Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  That as he rode, an hour or maybe twain

  After the sunset, down the coast, he heard

  Strange music, and he paused, and turning — there,

  All down the lonely coast of Lyonnesse,

  Each with a beacon-star upon his head,

  And with a wild sea-light about his feet,

  He saw them — headland after headland flame

  Far on into the rich heart of the west:

  And in the light the white mermaiden swam,

  And strong man-breasted things stood from the sea,

  And sent a deep sea-voice through all the land,

  To which the little elves of chasm and cleft

  Made answer, sounding like a distant horn.

  So said my father — yea, and furthermore,

  Next morning, while he past the dim-lit woods,

  Himself beheld three spirits mad with joy

  Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower,

  That shook beneath them, as the thistle shakes

  When three gray linnets wrangle for the seed:

  And still at evenings on before his horse

  The flickering fairy-circle wheeled and broke

  Flying, and linked again, and wheeled and broke

  Flying, for all the land was full of life.

  And when at last he came to Camelot,

  A wreath of airy dancers hand-in-hand

  Swung round the lighted lantern of the hall;

  And in the hall itself was such a feast

  As never man had dreamed; for every knight

  Had whatsoever meat he longed for served

  By hands unseen; and even as he said

  Down in the cellars merry bloated things

  Shouldered the spigot, straddling on the butts

  While the wine ran: so glad were spirits and men

  Before the coming of the sinful Queen.’

  Then spake the Queen and somewhat bitterly,

  ‘Were they so glad? ill prophets were they all,

  Spirits and men: could none of them foresee,

  Not even thy wise father with his signs

  And wonders, what has fallen upon the realm?’

  To whom the novice garrulously again,

  ‘Yea, one, a bard; of whom my father said,

  Full many a noble war-song had he sung,

  Even in the presence of an enemy’s fleet,

  Between the steep cliff and the coming wave;

  And many a mystic lay of life and death

  Had chanted on the smoky mountain-tops,

  When round him bent the spirits of the hills

  With all their dewy hair blown back like flame:

  So said my father — and that night the bard

  Sang Arthur’s glorious wars, and sang the King

  As wellnigh more than man, and railed at those

  Who called him the false son of Gorlois:

  For there was no man knew from whence he came;

  But after tempest, when the long wave broke

  All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos,

  There came a day as still as heaven, and then

  They found a naked child upon the sands

  Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea;

  And that was Arthur; and they fostered him

  Till he by miracle was approven King:

  And that his grave should be a mystery

  From all men, like his birth; and could he find

  A woman in her womanhood as great

  As he was in his manhood, then, he sang,

  The twain together well might change the world.

  But even in the middle of his song

  He faltered, and his hand fell from the harp,

  And pale he turned, and reeled, and would have fallen,

  But that they stayed him up; nor would he tell

  His vision; but what doubt that he foresaw

  This evil work of Lancelot and the Queen?’

  Then thought the Queen, ‘Lo! they have set her on,

  Our simple-seeming Abbess and her nuns,

  To play upon me,’ and bowed her head nor spake.

  Whereat the novice crying, with clasped hands,

  Shame on her own garrulity garrulously,

  Said the good nuns would check her gadding tongue

  Full often, ‘and, sweet lady, if I seem

  To vex an ear too sad to listen to me,

  Unmannerly, with prattling and the tales

  Which my good father told me, check me too

  Nor let me shame my father’s memory, one

  Of noblest manners, though himself would say

  Sir Lancelot had the noblest; and he died,

  Killed in a tilt, come next, five summers back,

  And left me; but of others who remain,

  And of the two first-famed for courtesy —

  And pray you check me if I ask amiss —

  But pray you, which had noblest, while you moved

  Among them, Lancelot or our lord the King?’

  Then the pale Queen looked up and answered her,

  ‘Sir Lancelot, as became a noble knight,

  Was gracious to all ladies, and the same

  In open battle or the tilting-field

  Forbore his own advantage, and the King

  In open battle or the tilting-field

  Forbore his own advantage, and these two

  Were the most nobly-mannered men of all;

  For manners are not idle, but the fruit

  Of loyal nature, and of noble mind.’

