Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  The wiser fools, seeing thy Paynim bard

  Had such a mastery of his mystery

  That he could harp his wife up out of hell.’

  Then Dagonet, turning on the ball of his foot,

  ‘And whither harp’st thou thine? down! and thyself

  Down! and two more: a helpful harper thou,

  That harpest downward! Dost thou know the star

  We call the harp of Arthur up in heaven?’

  And Tristram, ‘Ay, Sir Fool, for when our King

  Was victor wellnigh day by day, the knights,

  Glorying in each new glory, set his name

  High on all hills, and in the signs of heaven.’

  And Dagonet answered, ‘Ay, and when the land

  Was freed, and the Queen false, ye set yourself

  To babble about him, all to show your wit —

  And whether he were King by courtesy,

  Or King by right — and so went harping down

  The black king’s highway, got so far, and grew

  So witty that ye played at ducks and drakes

  With Arthur’s vows on the great lake of fire.

  Tuwhoo! do ye see it? do ye see the star?’

  ‘Nay, fool,’ said Tristram, ‘not in open day.’

  And Dagonet, ‘Nay, nor will: I see it and hear.

  It makes a silent music up in heaven,

  And I, and Arthur and the angels hear,

  And then we skip.’ ‘Lo, fool,’ he said, ‘ye talk

  Fool’s treason: is the King thy brother fool?’

  Then little Dagonet clapt his hands and shrilled,

  ‘Ay, ay, my brother fool, the king of fools!

  Conceits himself as God that he can make

  Figs out of thistles, silk from bristles, milk

  From burning spurge, honey from hornet-combs,

  And men from beasts — Long live the king of fools!’

  And down the city Dagonet danced away;

  But through the slowly-mellowing avenues

  And solitary passes of the wood

  Rode Tristram toward Lyonnesse and the west.

  Before him fled the face of Queen Isolt

  With ruby-circled neck, but evermore

  Past, as a rustle or twitter in the wood

  Made dull his inner, keen his outer eye

  For all that walked, or crept, or perched, or flew.

  Anon the face, as, when a gust hath blown,

  Unruffling waters re-collect the shape

  Of one that in them sees himself, returned;

  But at the slot or fewmets of a deer,

  Or even a fallen feather, vanished again.

  So on for all that day from lawn to lawn

  Through many a league-long bower he rode. At length

  A lodge of intertwisted beechen-boughs

  Furze-crammed, and bracken-rooft, the which himself

  Built for a summer day with Queen Isolt

  Against a shower, dark in the golden grove

  Appearing, sent his fancy back to where

  She lived a moon in that low lodge with him:

  Till Mark her lord had past, the Cornish King,

  With six or seven, when Tristram was away,

  And snatched her thence; yet dreading worse than shame

  Her warrior Tristram, spake not any word,

  But bode his hour, devising wretchedness.

  And now that desert lodge to Tristram lookt

  So sweet, that halting, in he past, and sank

  Down on a drift of foliage random-blown;

  But could not rest for musing how to smoothe

  And sleek his marriage over to the Queen.

  Perchance in lone Tintagil far from all

  The tonguesters of the court she had not heard.

  But then what folly had sent him overseas

  After she left him lonely here? a name?

  Was it the name of one in Brittany,

  Isolt, the daughter of the King? ‘Isolt

  Of the white hands’ they called her: the sweet name

  Allured him first, and then the maid herself,

  Who served him well with those white hands of hers,

  And loved him well, until himself had thought

  He loved her also, wedded easily,

  But left her all as easily, and returned.

  The black-blue Irish hair and Irish eyes

  Had drawn him home — what marvel? then he laid

  His brows upon the drifted leaf and dreamed.

  He seemed to pace the strand of Brittany

  Between Isolt of Britain and his bride,

  And showed them both the ruby-chain, and both

  Began to struggle for it, till his Queen

  Graspt it so hard, that all her hand was red.

  Then cried the Breton, ‘Look, her hand is red!

  These be no rubies, this is frozen blood,

  And melts within her hand — her hand is hot

  With ill desires, but this I gave thee, look,

  Is all as cool and white as any flower.’

  Followed a rush of eagle’s wings, and then

  A whimpering of the spirit of the child,

  Because the twain had spoiled her carcanet.

  He dreamed; but Arthur with a hundred spears

  Rode far, till o’er the illimitable reed,

  And many a glancing plash and sallowy isle,

  The wide-winged sunset of the misty marsh

  Glared on a huge machicolated tower

  That stood with open doors, whereout was rolled

  A roar of riot, as from men secure

  Amid their marshes, ruffians at their ease

  Among their harlot-brides, an evil song.

  ‘Lo there,’ said one of Arthur’s youth, for there,

  High on a grim dead tree before the tower,

  A goodly brother of the Table Round

  Swung by the neck: and on the boughs a shield

  Showing a shower of blood in a field noir,

  And therebeside a horn, inflamed the knights

  At that dishonour done the gilded spur,

  Till each would clash the shield, and blow the horn.

  But Arthur waved them back. Alone he rode.

