, and the name
Went wandering somewhere darkling in his mind.
And Arthur deign’d not use of word or sword,
But let the drunkard, as he stretch’d from horse
To strike him, overbalancing his bulk,
460 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,
465 Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud,
From less and less to nothing; thus he fell
Head-heavy; then the knights, who watch’d him, roar’d
And shouted and leapt down upon the fall’n;
There trampled out his face from being known,
470 And sank his head in mire, and slimed themselves:
Nor heard the King for their own cries, but sprang
Thro’ open doors, and swording right and left
Men, women, on their sodden faces, hurl’d
The tables over and the wines, and slew
475 Till all the rafters rang with woman-yells,
And all the pavement stream’d with massacre:
Then, echoing yell with yell, they fired the tower,
Which half that autumn night, like the live North,
Red-pulsing up thro’ Alioth and Alcor,
480 Made all above it, and a hundred meres
About it, as the water Moab saw
Come round by the East, and out beyond them flush’d
The long low dune, and lazy-plunging sea.
485 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 return’d,
Mid-forest, and the wind among the boughs.
He whistled his good warhorse left to graze
490 Among the forest greens, vaulted upon him,
And rode beneath an ever-showering leaf,
Till one lone woman, weeping near a cross,
Stay’d him. ‘Why weep ye?’ ’Lord,’ she said, ‘my man
Hath left me or is dead;’ whereon he thought –
495 ‘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’ –
500 Then pressing day by day thro’ 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 gain’d
Tintagil, half in sea, and high on land,
A crown of towers.
505 Down in a casement sat,
And glossy-throated grace, Isolt the Queen.
And when she heard the feet of Tristram grind
The spiring stone that scaled about her tower,
510 Flush’d, 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 flutter’d me at first: not he:
Catlike thro’ his own castle steals my Mark,
515 But warrior-wise thou stridest thro’ his halls
Who hates thee, as I him – ev’n 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.
520 Let be thy Mark, seeing he is not thine.’
And drawing somewhat backward she replied, ’
‘Can he be wrong’d who is not ev’n his own,
But save for dread of thee had beaten me,
Scratch’d, bitten, blinded, marr’d me somehow – Mark?
525 What rights are his that dare not strike for them?
Not lift a hand – not, tho’ he found me thus!
But harken! have ye met him? hence he went
To-day for three days’ hunting – as he said –
And so returns belike within an hour.
530 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.
535 My God, the measure of my hate for Mark
Is as the measure of my love for thee.’
So, pluck’d one way by hate and one by love,
Drain’d of her force, again she sat, and spake
To Tristram, as he knelt before her, saying,
540 ‘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,
545 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 kneel’d to last?’
And Tristram, ‘Last to my Queen Paramount,
550 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 laugh’d Isolt;
‘Flatter me not, for hath not our great Queen
555 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, ev’n to him,
560 Lancelot; for I have seen him wan enow
To make one doubt if ever the great Qu
een
Have vielded him her love.’
To whom Isolt,
‘Ah then, false hunter and false harper, thou
Who brakest thro’ the scruple of my bond,
565 Calling me thy white hind, and saying to me
That Guinevere had sinn’d against the highest,
And I – misyoked with such a want of man –
That I could hardly sin against the lowest.’
He answer’d, ‘O my soul, be comforted!
570 If this be sweet, to sin in leading-strings,
If here be comfort, and if ours be sin,
Crown’d 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 –
575 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,
580 Here in the never-ended afternoon,
O sweeter than all memories of thee,
Deeper than any yearnings after thee
Seem’d those far-rolling, westward-smiling seas,
Watch’d from this tower. Isolt of Britain dash’d
585 Before Isolt of Brittany on the strand,
Would that have chill’d her bride-kiss? Wedded her?
Fought in her father’s battles? wounded there?
The King was all fulfill’d with gratefulness,
And she, my namesake of the hands, that heal’d
590 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
595 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!
600 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 answer’d, ‘Yea, and why not I?
605 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,
610 And once or twice I spake thy name aloud.
Then flash’d 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,
615 Not said, but hiss’d it: then this crown of towers
So shook to such a roar of all the sky,
That here in utter dark I swoon’d away,
And woke again in utter dark, and cried,
”I will flee hence and give myself to God” –
620 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 anger’d her.
‘ “May God be with thee, sweet, when thou art old,
625 And sweet no more to me!” I need Him now.
For when had Lancelot utter’d aught so gross
Ev’n to the swineherd’s malkin in the mast?
The greater man, the greater courtesy.
Far other was the Tristram, Arthur’s knight!
630 But thou, thro’ 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
635 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
640 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!
645 They lied not then, who sware, and thro’ their vows
The King prevailing made his realm: – I say,
Swear to me thou wilt love me ev’n when old,
Gray-hair’d, and past desire, and in despair.’
Then Tristram, pacing moodily up and down,
650 ‘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
655 Than had we never sworn. I swear no more.
I swore to the great King, and am forsworn.
For once – ev’n to the height – I honour’d him.
“Man, is he man at all?” methought, when first
I rode from our rough Lyonnesse, and beheld
660 That victor of the Pagan throned in hall –
His hair, a sun that ray’d 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,
665 With Merlin’s mystic babble about his end
Amazed me; then, his foot was on a stool
Shaped as a dragon; he seem’d to me no man,
But Michaël trampling Satan; so I sware,
Being amazed: but this went by – The vows!
670 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,
675 Did mightier deeds than elsewise he had done,
And so the realm was made; but then their vows –
First mainly thro’ that sullying of our Queen –
Began to gall the knighthood, asking whence
Had Arthur right to bind them to himself?
680 Dropt down from heaven? wash’d up from out the deep?
They fail’d to trace him thro’ 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:
685 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?
690 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,
695 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,
700 ’Good: an I turn‘d 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,
705 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,
710 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 hunger’d and half-anger’d – meat,
Wine, wine – and I will love thee to the death,
715 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 will’d;
And after these had comforted the blood
With meats and wines, and satiated their hearts –
720 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:
725 ‘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!
730 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 show’d
And swung the ruby carcanet. She cried,
735 ‘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
740 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 turn’d, then, flinging round her neck,
Claspt it, and cried ‘Thine Order, O my Queen!’
745 But, while he bow’d to kiss the jewell’d throat,