Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  Myself would work eye dim, and finger lame,

  Far liefer than so much discredit him.’

  And Enid fell in longing for a dress

  All branched and flowered with gold, a costly gift

  Of her good mother, given her on the night

  Before her birthday, three sad years ago,

  That night of fire, when Edyrn sacked their house,

  And scattered all they had to all the winds:

  For while the mother showed it, and the two

  Were turning and admiring it, the work

  To both appeared so costly, rose a cry

  That Edyrn’s men were on them, and they fled

  With little save the jewels they had on,

  Which being sold and sold had bought them bread:

  And Edyrn’s men had caught them in their flight,

  And placed them in this ruin; and she wished

  The Prince had found her in her ancient home;

  Then let her fancy flit across the past,

  And roam the goodly places that she knew;

  And last bethought her how she used to watch,

  Near that old home, a pool of golden carp;

  And one was patched and blurred and lustreless

  Among his burnished brethren of the pool;

  And half asleep she made comparison

  Of that and these to her own faded self

  And the gay court, and fell asleep again;

  And dreamt herself was such a faded form

  Among her burnished sisters of the pool;

  But this was in the garden of a king;

  And though she lay dark in the pool, she knew

  That all was bright; that all about were birds

  Of sunny plume in gilded trellis-work;

  That all the turf was rich in plots that looked

  Each like a garnet or a turkis in it;

  And lords and ladies of the high court went

  In silver tissue talking things of state;

  And children of the King in cloth of gold

  Glanced at the doors or gamboled down the walks;

  And while she thought ‘They will not see me,’ came

  A stately queen whose name was Guinevere,

  And all the children in their cloth of gold

  Ran to her, crying, ‘If we have fish at all

  Let them be gold; and charge the gardeners now

  To pick the faded creature from the pool,

  And cast it on the mixen that it die.’

  And therewithal one came and seized on her,

  And Enid started waking, with her heart

  All overshadowed by the foolish dream,

  And lo! it was her mother grasping her

  To get her well awake; and in her hand

  A suit of bright apparel, which she laid

  Flat on the couch, and spoke exultingly:

  ‘See here, my child, how fresh the colours look,

  How fast they hold like colours of a shell

  That keeps the wear and polish of the wave.

  Why not? It never yet was worn, I trow:

  Look on it, child, and tell me if ye know it.’

  And Enid looked, but all confused at first,

  Could scarce divide it from her foolish dream:

  Then suddenly she knew it and rejoiced,

  And answered, ‘Yea, I know it; your good gift,

  So sadly lost on that unhappy night;

  Your own good gift!’ ‘Yea, surely,’ said the dame,

  ‘And gladly given again this happy morn.

  For when the jousts were ended yesterday,

  Went Yniol through the town, and everywhere

  He found the sack and plunder of our house

  All scattered through the houses of the town;

  And gave command that all which once was ours

  Should now be ours again: and yester-eve,

  While ye were talking sweetly with your Prince,

  Came one with this and laid it in my hand,

  For love or fear, or seeking favour of us,

  Because we have our earldom back again.

  And yester-eve I would not tell you of it,

  But kept it for a sweet surprise at morn.

  Yea, truly is it not a sweet surprise?

  For I myself unwillingly have worn

  My faded suit, as you, my child, have yours,

  And howsoever patient, Yniol his.

  Ah, dear, he took me from a goodly house,

  With store of rich apparel, sumptuous fare,

  And page, and maid, and squire, and seneschal,

  And pastime both of hawk and hound, and all

  That appertains to noble maintenance.

  Yea, and he brought me to a goodly house;

  But since our fortune swerved from sun to shade,

  And all through that young traitor, cruel need

  Constrained us, but a better time has come;

  So clothe yourself in this, that better fits

  Our mended fortunes and a Prince’s bride:

  For though ye won the prize of fairest fair,

  And though I heard him call you fairest fair,

  Let never maiden think, however fair,

  She is not fairer in new clothes than old.

  And should some great court-lady say, the Prince

  Hath picked a ragged-robin from the hedge,

  And like a madman brought her to the court,

  Then were ye shamed, and, worse, might shame the Prince

  To whom we are beholden; but I know,

  That when my dear child is set forth at her best,

  That neither court nor country, though they sought

  Through all the provinces like those of old

  That lighted on Queen Esther, has her match.’