  Then at the dry harsh roar of the great horn,

  That sent the face of all the marsh aloft

  An ever upward-rushing storm and cloud

  Of shriek and plume, the Red Knight heard, and all,

  Even to tipmost lance and topmost helm,

  In blood-red armour sallying, howled to the King,

  ‘The teeth of Hell flay bare and gnash thee flat! —

  Lo! art thou not that eunuch-hearted King

  Who fain had clipt free manhood from the world —

  The woman-worshipper? Yea, God’s curse, and I!

  Slain was the brother of my paramour

  By a knight of thine, and I that heard her whine

  And snivel, being eunuch-hearted too,

  Sware by the scorpion-worm that twists in hell,

  And stings itself to everlasting death,

  To hang whatever knight of thine I fought

  And tumbled. Art thou King? — Look to thy life!’

  He ended: Arthur knew the voice; the face

  Wellnigh was helmet-hidden, and the name

  Went wandering somewhere darkling in his mind.

  And Arthur deigned not use of word or sword,

  But let the drunkard, as he stretched from horse

  To strike him, overbalancing his bulk,

  Down from the causeway heavily to the swamp

  Fall, as the crest of some slow-arching wave,

  Heard in dead night along that table-shore,

  Drops flat, and after the great waters break

  Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves,

  Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud,

  From less and less to nothing; thus he fell

  Head-heavy; then the knights, who w
atched him, roared

  And shouted and leapt down upon the fallen;

  There trampled out his face from being known,

  And sank his head in mire, and slimed themselves:

  Nor heard the King for their own cries, but sprang

  Through open doors, and swording right and left

  Men, women, on their sodden faces, hurled

  The tables over and the wines, and slew

  Till all the rafters rang with woman-yells,

  And all the pavement streamed with massacre:

  Then, echoing yell with yell, they fired the tower,

  Which half that autumn night, like the live North,

  Red-pulsing up through Alioth and Alcor,

  Made all above it, and a hundred meres

  About it, as the water Moab saw

  Came round by the East, and out beyond them flushed

  The long low dune, and lazy-plunging sea.

  So all the ways were safe from shore to shore,

  But in the heart of Arthur pain was lord.

  Then, out of Tristram waking, the red dream

  Fled with a shout, and that low lodge returned,

  Mid-forest, and the wind among the boughs.

  He whistled his good warhorse left to graze

  Among the forest greens, vaulted upon him,

  And rode beneath an ever-showering leaf,

  Till one lone woman, weeping near a cross,

  Stayed him. ‘Why weep ye?’ ‘Lord,’ she said, ‘my man

  Hath left me or is dead;’ whereon he thought —

  ‘What, if she hate me now? I would not this.

  What, if she love me still? I would not that.

  I know not what I would’ — but said to her,

  ‘Yet weep not thou, lest, if thy mate return,

  He find thy favour changed and love thee not’ —

  Then pressing day by day through Lyonnesse

  Last in a roky hollow, belling, heard

  The hounds of Mark, and felt the goodly hounds

  Yelp at his heart, but turning, past and gained

  Tintagil, half in sea, and high on land,

  A crown of towers.

  Down in a casement sat,

  A low sea-sunset glorying round her hair

  And glossy-throated grace, Isolt the Queen.

  And when she heard the feet of Tristram grind

  The spiring stone that scaled about her tower,

  Flushed, started, met him at the doors, and there

  Belted his body with her white embrace,

  Crying aloud, ‘Not Mark — not Mark, my soul!

  The footstep fluttered me at first: not he:

  Catlike through his own castle steals my Mark,

  But warrior-wise thou stridest through his halls

  Who hates thee, as I him — even to the death.

  My soul, I felt my hatred for my Mark

  Quicken within me, and knew that thou wert nigh.’

  To whom Sir Tristram smiling, ‘I am here.

  Let be thy Mark, seeing he is not thine.’

  And drawing somewhat backward she replied,

  ‘Can he be wronged who is not even his own,

  But save for dread of thee had beaten me,

  Scratched, bitten, blinded, marred me somehow — Mark?

  What rights are his that dare not strike for them?

  Not lift a hand — not, though he found me thus!

  But harken! have ye met him? hence he went

  Today for three days’ hunting — as he said —

  And so returns belike within an hour.

  Mark’s way, my soul! — but eat not thou with Mark,

  Because he hates thee even more than fears;

  Nor drink: and when thou passest any wood

  Close vizor, lest an arrow from the bush

  Should leave me all alone with Mark and hell.

  My God, the measure of my hate for Mark

  Is as the measure of my love for thee.’

  So, plucked one way by hate and one by love,

  Drained of her force, again she sat, and spake

  To Tristram, as he knelt before her, saying,

  ‘O hunter, and O blower of the horn,

  Harper, and thou hast been a rover too,

  For, ere I mated with my shambling king,

  Ye twain had fallen out about the bride

  Of one — his name is out of me — the prize,

  If prize she were — (what marvel — she could see) —

  Thine, friend; and ever since my craven seeks

  To wreck thee villainously: but, O Sir Knight,

  What dame or damsel have ye kneeled to last?’

