Out of the dark, just as the lips had touch’d,
Behind him rose a shadow and a shriek –
‘Mark’s way,’ said Mark, and clove him thro’ the brain.
That night came Arthur home, and while he climb’d,
750 All in a death-dumb autumn-dripping gloom,
The stairway to the hall, and look’d and saw
The great Queen’s bower was dark, – about his feet
A voice clung sobbing till he question’d it,
‘What art thou?’ and the voice about his feet
755 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 burn’d
5 Blurr’d by the creeping mist, for all abroad,
Beneath a moon unseen albeit at full,
The white mist, like a façe-cloth to the face,
Clung to the dead earth, and the land was still.
For hither had she fled, her cause of flight
10 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 chill’d the popular praises of the King
With silent smiles of slow disparagement;
15 And tamper’d 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
20 Were sharpen’d by strong hate for Lancelot.
For thus it chanced one morn when all the court,
Green-suited, but with plumes that mock’d the may,
Had been, their wont, a-maying and return’d,
That Modred still in green, all ear and eye,
25 Climb’d 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
30 He saw not, for Sir Lancelot passing by
Spied where he couch’d, 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 pluck’d him by the heel,
35 And cast him as a worm upon the way;
But when he knew the Prince tho’ marr’d 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
40 No knight of Arthur’s noblest dealt in scorn;
But, if a man were halt or hunch’d, in him
By those whom God had made full-limb’d and tall,
Scorn was allow’d as part of his defect,
And he was answer’d softly by the King
45 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,
50 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 laugh’d
Lightly, to think of Modred’s dusty fall,
55 Then shudder’d, as the village wife who cries
‘I shudder, some one steps across my grave;’
Then laugh’d again, but faintlier, for indeed
She half-foresaw that he, the subtle beast,
Would track her guilt until he found, and hers
60 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,
65 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
70 Before her, or a vague spiritual fear –
Like to some doubtful noise of creaking doors,
Heard by the watcher in a haunted house,
That keeps the rust of murder on the walls –
Held her awake: or if she slept, she dream’d
75 An awful dream; for then she seem’d to stand
On some vast plain before a setting sun,
And from the sun there swiftly made at her
A ghastly something, and its shadow flew
Before it, till it touch’d her, and she turn’d –
80 When lo! her own, that broadening from her feet,
And blackening, swallow’d all the land, and in it
Far cities burnt, and with a cry she woke.
And all this trouble did not pass but grew;
Till ev’n the clear face of the guileless King,
85 And trustful courtesies of household life,
Became her bane; and at the last she said,
‘O Lancelot, get thee hence to thine own land,
For if thou tarry we shall meet again,
And if we meet again, some evil chance
90 Will make the smouldering scandal break and blaze
Before the people, and our lord the King.’
And Lancelot ever promised, but remain’d,
And still they met and met. Again she said,
‘O Lancelot, if thou love me get thee hence.’
95 And then they were agreed upon a night
(When the good King should not be there) to meet
And part for ever. Vivien, lurking, heard.
She told Sir Modred. Passion-pale they met
And greeted. Hands in hands, and eye to eye,
100 Low on the border of her couch they sat
Stammering and staring. It was their last hour,
A madness of farewells. And Modred brought
His creatures to the basement of the tower
For testimony; and crying with full voice
‘Traitor, come out, ye are trapt at last,’ aroused
Lancelot, who rushing outward lionlike
105 Leapt on him, and hurl’d him headlong, and he fell
Stunn’d, and his creatures took and bare him off,
And all was still: then she, ‘The end is come,
110 And I am shamed for ever;’ and he said,
‘Mine be the shame; mine was the sin: but rise,
And fly to my strong castle overseas:
There will I hide thee, till my life shall end,
There hold thee with my life against the world.’
115 She answer’d, ‘Lancelot, wilt thou hold me so?
Nay, friend, for we have taken our farewells.
Would God that thou couldst hide me from myself!
