Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  ‘There lived a king in the most Eastern East,

  Less old than I, yet older, for my blood

  Hath earnest in it of far springs to be.

  A tawny pirate anchored in his port,

  Whose bark had plundered twenty nameless isles;

  And passing one, at the high peep of dawn,

  He saw two cities in a thousand boats

  All fighting for a woman on the sea.

  And pushing his black craft among them all,

  He lightly scattered theirs and brought her off,

  With loss of half his people arrow-slain;

  A maid so smooth, so white, so wonderful,

  They said a light came from her when she moved:

  And since the pirate would not yield her up,

  The King impaled him for his piracy;

  Then made her Queen: but those isle-nurtured eyes

  Waged such unwilling though successful war

  On all the youth, they sickened; councils thinned,

  And armies waned, for magnet-like she drew

  The rustiest iron of old fighters’ hearts;

  And beasts themselves would worship; camels knelt

  Unbidden, and the brutes of mountain back

  That carry kings in castles, bowed black knees

  Of homage, ringing with their serpent hands,

  To make her smile, her golden ankle-bells.

  What wonder, being jealous, that he sent

  His horns of proclamation out through all

  The hundred under-kingdoms that he swayed

  To find a wizard who might teach the King

  Some charm, which being wrought upon the Queen

  Might keep her all his own: to such a one

  He promised more than ever king has given,

  A league of mountain full of golden mines,

  A province with a hundred miles of coast,

  A palace and a princess, all for him:

  But on all those who tried and failed, the King

  Pronounced a dismal sentence, meaning by it

  To keep the list low and pretenders back,

  Or like a king, not to be trifled with —

  Their heads should moulder on the city gates.

  And many tried and failed, because the charm

  Of nature in her overbore their own:

  And many a wizard brow bleached on the walls:

  And many weeks a troop of carrion crows

  Hung like a cloud above the gateway towers.’

  And Vivien breaking in upon him, said:

  ‘I sit and gather honey; yet, methinks,

  Thy tongue has tript a little: ask thyself.

  The lady never made unwilling war

  With those fine eyes: she had her pleasure in it,

  And made her good man jealous with good cause.

  And lived there neither dame nor damsel then

  Wroth at a lover’s loss? were all as tame,

  I mean, as noble, as the Queen was fair?

  Not one to flirt a venom at her eyes,

  Or pinch a murderous dust into her drink,

  Or make her paler with a poisoned rose?

  Well, those were not our days: but did they find

  A wizard? Tell me, was he like to thee?

  She ceased, and made her lithe arm round his neck

  Tighten, and then drew back, and let her eyes

  Speak for her, glowing on him, like a bride’s

  On her new lord, her own, the first of men.

  He answered laughing, ‘Nay, not like to me.

  At last they found — his foragers for charms —

  A little glassy-headed hairless man,

  Who lived alone in a great wild on grass;

  Read but one book, and ever reading grew

  So grated down and filed away with thought,

  So lean his eyes were monstrous; while the skin

  Clung but to crate and basket, ribs and spine.

  And since he kept his mind on one sole aim,

  Nor ever touched fierce wine, nor tasted flesh,

  Nor owned a sensual wish, to him the wall

  That sunders ghosts and shadow-casting men

  Became a crystal, and he saw them through it,

  And heard their voices talk behind the wall,

  And learnt their elemental secrets, powers

  And forces; often o’er the sun’s bright eye

  Drew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud,

  And lashed it at the base with slanting storm;

  Or in the noon of mist and driving rain,

  When the lake whitened and the pinewood roared,

  And the cairned mountain was a shadow, sunned

  The world to peace again: here was the man.

  And so by force they dragged him to the King.

  And then he taught the King to charm the Queen

  In such-wise, that no man could see her more,

  Nor saw she save the King, who wrought the charm,

  Coming and going, and she lay as dead,

  And lost all use of life: but when the King

  Made proffer of the league of golden mines,

  The province with a hundred miles of coast,

  The palace and the princess, that old man

  Went back to his old wild, and lived on grass,

  And vanished, and his book came down to me.’

  And Vivien answered smiling saucily:

  ‘Ye have the book: the charm is written in it:

  Good: take my counsel: let me know it at once:

  For keep it like a puzzle chest in chest,

  With each chest locked and padlocked thirty-fold,

  And whelm all this beneath as vast a mound

  As after furious battle turfs the slain

  On some wild down above the windy deep,

  I yet should strike upon a sudden means

  To dig, pick, open, find and read the charm:

  Then, if I tried it, who should blame me then?’

  And smiling as a master smiles at one

  That is not of his school, nor any school

  But that where blind and naked Ignorance

  Delivers brawling judgments, unashamed,

  On all things all day long, he answered her:

  ‘Thou read the book, my pretty Vivien!