  Here ceased the kindly mother out of breath;

  And Enid listened brightening as she lay;

  Then, as the white and glittering star of morn

  Parts from a bank of snow, and by and by

  Slips into golden cloud, the maiden rose,

  And left her maiden couch, and robed herself,

  Helped by the mother’s careful hand and eye,

  Without a mirror, in the gorgeous gown;

  Who, after, turned her daughter round, and said,

  She never yet had seen her half so fair;

  And called her like that maiden in the tale,

  Whom Gwydion made by glamour out of flowers

  And sweeter than the bride of Cassivelaun,

  Flur, for whose love the Roman Cæsar first

  Invaded Britain, ‘But we beat him back,

  As this great Prince invaded us, and we,

  Not beat him back, but welcomed him with joy

  And I can scarcely ride with you to court,

  For old am I, and rough the ways and wild;

  But Yniol goes, and I full oft shall dream

  I see my princess as I see her now,

  Clothed with my gift, and gay among the gay.’

  But while the women thus rejoiced, Geraint

  Woke where he slept in the high hall, and called

  For Enid, and when Yniol made report

  Of that good mother making Enid gay

  In such apparel as might well beseem

  His princess, or indeed the stately Queen,

  He answered: ‘Earl, entreat her by my love,

  Albeit I give no reason but my wish,

  That she ride with me in her faded silk.’

  Yniol with that hard message went; it fell

  Like flaws in summer laying lusty corn:

  For Enid, all abashed she knew not why,

  Dared not to glance at her good mother’s face,

  But silently, in all obedience,

  Her mother silent too, nor helping her,

  Laid from her limbs the costly-broidered gift,

  And robed them in her ancient suit again,

  And so descended. Never man rejoiced

&nb
sp; More than Geraint to greet her thus attired;

  And glancing all at once as keenly at her

  As careful robins eye the delver’s toil,

  Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall,

  But rested with her sweet face satisfied;

  Then seeing cloud upon the mother’s brow,

  Her by both hands she caught, and sweetly said,

  ‘O my new mother, be not wroth or grieved

  At thy new son, for my petition to her.

  When late I left Caerleon, our great Queen,

  In words whose echo lasts, they were so sweet,

  Made promise, that whatever bride I brought,

  Herself would clothe her like the sun in Heaven.

  Thereafter, when I reached this ruined hall,

  Beholding one so bright in dark estate,

  I vowed that could I gain her, our fair Queen,

  No hand but hers, should make your Enid burst

  Sunlike from cloud — and likewise thought perhaps,

  That service done so graciously would bind

  The two together; fain I would the two

  Should love each other: how can Enid find

  A nobler friend? Another thought was mine;

  I came among you here so suddenly,

  That though her gentle presence at the lists

  Might well have served for proof that I was loved,

  I doubted whether daughter’s tenderness,

  Or easy nature, might not let itself

  Be moulded by your wishes for her weal;

  Or whether some false sense in her own self

  Of my contrasting brightness, overbore

  Her fancy dwelling in this dusky hall;

  And such a sense might make her long for court

  And all its perilous glories: and I thought,

  That could I someway prove such force in her

  Linked with such love for me, that at a word

  (No reason given her) she could cast aside

  A splendour dear to women, new to her,

  And therefore dearer; or if not so new,

  Yet therefore tenfold dearer by the power

  Of intermitted usage; then I felt

  That I could rest, a rock in ebbs and flows,

  Fixt on her faith. Now, therefore, I do rest,

  A prophet certain of my prophecy,

  That never shadow of mistrust can cross

  Between us. Grant me pardon for my thoughts:

  And for my strange petition I will make

  Amends hereafter by some gaudy-day,

  When your fair child shall wear your costly gift

  Beside your own warm hearth, with, on her knees,

  Who knows? another gift of the high God,

  Which, maybe, shall have learned to lisp you thanks.’

  He spoke: the mother smiled, but half in tears,

  Then brought a mantle down and wrapt her in it,

  And claspt and kissed her, and they rode away.

  Now thrice that morning Guinevere had climbed

  The giant tower, from whose high crest, they say,

  Men saw the goodly hills of Somerset,

  And white sails flying on the yellow sea;

  But not to goodly hill or yellow sea

  Looked the fair Queen, but up the vale of Usk,

  By the flat meadow, till she saw them come;

  And then descending met them at the gates,

  Embraced her with all welcome as a friend,

  And did her honour as the Prince’s bride,

  And clothed her for her bridals like the sun;

  And all that week was old Caerleon gay,

  For by the hands of Dubric, the high saint,

  They twain were wedded with all ceremony.

  And this was on the last year’s Whitsuntide.

  But Enid ever kept the faded silk,

  Remembering how first he came on her,

  Drest in that dress, and how he loved her in it,

  And all her foolish fears about the dress,

  And all his journey toward her, as himself

  Had told her, and their coming to the court.

  And now this morning when he said to her,

  ‘Put on your worst and meanest dress,’ she found

  And took it, and arrayed herself therein.

  Geraint and Enid

  1857

  O PURBLIND race of miserable men,

  How many among us at this very hour

  Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves,

  By taking true for false, or false for true;

  Here, through the feeble twilight of this world

  Groping, how many, until we pass and reach

  That other, where we see as we are seen!