  ‘Yea,’ said the maid, ‘be manners such fair fruit?’

  Then Lancelot’s needs must be a thousand-fold

  Less noble, being, as all rumour runs,

  The most disloyal friend in all the world.’

  To which a mournful answer made the Queen:

  ‘O closed about by narrowing nunnery-walls,

  What knowest thou of the world, and all its lights

  And shadows, all the wealth and all the woe?

  If ever Lancelot, that most noble knight,

  Were for one hour less noble than himself,

  Pray for him that he scape the doom of fire,

  And weep for her that drew him to his doom.’

  ‘Yea,’ said the little novice, ‘I pray for both;

  But I should all as soon believe that his,

  Sir Lancelot’s, were as noble as the King’s,

  As I could think, sweet lady, yours would be

  Such as they are, were you the sinful Queen.’

  So she, like many another babbler, hurt

  Whom she would soothe, and harmed where she would heal;

  For here a sudden flush of wrathful heat

  Fired all the pale face of the Queen, who cried,

  ‘Such as thou art be never maiden more

  For ever! thou their tool, set on to plague

  And play upon, and harry me, petty spy

  And traitress.’ When that storm of anger brake

  From Guinevere, aghast the maiden rose,

  White as her veil, and stood before the Queen

  As tremulously as foam upon the beach

  Stands in a wind, ready to break and fly,

  And when the Queen had added ‘Get thee hence,’

  Fled frighted. Then that other left alone

  Sighed, and began to gather heart again,

  Saying in herself, ‘The simple, fearful child

  Meant nothing, but my own too-fearful guilt,

  Simpler than any child, betrays itself.

  But help me, heaven, for surely I repent.

  For what is true repentance but in thought —

  Not even in inmost thought to think again

  The sins that made the past so pleasant to us:

  And I have sworn never to see him more,

  To see him more.’

  And even in saying this,

  Her memory from old habit of the mind

  Went slipping back upon th
e golden days

  In which she saw him first, when Lancelot came,

  Reputed the best knight and goodliest man,

  Ambassador, to lead her to his lord

  Arthur, and led her forth, and far ahead

  Of his and her retinue moving, they,

  Rapt in sweet talk or lively, all on love

  And sport and tilts and pleasure, (for the time

  Was maytime, and as yet no sin was dreamed,)

  Rode under groves that looked a paradise

  Of blossom, over sheets of hyacinth

  That seemed the heavens upbreaking through the earth,

  And on from hill to hill, and every day

  Beheld at noon in some delicious dale

  The silk pavilions of King Arthur raised

  For brief repast or afternoon repose

  By couriers gone before; and on again,

  Till yet once more ere set of sun they saw

  The Dragon of the great Pendragonship,

  That crowned the state pavilion of the King,

  Blaze by the rushing brook or silent well.

  But when the Queen immersed in such a trance,

  And moving through the past unconsciously,

  Came to that point where first she saw the King

  Ride toward her from the city, sighed to find

  Her journey done, glanced at him, thought him cold,

  High, self-contained, and passionless, not like him,

  ‘Not like my Lancelot’ — while she brooded thus

  And grew half-guilty in her thoughts again,

  There rode an armed warrior to the doors.

  A murmuring whisper through the nunnery ran,

  Then on a sudden a cry, ‘The King.’ She sat

  Stiff-stricken, listening; but when armed feet

  Through the long gallery from the outer doors

  Rang coming, prone from off her seat she fell,

  And grovelled with her face against the floor:

  There with her milkwhite arms and shadowy hair

  She made her face a darkness from the King:

  And in the darkness heard his armed feet

  Pause by her; then came silence, then a voice,

  Monotonous and hollow like a Ghost’s

  Denouncing judgment, but though changed, the King’s:

  ‘Liest thou here so low, the child of one

  I honoured, happy, dead before thy shame?

  Well is it that no child is born of thee.

  The children born of thee are sword and fire,

  Red ruin, and the breaking up of laws,

  The craft of kindred and the Godless hosts

  Of heathen swarming o’er the Northern Sea;

  Whom I, while yet Sir Lancelot, my right arm,

  The mightiest of my knights, abode with me,

  Have everywhere about this land of Christ

  In twelve great battles ruining overthrown.