  O ay, it is but twenty pages long,

  But every page having an ample marge,

  And every marge enclosing in the midst

  A square of text that looks a little blot,

  The text no larger than the limbs of fleas;

  And every square of text an awful charm,

  Writ in a language that has long gone by.

  So long, that mountains have arisen since

  With cities on their flanks — thou read the book!

  And ever margin scribbled, crost, and crammed

  With comment, densest condensation, hard

  To mind and eye; but the long sleepless nights

  Of my long life have made it easy to me.

  And none can read the text, not even I;

  And none can read the comment but myself;

  And in the comment did I find the charm.

  O, the results are simple; a mere child

  Might use it to the harm of anyone,

  And never could undo it: ask no more:

  For though you should not prove it upon me,

  But keep that oath ye sware, ye might, perchance,

  Assay it on some one of the Table Round,

  And all because ye dream they babble of you.’

  And Vivien, frowning in true anger, said:

  ‘What dare the full-fed liars say of me?

  They ride abroad redressing human wrongs!

  They sit with knife in meat and wine in horn!

  They bound to holy vows of chastity!

  Were I not woman, I could tell a tale.

  But you are man, you well can understand

  The shame that cannot be explained for shame.
r />   Not one of all the drove should touch me: swine!’

  Then answered Merlin careless of her words:

  ‘You breathe but accusation vast and vague,

  Spleen-born, I think, and proofless. If ye know,

  Set up the charge ye know, to stand or fall!’

  And Vivien answered frowning wrathfully:

  ‘O ay, what say ye to Sir Valence, him

  Whose kinsman left him watcher o’er his wife

  And two fair babes, and went to distant lands;

  Was one year gone, and on returning found

  Not two but three? there lay the reckling, one

  But one hour old! What said the happy sire?’

  A seven-months’ babe had been a truer gift.

  Those twelve sweet moons confused his fatherhood.’

  Then answered Merlin, ‘Nay, I know the tale.

  Sir Valence wedded with an outland dame:

  Some cause had kept him sundered from his wife:

  One child they had: it lived with her: she died:

  His kinsman travelling on his own affair

  Was charged by Valence to bring home the child.

  He brought, not found it therefore: take the truth.’

  ‘O ay,’ said Vivien, ‘overtrue a tale.

  What say ye then to sweet Sir Sagramore,

  That ardent man? “to pluck the flower in season,”

  So says the song, “I trow it is no treason.”

  O Master, shall we call him overquick

  To crop his own sweet rose before the hour?’

  And Merlin answered, ‘Overquick art thou

  To catch a loathly plume fallen from the wing

  Of that foul bird of rapine whose whole prey

  Is man’s good name: he never wronged his bride.

  I know the tale. An angry gust of wind

  Puffed out his torch among the myriad-roomed

  And many-corridored complexities

  Of Arthur’s palace: then he found a door,

  And darkling felt the sculptured ornament

  That wreathen round it made it seem his own;

  And wearied out made for the couch and slept,

  A stainless man beside a stainless maid;

  And either slept, nor knew of other there;

  Till the high dawn piercing the royal rose

  In Arthur’s casement glimmered chastely down,

  Blushing upon them blushing, and at once

  He rose without a word and parted from her:

  But when the thing was blazed about the court,

  The brute world howling forced them into bonds,

  And as it chanced they are happy, being pure.’

  ‘O ay,’ said Vivien, ‘that were likely too.

  What say ye then to fair Sir Percivale

  And of the horrid foulness that he wrought,

  The saintly youth, the spotless lamb of Christ,

  Or some black wether of St Satan’s fold.

  What, in the precincts of the chapel-yard,

  Among the knightly brasses of the graves,

  And by the cold Hic Jacets of the dead!’

  And Merlin answered careless of her charge,

  ‘A sober man is Percivale and pure;

  But once in life was flustered with new wine,

  Then paced for coolness in the chapel-yard;

  Where one of Satan’s shepherdesses caught

  And meant to stamp him with her master’s mark;

  And that he sinned is not believable;

  For, look upon his face! — but if he sinned,

  The sin that practice burns into the blood,

  And not the one dark hour which brings remorse,

  Will brand us, after, of whose fold we be:

  Or else were he, the holy king, whose hymns

  Are chanted in the minster, worse than all.

  But is your spleen frothed out, or have ye more?’

  And Vivien answered frowning yet in wrath:

  ‘O ay; what say ye to Sir Lancelot, friend

  Traitor or true? that commerce with the Queen,

  I ask you, is it clamoured by the child,

  Or whispered in the corner? do ye know it?’

  To which he answered sadly, ‘Yea, I know it.

  Sir Lancelot went ambassador, at first,

  To fetch her, and she watched him from her walls.

  A rumour runs, she took him for the King,

  So fixt her fancy on him: let them be.

  But have ye no one word of loyal praise

  For Arthur, blameless King and stainless man?’

