TRISTRAM
All red with blood the whirling river flows,
The wide plain rings, the daz’d air throbs with blows. 235
Upon us are the chivalry of Rome —
Their spears are down, their steeds are bath’d in foam.
‘Up, Tristram, up,’ men cry, ‘thou moonstruck knight!
What foul fiend rides thee? On into the fight!’ —
Above the din her voice is in my ears — 240
I see her form glide through the crossing spears. —
Iseult!…
. . . . .
Ah, he wanders forth again;
We cannot keep him; now as then
There’s a secret in his breast 245
That will never let him rest.
These musing fits in the green wood
They cloud the brain, they dull the blood.
His sword is sharp — his horse is good —
Beyond the mountains will he see 250
The famous towns of Italy,
And label with the blessed sign
The heathen Saxons on the Rhine.
At Arthur’s side he fights once more
With the Roman Emperor. 255
There’s many a gay knight where he goes
Will help him to forget his care.
The march — the leaguer — Heaven’s blithe air —
The neighing steeds — the ringing blows;
Sick pining comes not where these are. 260
Ah, what boots it, that the jest
Lightens every other brow.
What, that every other breast
Dances as the trumpets blow,
If one’s own heart beats not light 265
On the waves of the toss’d fight,
If oneself cannot get free
From the clog of misery?
Thy lovely youthful Wife grows pale
Watching by the salt sea tide 270
With her children at her side
For the gleam of thy white sail.
Home, Tristram, to thy halls again!
To our lonely sea complain,
To our forests tell thy pain. 275
TRISTRAM
All round the forest sweeps off, black in shade,
But it is moonlight in the open glade:
And in the bottom of the glade shine clear
The forest chapel and the fountain near.
I think, I have a fever in my blood: 280
Come, let me leave the shadow of this wood,
Ride down, and bathe my hot brow in the flood.
Mild shines the cold spring in the moon’s clear light.
God! ‘tis her face plays in the waters bright. —
‘Fair love,’ she says, ‘canst thou forget so soon, 285
At this soft hour, under this sweet moon?’ —
Iseult!…
. . . . .
Ah poor soul, if this be so,
Only death can balm thy woe.
The solitudes of the green wood 290
Had no medicine for thy mood.
The rushing battle clear’d thy blood
As little as did solitude.
Ah, his eyelids slowly break
Their hot seals, and let him wake. 295
What new change shall we now see?
A happier? Worse it cannot be.
TRISTRAM
Is my Page here? Come, turn me to the fire.
Upon the window panes the moon shines bright;
The wind is down: but she’ll not come to-night. 300
Ah no — she is asleep in Cornwall now,
Far hence — her dreams are fair — smooth is her brow.
Of me she recks not, nor my vain desire.
I have had dreams, I have had dreams, my Page,
Would take a score years from a strong man’s age. 305
And with a blood like mine, will leave, I fear,
Scant leisure for a second messenger.
My Princess, art thou there? Sweet, ‘tis too late.
To bed, and sleep: my fever is gone by:
To-night my Page shall keep me company. 310
Where do the children sleep? kiss them for me.
Poor child, thou art almost as pale as I:
This comes of nursing long and watching late.
To bed — good night!
. . . . .
She left the gleam-lit fire-place, 315
She came to the bed-side.
She took his hands in hers: her tears
Down on her slender fingers rain’d.
She rais’d her eyes upon his face —
Not with a look of wounded pride, 320
A look as if the heart complain’d: —
Her look was like a sad embrace;
The gaze of one who can divine
A grief, and sympathize.
Sweet Flower, thy children’s eyes 325
Are not more innocent than thine.
But they sleep in shelter’d rest,
Like helpless birds in the warm nest,
On the Castle’s southern side;
Where feebly comes the mournful roar 330
Of buffeting wind and surging tide
Through many a room and corridor.
Full on their window the Moon’s ray
Makes their chamber as bright as day;
It shines upon the blank white walls, 335
And on the snowy pillow falls,
And on two angel-heads doth play
Turn’d to each other: — the eyes clos’d —
The lashes on the cheeks repos’d.
Round each sweet brow the cap close-set 340
Hardly lets peep the golden hair;
Through the soft-open’d lips the air
Scarcely moves the coverlet.
One little wandering arm is thrown
At random on the counterpane, 345
And often the fingers close in haste
As if their baby owner chas’d
The butterflies again.
This stir they have and this alone;
But else they are so still. 350
Ah, tired madcaps, you lie still
But were you at the window now
To look forth on the fairy sight
Of your illumin’d haunts by night;
To see the park-glades where you play 355
Far lovelier than they are by day;
To see the sparkle on the caves,
And upon every giant bough
Of those old oaks, whose wet red leaves
Are jewell’d with bright drops of rain — 360
How would your voices run again!