Mine is the shame, for I was wife, and thou
Unwedded: yet rise now, and let us fly,
120 For I will draw me into sanctuary,
And bide my doom.’ So Lancelot got her horse,
Set her thereon, and mounted on his own,
And then they rode to the divided way,
There kiss’d, and parted weeping: for he past,
125 Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen,
Back to his land; but she to Almesbury
Fled all night long by glimmering waste and weald,
; And heard the Spirits of the waste and weald
Moan as she fled, or thought she heard them moan:
130 And in herself she moan’d ‘Too late, too late!’
Till in the cold wind that foreruns the morn,
A blot in heaven, the Raven, flying high,
Croak’d, and she thought, ‘He spies a field of death;
For now the Heathen of the Northern Sea,
135 Lured by the crimes and frailties of the court,
Begin to slay the folk, and spoil the land.’
And when she came to Almesbury she spake
There to the nuns, and said, ‘Mine enemies
Pursue me, but, O peaceful Sisterhood,
140 Receive, and yield me sanctuary, nor ask
Her name to whom ye yield it, till her time
To tell you:’ and her beauty, grace and power,
Wrought as a charm upon them, and they spared
To ask it.
So the stately Queen abode
145 For many a week, unknown, among the nuns;
Nor with them mix’d, nor told her name, nor sought,
Wrapt in her grief, for housel or for shrift,
But communed only with the little maid,
Who pleased her with a babbling heedlessness
150 Which often lured her from herself; but now,
This night, a rumour wildly blown about
Came, that Sir Modred had usurp’d the realm,
Was waging war on Lancelot: then she thought,
155 ‘With what a hate the people and the King
Must hate me,’ and bow’d down upon her hands
Silent, until the little maid, who brook’d
No silence, brake it, uttering ‘Late! so late!
What hour, I wonder, now?’ and when she drew
160 No answer, by and by began to hum
An air the nuns had taught her; ‘Late, so late!’
Which when she heard, the Queen look’d up, and said,
‘O maiden, if indeed ye list to sing,
Sing, and unbind my heart that I may weep.’
165 Whereat full willingly sang the little maid.
‘Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill!
Late, late, so late! but we can enter still.
Too late, too late! ye bridegroom will relentt ye cannot enter now.
‘No light had we: for that we do repent;
170 And learning this, the bridegroom will relent.
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.
‘No light: so late! and dark and chill the night!
O let us in, that we may find the light!
Too late, too late: ye cannot enter now.
175 ‘Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet?
O let us in, tho’ late, to kiss his feet!
No, no, too late! ye cannot enter now.’
So sang the novice, while full passionately,
Her head upon her hands, remembering
180 Her thought when first she came, wept the sad Queen.
Then said the little novice prattling to her,
‘O pray you, noble lady, weep no more;
But let my words, the words of one so small,
Who knowing nothing knows but to obey,
185 And if I do not there is penance given –
Comfort your sorrows; for they do not flow
From evil done; right sure am I of that,
Who see your tender grace and stateliness.
But weigh your sorrows with our lord the King’s,
190 And weighing find them less; for gone is he
To wage grim war against Sir Lancelot there,
Round that strong castle where he holds the Queen;
And Modred whom he left in charge of all,
The traitor – Ah sweet lady, the King’s grief
195 For his own self, and his own Queen, and realm,
Must needs be thrice as great as any of ours.
For me, I thank the saints, I am not great.
For if there ever come a grief to me
I cry my cry in silence, and have done.
200 None knows it, and my tears have brought me good:
But even were the griefs of little ones
As great as those of great ones, yet this grief
Is added to the griefs the great must bear,
That howsoever much they may desire
205 Silence, they cannot weep behind a cloud:
As even here they talk at Almesbury
About the good King and his wicked Queen,
And were I such a King with such a Queen,
Well might I wish to veil her wickedness,
210 But were I such a King, it could not be.’
Then to her own sad heart mutter’d the Queen,
‘Will the child kill me with her innocent talk?’