  And Tristram, ‘Last to my Queen Paramount,

  Here now to my Queen Paramount of love

  And loveliness — ay, lovelier than when first

  Her light feet fell on our rough Lyonnesse,

  Sailing from Ireland.’

  Softly laughed Isolt;

  ‘Flatter me not, for hath not our great Queen

  My dole of beauty trebled?’ and he said,

  ‘Her beauty is her beauty, and thine thine,

  And thine is more to me — soft, gracious, kind —

  Save when thy Mark is kindled on thy lips

  Most gracious; but she, haughty, even to him,

  Lancelot; for I have seen him wan enow

  To make one doubt if ever the great Queen

  Have yielded him her love.’

  To whom Isolt,

  ‘Ah then, false hunter and false harper, thou

  Who brakest through the scruple of my bond,

  Calling me thy white hind, and saying to me

  That Guinevere had sinned against the highest,

  And I — misyoked with such a want of man —

  That I could hardly sin against the lowest.’

  He answered, ‘O my soul, be comforted!

  If this be sweet, to sin in leading-strings,

  If here be comfort, and if ours be sin,

  Crowned warrant had we for the crowning sin

  That made us happy: but how ye greet me — fear

  And fault and doubt — no word of that fond tale —

  Thy deep heart-yearnings, thy sweet memories

  Of Tristram in that year he was away.’

  And, saddening on the sudden, spake Isolt,

  ‘I had forgotten all in my strong joy

  To see thee — yearnings? — ay! for, hour by hour,

  Here in the never-ended afternoon,

  O sweeter than all memories of thee,

  Deeper than any yearnings after thee

  Seemed those far-rolling, westward-smiling seas,

  Watched from this tower. Isolt of Britain dashed

  Before Isolt of Brittany on the strand,

  Would that have chilled her bride-kiss? Wedded her?

  Fought in her father’s battles? wounded there?

  The King was all fulfilled with gratefulness,

  And she, my namesake of the hands, that healed

  Thy hurt and heart with unguent and caress —

  Well — can I wish her any huger wrong

  Than having known thee? her too hast thou left

  To pine and waste in those sweet memories.

  O were I not my Mark’s, by whom all men

  Are noble, I should hate thee more than love.’

  And Tristram, fondling her light hands, replied,

  ‘Grace, Queen, for being loved: she loved me well.

  Did I love her? the name at least I loved.

  Isolt? — I fought his battles, for Isolt!

  The night was dark; the true star set. Isolt!

  The name was ruler of the dark — Isolt?

  Care not for her! patient, and prayerful, meek,

  Pale-blooded, she will yield herself to God.’

  And Isolt answered, ‘Yea, and why not I?

  Mine is the larger need, who am not meek,

  Pale-blooded, prayerful. Let m
e tell thee now.

  Here one black, mute midsummer night I sat,

  Lonely, but musing on thee, wondering where,

  Murmuring a light song I had heard thee sing,

  And once or twice I spake thy name aloud.

  Then flashed a levin-brand; and near me stood,

  In fuming sulphur blue and green, a fiend —

  Mark’s way to steal behind one in the dark —

  For there was Mark: “He has wedded her,” he said,

  Not said, but hissed it: then this crown of towers

  So shook to such a roar of all the sky,

  That here in utter dark I swooned away,

  And woke again in utter dark, and cried,

  “I will flee hence and give myself to God” —

  And thou wert lying in thy new leman’s arms.’

  Then Tristram, ever dallying with her hand,

  ‘May God be with thee, sweet, when old and gray,

  And past desire!’ a saying that angered her.

  ‘“May God be with thee, sweet, when thou art old,

  And sweet no more to me!” I need Him now.

  For when had Lancelot uttered aught so gross

  Even to the swineherd’s malkin in the mast?

  The greater man, the greater courtesy.

  Far other was the Tristram, Arthur’s knight!

  But thou, through ever harrying thy wild beasts —

  Save that to touch a harp, tilt with a lance

  Becomes thee well — art grown wild beast thyself.

  How darest thou, if lover, push me even

  In fancy from thy side, and set me far

  In the gray distance, half a life away,

  Her to be loved no more? Unsay it, unswear!

  Flatter me rather, seeing me so weak,

  Broken with Mark and hate and solitude,

  Thy marriage and mine own, that I should suck

  Lies like sweet wines: lie to me: I believe.

  Will ye not lie? not swear, as there ye kneel,

  And solemnly as when ye sware to him,

  The man of men, our King — My God, the power

  Was once in vows when men believed the King!

  They lied not then, who sware, and through their vows

  The King prevailing made his realm: — I say,

  Swear to me thou wilt love me even when old,

  Gray-haired, and past desire, and in despair.’

  Then Tristram, pacing moodily up and down,

  ‘Vows! did you keep the vow you made to Mark

  More than I mine? Lied, say ye? Nay, but learnt,

  The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself —

  My knighthood taught me this — ay, being snapt —

  We run more counter to the soul thereof

  Than had we never sworn. I swear no more.

  I swore to the great King, and am forsworn.

  For once — even to the height — I honoured him.