And far beyond the sparkling trees
Of the castle park one sees
The bare heaths spreading, clear as day,
Moor behind moor, far, far away, 365
Into the heart of Brittany.
And here and there, lock’d by the land,
Long inlets of smooth glittering sea,
And many a stretch of watery sand
All shining in the white moon-beams. 370
But you see fairer in your dreams.
What voices are these on the clear night air?
What lights in the court? what steps on the stair?
II. Iseult of Ireland
TRISTRAM
RAISE the light, my Page, that I may see her. —
Thou art come at last then, haughty Queen!
Long I’ve waited, long I’ve fought my fever:
Late thou comest, cruel thou hast been.
ISEULT
Blame me not, poor sufferer, that I tarried: 5
I was bound, I could not break the band.
Chide not with the past, but feel the present:
I am here — we meet — I hold thy hand.
TRISTRAM
Thou art come, indeed — thou hast rejoin’d me;
Thou hast dar’d it: but too late to save. 10
Fear not now that men should tax thy honour.
I am dying: build — (thou may’st) — my grave!
ISEULT
Tristram, for the love of Heaven, speak kindly!
What, I hear these bitter words from thee?
Sick with grief I am, and faint with travel — 15
Take my hand — dear Tristram, look on me!
TRISTRAM
I forgot, thou comest from thy voyage.
Yes, the spray is on thy cloak and hair.
But thy dark eyes are not dimm’d, proud Iseult!
And thy beauty never was more fair. 20
ISEULT
Ah, harsh flatterer! let alone my beauty.
I, like thee, have left my youth afar.
Take my hand, and touch these wasted fingers —
See my cheek and lips, how white they are.
TRISTRAM
Thou art paler: — but thy sweet charm, Iseult! 25
Would not fade with the dull years away.
Ah, how fair thou standest in the moonlight!
I forgive thee, Iseult! — thou wilt stay?
ISEULT
Fear me not, I will be always with thee;
I will watch thee, tend thee, soothe thy pain; 30
Sing thee tales of true long-parted lovers
Join’d at evening of their days again.
TRISTRAM
No, thou shalt not speak; I should be finding
Something alter’d in thy courtly tone.
Sit — sit by me: I will think, we’ve liv’d so 35
In the greenwood, all our lives, alone.
ISEULT
Alter’d, Tristram? Not in courts, believe me,
Love like mine is alter’d in the breast.
Courtly life is light and cannot reach it.
Ah, it lives, because so deep suppress’d. 40
Royal state with Marc, my deep-wrong’d husband —
That was bliss to make my sorrows flee!
Silken courtiers whispering honied nothings —
Those were friends to make me false to thee!
What, thou think’st, men speak in courtly chambers 45
Words by which the wretched are consol’d?
What, thou think’st, this aching brow was cooler,
Circled, Tristram, by a band of gold?
Ah, on which, if both our lots were balanc’d,
Was indeed the heaviest burden thrown, 50
Thee, a weeping exile in thy forest —
Me, a smiling queen upon my throne?
Vain and strange debate, where both have suffer’d;
Both have pass’d a youth constrain’d and sad;
Both have brought their anxious day to evening, 55
And have now short space for being glad.
Join’d we are henceforth: nor will thy people,
Nor thy younger Iseult take it ill,
That a former rival shares her office,
When she sees her humbled, pale, and still. 60
I, a faded watcher by thy pillow,
I, a statue on thy chapel floor,
Pour’d in grief before the Virgin Mother,
Rouse no anger, make no rivals more.
She will cry— ‘Is this the foe I dreaded? 65
This his idol? this that royal bride?
Ah, an hour of health would purge his eyesight:
Stay, pale queen! for ever by my side.’
Hush, no words! that smile, I see, forgives me.
I am now thy nurse, I bid thee sleep. 70
Close thine eyes — this flooding moonlight blinds them —
Nay, all’s well again: thou must not weep.
TRISTRAM
I am happy: yet I feel, there’s something
Swells my heart, and takes my breath away:
Through a mist I see thee: near! — come nearer! 75
Bend — bend down — I yet have much to say
ISEULT
Heaven! his head sinks back upon the pillow! —
Tristram! Tristram! let thy heart not fail.
Call on God and on the holy angels!
What, love, courage! — Christ! he is so pale. 80
TRISTRAM
Hush, ‘tis vain, I feel my end approaching.
This is what my mother said should be,
When the fierce pains took her in the forest,
The deep draughts of death, in bearing me.
