Idylls of the King Part 18

And in those days she made a little song, And called her song 'The Song of Love and Death,'

And sang it: sweetly could she make and sing.

'Sweet is true love though given in vain, in vain; And sweet is death who puts an end to pain: I know not which is sweeter, no, not I.

'Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be: Love, thou art bitter; sweet is death to me.

O Love, if death be sweeter, let me die.

'Sweet love, that seems not made to fade away, Sweet death, that seems to make us loveless clay, I know not which is sweeter, no, not I.

'I fain would follow love, if that could be; I needs must follow death, who calls for me; Call and I follow, I follow! let me die.'

High with the last line scaled her voice, and this, All in a fiery dawning wild with wind That shook her tower, the brothers heard, and thought With shuddering, 'Hark the Phantom of the house That ever shrieks before a death,' and called The father, and all three in hurry and fear Ran to her, and lo! the blood-red light of dawn Flared on her face, she shrilling, 'Let me die!'

As when we dwell upon a word we know, Repeating, till the word we know so well Becomes a wonder, and we know not why, So dwelt the father on her face, and thought 'Is this Elaine?' till back the maiden fell, Then gave a languid hand to each, and lay, Speaking a still good-morrow with her eyes.

At last she said, 'Sweet brothers, yesternight I seemed a curious little maid again, As happy as when we dwelt among the woods, And when ye used to take me with the flood Up the great river in the boatman's boat.

Only ye would not pa.s.s beyond the cape That has the poplar on it: there ye fixt Your limit, oft returning with the tide.

And yet I cried because ye would not pa.s.s Beyond it, and far up the s.h.i.+ning flood Until we found the palace of the King.

And yet ye would not; but this night I dreamed That I was all alone upon the flood, And then I said, "Now shall I have my will:"

And there I woke, but still the wish remained.

So let me hence that I may pa.s.s at last Beyond the poplar and far up the flood, Until I find the palace of the King.

There will I enter in among them all, And no man there will dare to mock at me; But there the fine Gawain will wonder at me, And there the great Sir Lancelot muse at me; Gawain, who bad a thousand farewells to me, Lancelot, who coldly went, nor bad me one: And there the King will know me and my love, And there the Queen herself will pity me, And all the gentle court will welcome me, And after my long voyage I shall rest!'

'Peace,' said her father, 'O my child, ye seem Light-headed, for what force is yours to go So far, being sick? and wherefore would ye look On this proud fellow again, who scorns us all?'

Then the rough Torre began to heave and move, And bl.u.s.ter into stormy sobs and say, 'I never loved him: an I meet with him, I care not howsoever great he be, Then will I strike at him and strike him down, Give me good fortune, I will strike him dead, For this discomfort he hath done the house.'

To whom the gentle sister made reply, 'Fret not yourself, dear brother, nor be wroth, Seeing it is no more Sir Lancelot's fault Not to love me, than it is mine to love Him of all men who seems to me the highest.'

'Highest?' the father answered, echoing 'highest?'

(He meant to break the pa.s.sion in her) 'nay, Daughter, I know not what you call the highest; But this I know, for all the people know it, He loves the Queen, and in an open shame: And she returns his love in open shame; If this be high, what is it to be low?'

Then spake the lily maid of Astolat: 'Sweet father, all too faint and sick am I For anger: these are slanders: never yet Was n.o.ble man but made ign.o.ble 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 pa.s.s, My father, howsoe'er I seem to you, Not all unhappy, having loved G.o.d's best And greatest, though my love had no return: Yet, seeing you desire your child to live, Thanks, but you work against your own desire; 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, She with a face, bright as for sin forgiven, Besought Lavaine to write as she devised A letter, word for word; and when he asked 'Is it for Lancelot, is it for my dear lord?

Then will I bear it gladly;' she replied, '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 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, 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 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.

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 deemed her death 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, Then, those two brethren slowly with bent brows Accompanying, the sad chariot-bier Past like a shadow through the field, that shone Full-summer, to that stream whereon the barge, Palled 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 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 kissed her quiet brows, and saying to her 'Sister, farewell for ever,' and again 'Farewell, sweet sister,' parted all in tears.

Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead, Oared 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-- 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 though she smiled.

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, 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 seemed her statue, but that he, Low-drooping till he wellnigh kissed her feet 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.

All in an oriel on the summer side, Vine-clad, of Arthur's palace toward the stream, They met, and Lancelot kneeling uttered, 'Queen, Lady, my liege, in whom I have my joy, Take, what I had not won except for you, 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 In speaking, yet O grant my wors.h.i.+p 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 through your court.

Our bond, as not the bond of man and wife, 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 n.o.bleness, I may not well believe that you believe.'

While thus he spoke, half turned 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 pa.s.sive hand 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.

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 n.o.bler. What are these?

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 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: 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 s.h.i.+nes me down: An armlet for an arm to which the Queen's 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-- She shall not have them.'

Saying which she seized, And, through the cas.e.m.e.nt standing wide for heat, Flung them, and down they flashed, and smote the stream.

Then from the smitten surface flashed, as it were, Diamonds to meet them, and they past away.

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 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 armed, and kept the door; to whom, All up the marble stair, tier over tier, Were added mouths that gaped, and eyes that asked '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 On some cliff-side, appalled 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?

For some do hold our Arthur cannot die, But that he pa.s.ses into Fairyland.'

While thus they babbled of the King, the King Came girt with knights: then turned the tongueless man From the half-face to the full eye, and rose 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 wondered at her, 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 n.o.ble lord, Sir Lancelot of the Lake, I, sometime called 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.

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; 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 touched were they, half-thinking that her lips, Who had devised the letter, moved again.

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 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: 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 pa.s.sion, some discourtesy Against my nature: what I could, I did.

I left her and I bad her no farewell; Though, had I dreamt the damsel would have died, I might have put my wits to some rough use, And helped her from herself.'

Then said the Queen (Sea was her wrath, yet working after storm) 'Ye might at least have done her so much grace, Fair lord, as would have helped 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.

Then might she follow me through the world, she asked; 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, 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.'