  So fared it with Geraint, who issuing forth

  That morning, when they both had got to horse,

  Perhaps because he loved her passionately,

  And felt that tempest brooding round his heart,

  Which, if he spoke at all, would break perforce

  Upon a head so dear in thunder, said:

  ‘Not at my side. I charge thee ride before,

  Ever a good way on before; and this

  I charge thee, on thy duty as a wife,

  Whatever happens, not to speak to me,

  No, not a word!’ and Enid was aghast;

  And forth they rode, but scarce three paces on,

  When crying out, ‘Effeminate as I am,

  I will not fight my way with gilded arms,

  All shall be iron;’ he loosed a mighty purse,

  Hung at his belt, and hurled it toward the squire.

  So the last sight that Enid had of home

  Was all the marble threshold flashing, strown

  With gold and scattered coinage, and the squire

  Chafing his shoulder: then he cried again,

  ‘To the wilds!’ and Enid leading down the tracks

  Through which he bad her lead him on, they past

  The marches, and by bandit-haunted holds,

  Gray swamps and pools, waste places of the hern,

  And wildernesses, perilous paths, they rode:

  Round was their pace at first, but slackened soon:

  A stranger meeting them had surely thought

  They rode so slowly and they looked so pale,

  That each had suffered some exceeding wrong.

  For he was ever saying to himself,

  ‘O I that wasted time to tend upon her,

  To compass her with sweet observances,

  To dress her beautifully and keep her true’ —

  And there he broke the sentence in his heart

  Abruptly, as a man upon his tongue

  May break it, when his passion masters him.

  And she was ever praying the sweet heavens

  To save her dear lord whole from any wound.

  And ever in her mind she cast about

  For that unnoticed failing in herself,

  Which made him look so cloudy and so cold;

  Till the great plover’s human whistle amazed

  Her heart, and glancing round the waste she feared

  In ever wavering brake an ambuscade.

  Then thought again, ‘If there be such in me,

  I might amend it by the grace of Heaven,

  If he would only speak and tell me of it.’

  But when the fourth part of the day was gone,

  Then Enid was aware of three tall knights

  On horseback, wholly armed, behind a rock

  In shadow, waiting for them, caitiffs all;

  And heard one crying to his fellow, ‘Look,

  Here comes a laggard hanging down his head,

  Who seems no bolder than a beaten hound;

  Come, we will slay him and will have his horse

  And armour, and his damsel shall be ours.’

  Then Enid pondered in her heart, and said:

  ‘I will go back a little to my lord,

 
And I will tell him all their caitiff talk;

  For, be he wroth even to slaying me,

  Far liefer by his dear hand had I die,

  Than that my lord should suffer loss or shame.’

  Then she went back some paces of return,

  Met his full frown timidly firm, and said;

  ‘My lord, I saw three bandits by the rock

  Waiting to fall on you, and heard them boast

  That they would slay you, and possess your horse

  And armour, and your damsel should be theirs.’

  He made a wrathful answer: ‘Did I wish

  Your warning or your silence? one command

  I laid upon you, not to speak to me,

  And thus ye keep it! Well then, look — for now,

  Whether ye wish me victory or defeat,

  Long for my life, or hunger for my death,

  Yourself shall see my vigour is not lost.’

  Then Enid waited pale and sorrowful,

  And down upon him bare the bandit three.

  And at the midmost charging, Prince Geraint

  Drave the long spear a cubit through his breast

  And out beyond; and then against his brace

  Of comrades, each of whom had broken on him

  A lance that splintered like an icicle,

  Swung from his brand a windy buffet out

  Once, twice, to right, to left, and stunned the twain

  Or slew them, and dismounting like a man

  That skins the wild beast after slaying him,

  Stript from the three dead wolves of woman born

  The three gay suits of armour which they wore,

  And let the bodies lie, but bound the suits

  Of armour on their horses, each on each,

  And tied the bridle-reins of all the three

  Together, and said to her, ‘Drive them on

  Before you;’ and she drove them through the waste.

  He followed nearer; ruth began to work

  Against his anger in him, while he watched

  The being he loved best in all the world,

  With difficulty in mild obedience

  Driving them on: he fain had spoken to her,

  And loosed in words of sudden fire the wrath

  And smouldered wrong that burnt him all within;

  But evermore it seemed an easier thing

  At once without remorse to strike her dead,

  Than to cry ‘Halt,’ and to her own bright face

  Accuse her of the least immodesty:

  And thus tongue-tied, it made him wroth the more

  That she could speak whom his own ear had heard

  Call herself false: and suffering thus he made

  Minutes an age: but in scarce longer time

  Than at Caerleon the full-tided Usk,

  Before he turn to fall seaward again,

  Pauses, did Enid, keeping watch, behold

  In the first shallow shade of a deep wood,