But openly she answer’d, ‘Must not I,
If this false traitor have displaced his lord,
215 Grieve with the common grief of all the realm?’
‘Yea,’ said the maid, ‘this is all woman’s grief,
That she is woman, whose disloyal life
Hath wrought confusion in the Table Round
Which good King Arthur founded, years ago,
220 With signs and miracles and wonders, there
At Camelot, ere the coming of the Queen.’
Then thought the Queen within herself again,
‘Will the child kill me with her foolish prate?’
But openly she spake and said to her,
225 ‘O little maid, shut in by nunnery walls,
What canst thou know of Kings and Tables Round,
Or what of signs and wonders, but the signs
And simple miracles of thy nunnery?’
To whom the little novice garrulously,
230 ‘Yea, but I know: the land was full of signs
And wonders ere the coming of the Queen.
So said my father, and himself was knight
Of the great Table – at the founding of it;
And rode thereto from Lyonnesse, and he said
235 That as he rode, an hour or maybe twain
Strange music, and he paused, and turning – there,
All down the lonely coast of Lyonnesse,
Each with a beacon-star upon his head,
240 And with a wild sea-light about his feet,
He saw them – headland after headland flame
Far on into the rich heart of the west:
And in the light the white mermaiden swam,
And strong man-breasted things stood from the sea,
245 And sent a deep sea-voice thro’ all the land,
To which the little elves of chasm and cleft
Made answer, sounding like a distant horn.
So said my father – yea, and furthermore,
Next morning, while he past the dim-lit woods,
250 Himself beheld three spirits mad with joy
Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower,
That shook beneath them, as the thistle shakes
When three gray linnets wrangle for the seed:
And still at evenings on before his horse
255 The flickering fairy-circle wheel’d and broke
Flying, and link’d again, and wheel’d and broke
Flying, for all the land was full of life.
And when at last he came to Camelot,
A wreath of airy dancers hand-in-hand
260 Swung round the lighted lantern of the hall;
And in the hall itself was such a feast
As never man had dream’d; for every knight
Had whatsoever meat he long’d for served
By hands unseen; and even as he said
265 Down in the cellars merry bloated things
Shoulder’d the spigot, straddling on the butts
W
hile the wine man: so glad were spirits and men
Before the coming of the sinful Queen.’
Then spake the Queen and somewhat bitterly,
270 ‘Were they so glad? ill prophets were they all,
Spirits and men: could none of them foresee,
Not even thy wise father with his signs
And wonders, what has fall’n upon the realm?’
To whom the novice garrulously again,
275 ‘Yea, one, a bard; of whom my father said,
Full many a noble war-song had he sung,
Ev’n in the presence of an enemy’s fleet,
Between the steep cliff and the coming wave;
And many a mystic lay of life and death
280 Had chanted on the smoky mountain-tops,
When round him bent the sirits of the hills
With all their dewy hair blown back like flame:
So said my father — and that night the bard
Sang Arthur’s glorious wars, and sang the King
285 As wellnigh more than man, and rail’d at those
Who call’d him the false son of Gorloïs:
For there was no man knew from whence he came;
But after tempest, when the long wave broke
All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos,
290 There came a day as still as heaven, and then
They found a naked child upon the sands
Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea;
And that was Arthur; and they foster’d him
Till he by miracle was approven King:
295 And that his grave should be a mystery
From all men, like his birth; and could he find
A woman in her womanhood as great
As he was in his manhood, then, he sang,
The twain together well might change the world.
300 But even in the middle of his song
He falter’d, and his hand fell from the harp,
And pale he turn’d, and reel’d, and would have fall’n,
But that they stay’d him up; nor would he tell
His vision; but what doubt that he foresaw
305 This evil work of Lancelot and the Queen?’
Then thought the Queen, ‘Lo! they have set her on,
Our simple-seeming Abbess and her nuns,
To play upon me,’ and bow’d her head nor spake.
Whereat the novice crying, with clasp’d hands,
310 Shame on her own garrulity garrulously,
Said the good nuns would check her gadding tongue
Full often, ‘and, sweet lady, if I seem
To vex an ear too sad to listen to me,
Unmannerly, with prattling and the tales
315 Which my good father told me, check me too