  She answered with a low and chuckling laugh:

  ‘Man! is he man at all, who knows and winks?

  Sees what his fair bride is and does, and winks?

  By which the good King means to blind himself,

  And blinds himself and all the Table Round

  To all the foulness that they work. Myself

  Could call him (were it not for womanhood)

  The pretty, popular cause such manhood earns,

  Could call him the main cause of all their crime;

  Yea, were he not crowned King, coward, and fool.’

  Then Merlin to his own heart, loathing, said:

  ‘O true and tender! O my liege and King!

  O selfless man and stainless gentleman,

  Who wouldst against thine own eye-witness fain

  Have all men true and leal, all women pure;

  How, in the mouths of base interpreters,

  From over-fineness not intelligible

  To things with every sense as false and foul

  As the poached filth that floods the middle street,

  Is thy white blamelessness accounted blame!’

  But Vivien, deeming Merlin overborne

  By instance, recommenced, and let her tongue

  Rage like a fire among the noblest names,

  Polluting, and imputing her whole self,

  Defaming and defacing, till she left

  Not even Lancelot brave, nor Galahad clean.

  Her words had issue other than she willed.

  He dragged his eyebrow bushes down, and made

  A snowy penthouse for his hollow eyes,

  And muttered in himself, ‘Tell her the charm!

  So, if she had it, would she rail on me

  To snare the next, and if she have it not

  So will she rail. What did the wanton say?

  “Not mount as high;” we scarce can sink as low:

  For men at most differ as Heaven and earth,

  But women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell.

  I know the Table Round, my friends of old;

  All brave, and many generous, and some chaste.

  She cloaks the scar of some repulse with lies;

  I well believe she tempted them and failed,

  Being so bitter: for fine plots may fail,

  Though harlots paint their talk as well as face

  With colours of the heart that are not theirs.

  I will not let her know: nine tithes of times

  Face-flatterer and backbiter are the same.

  And they, sweet soul, that most impute a crime

  Are pronest to it, and impute themselves,

  Wanting the mental range; or low desire

  Not to feel lowest makes them level all;

  Yea, they would pare the mountain to the plain,

  To leave an equal baseness; and in this

  Are harlots like the crowd, that if they find

  Some stain or blemish in a name of note,

  Not grieving that their greatest are so small,

  Inflate themselves with some insane delight,

  And judge all nature from her feet of clay,

  Without the will to lift their eyes, and see

  Her godlike head crowned with spiritual fire,

  And touching other worlds. I am weary of her.’

  He spoke in words part heard, in whispers part,

 
; Half-suffocated in the hoary fell

  And many-wintered fleece of throat and chin.

  But Vivien, gathering somewhat of his mood,

  And hearing ‘harlot’ muttered twice or thrice,

  Leapt from her session on his lap, and stood

  Stiff as a viper frozen; loathsome sight,

  How from the rosy lips of life and love,

  Flashed the bare-grinning skeleton of death!

  White was her cheek; sharp breaths of anger puffed

  Her fairy nostril out; her hand half-clenched

  Went faltering sideways downward to her belt,

  And feeling; had she found a dagger there

  (For in a wink the false love turns to hate)

  She would have stabbed him; but she found it not:

  His eye was calm, and suddenly she took

  To bitter weeping like a beaten child,

  A long, long weeping, not consolable.

  Then her false voice made way, broken with sobs:

  ‘O crueller than was ever told in tale,

  Or sung in song! O vainly lavished love!

  O cruel, there was nothing wild or strange,

  Or seeming shameful — for what shame in love,

  So love be true, and not as yours is — nothing

  Poor Vivien had not done to win his trust

  Who called her what he called her — all her crime,

  All — all — the wish to prove him wholly hers.’

  She mused a little, and then clapt her hands

  Together with a wailing shriek, and said:

  ‘Stabbed through the heart’s affections to the heart!

  Seethed like the kid in its own mother’s milk!

  Killed with a word worse than a life of blows!

  I thought that he was gentle, being great:

  O God, that I had loved a smaller man!

  I should have found in him a greater heart.

  O, I, that flattering my true passion, saw

  The knights, the court, the King, dark in your light,

  Who loved to make men darker than they are,

  Because of that high pleasure which I had

  To seat you sole upon my pedestal

  Of worship — I am answered, and henceforth

  The course of life that seemed so flowery to me

  With you for guide and master, only you,

  Becomes the sea-cliff pathway broken short,

  And ending in a ruin — nothing left,

  But into some low cave to crawl, and there,

  If the wolf spare me, weep my life away,

  Killed with inutterable unkindliness.’

  She paused, she turned away, she hung her head,

  The snake of gold slid from her hair, the braid

  Slipt and uncoiled itself, she wept afresh,

  And the dark wood grew darker toward the storm

  In silence, while his anger slowly died

  Within him, till he let his wisdom go