‘Son,’ she said, ‘thy name shall be of sorrow! 85
Tristram art thou call’d for my death’s sake!’
So she said, and died in the drear forest.
Grief since then his home with me doth make.
I am dying. — Start not, nor look wildly!
Me, thy living friend, thou canst not save. 90
But, since living we were ununited,
Go not far, O Iseult! from my grave.
Rise, go hence, and seek the princess Iseult:
Speak her fair, she is of royal blood.
Say, I charg’d her, that ye live together: — 95
She will grant it — she is kind and good.
Now to sail the seas of Death I leave thee;
One last kiss upon the living shore!
ISEULT
Tristram! — Tristram! — stay — receive me with thee!
Iseult leaves thee, Tristram, never more.
. . . . .
100
You see them clear: the moon shines bright.
Slow — slow and softly, where she stood,
She sinks upon the ground: her hood
Had fallen back: her arms outspread
Still hold her lover’s hand: her head 105
Is bow’d, half-buried, on the bed.
O’er the blanch’d sheet her raven hair
Lies in disorder’d streams; and there,
Strung like white stars, the pearls still are,
And the golden bracelets heavy and rare 110
Flash on her white arms still.
The very same which yesternight
Flash’d in the silver sconces’ light,
When the feast was gay and the laughter loud
In Tyntagel’s palace proud. 115
But then they deck’d a restless ghost
With hot-flush’d cheeks and brilliant eyes,
And quivering lips on which the tide
Of courtly speech abruptly died,
And a glance that over the crowded floor, 120
The dancers, and the festive host,
Flew ever to the door.
That the knights eyed her in surprise,
And the dames whisper’d scoffingly —
‘Her moods, good lack, they pass like showers! 125
But yesternight and she would be
As pale and still as wither’d flowers,
And now to-night she laughs and speaks
And has a colour in her cheeks.
Christ keep us from such fantasy!’ — 130
The air of the December night
Steals coldly around the chamber bright,
Where those lifeless lovers be.
Swinging with it, in the light
Flaps the ghostlike tapestry. 135
And on the arras wrought you see
A stately Huntsman, clad in green,
And round him a fresh forest scene.
On that clear forest knoll he stays
With his pack round him, and delays. 140
He stares and stares, with troubled face,
At this huge gleam-lit fireplace,
At the bright iron-figur’d door,
And those blown rushes on the floor.
He gazes down into the room 145
With heated cheeks and flurried air,
And to himself he seems to say —
‘What place is this, and who are they?
Who is that kneeling Lady fair?
And on his pillows that pale Knight 150
Who seems of marble on a tomb?
How comes it here, this chamber bright
T
hrough whose mullion’d windows clear
The castle court all wet with rain,
The drawbridge and the moat appear, 155
And then the beach, and, mark’d with spray,
The sunken reefs, and far away
The unquiet bright Atlantic plain? —
What, has some glamour made me sleep,
And sent me with my dogs to sweep, 160
By night, with boisterous bugle peal,
Through some old, sea-side, knightly hall,
Not in the free greenwood at all?
That Knight’s asleep, and at her prayer
That Lady by the bed doth kneel: 165
Then hush, thou boisterous bugle peal!’ —
The wild boar rustles in his lair —
The fierce hounds snuff the tainted air —
But lord and hounds keep rooted there.
Cheer, cheer thy dogs into the brake, 170
O Hunter! and without a fear
Thy golden-tassell’d bugle blow,
And through the glades thy pastime take!
For thou wilt rouse no sleepers here.
For these thou seest are unmov’d; 175
Cold, cold as those who liv’d and lov’d
A thousand years ago.
III. Iseult of Brittany
A YEAR had flown, and o’er the sea away,
In Cornwall, Tristram and queen Iseult lay;
In King Marc’s chapel, in Tyntagel old:
There in a ship they bore those lovers cold.
The young surviving Iseult, one bright day, 5
Had wander’d forth: her children were at play
In a green circular hollow in the heath
Which borders the sea-shore; a country path
Creeps over it from the till’d fields behind.
The hollow’s grassy banks are soft inclin’d 10
And to one standing on them, far and near
The lone unbroken view spreads bright and clear
Over the waste: — This cirque of open ground
Is light and green; the heather, which all round
Creeps thickly, grows not here; but the pale grass 15
Is strewn with rocks, and many a shiver’d mass
Of vein’d white-gleaming quartz, and here and there
Dotted with holly trees and juniper.
In the smooth centre of the opening stood
Three hollies side by side, and made a screen 20
Warm with the winter sun, of burnish’d green,
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold Page 12