  And knowest thou now from whence I come — from him

  From waging bitter war with him: and he,

  That did not shun to smite me in worse way,

  Had yet that grace of courtesy in him left,

  He spared to lift his hand against the King

  Who made him knight: but many a knight was slain;

  And many more, and all his kith and kin

  Clave to him, and abode in his own land.

  And many more when Modred raised revolt,

  Forgetful of their troth and fealty, clave

  To Modred, and a remnant stays with me.

  And of this remnant will I leave a part,

  True men who love me still, for whom I live,

  To guard thee in the wild hour coming on,

  Lest but a hair of this low head be harmed.

  Fear not: thou shalt be guarded till my death.

  Howbeit I know, if ancient prophecies

  Have erred not, that I march to meet my doom.

  Thou hast not made my life so sweet to me,

  That I the King should greatly care to live;

  For thou hast spoilt the purpose of my life.

  Bear with me for the last time while I show,

  Even for thy sake, the sin which thou hast sinned.

  For when the Roman left us, and their law

  Relaxed its hold upon us, and the ways

  Were filled with rapine, here and there a deed

  Of prowess done redressed a random wrong.

  But I was first of all the kings who drew

  The knighthood-errant of this realm and all

  The realms together under me, their Head,

  In that fair Order of my Table Round,

  A glorious company, the flower of men,

  To serve as model for the mighty world,

  And be the fair beginning of a time.

  I made them lay their hands in mine and swear

  To reverence the King, as if he were

  Their conscience, and their conscience as their King,

  To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,

  To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,

  To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it,

  To honour his own word as if his God’s,

  To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,

  To love one maiden only, cleave to her,

  And worship her by years of noble deeds,

  Until they won her; for indeed I knew

  Of no more subtle master under heaven

  Than is the maiden passion for a maid,

  Not only to keep down the base in man,

  But teach high thought, and amiable words

  And courtliness, and the desire of fame,

  And love of truth, and all that makes a man.

  And all this throve before I wedded thee,

  Believing, “lo mine helpmate, one to feel

  My purpose and rejoicing in my joy.”

  Then came thy shameful sin with Lancelot;

  Then came the sin of Tristram and Isolt;

  Then others, following these my mightiest knights,

  And drawing foul ensample from fair names,

  Sinned also, till the loathsome opposite

  Of all my heart had destined did obtain,

  And all through thee! so that this life of mine

  I guard as God’s high gift from scathe and wrong,

  Not greatly care to lose; but rather think

  How sad it were for Arthur, should he live,

  To sit once more within his lonely hall,

  And miss the wonted number of my knights,

  And miss to hear high talk of noble deeds

  As in the golden days before thy sin.

  For which of us, who might be left, could speak

  Of the pure heart, nor seem to glance at thee?

  And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Usk

  Thy shadow still would glide from room to room,

  And I should evermore be vext with thee

  In hanging robe or vacant ornament,

  Or ghostly footfall echoing on the stair.

  For think not, though thou wouldst not love thy lord,

  Thy lord hast wholly lost his love for thee.

  I am not made of so slight elements.

  Yet must I leave thee, woman, to thy shame.

  I hold that man the worst of public foes

  Who either for his own or children’s sake,

  To save his blood from scandal, lets the wife

  Whom he knows false, abide and rule the house:

  For being through his cowardice allowed

  Her station, taken everywhere for pure,

  She like a new disease, unknown to men,

  Creeps, no precaution used, among the crowd,

  Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes, and saps

  The fealty of our friends, and stirs the pulse

  With devil’s leaps, and poisons half the young.

  Worst of the worst were that man he that reigns!

  Better the King’s waste hearth
and aching heart

  Than thou reseated in thy place of light,

  The mockery of my people, and their bane.’

  He paused, and in the pause she crept an inch

  Nearer, and laid her hands about his feet.

  Far off a solitary trumpet blew.

  Then waiting by the doors the warhorse neighed

  At a friend’s voice, and he spake again:

  ‘Yet think not that I come to urge thy crimes,

  I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere,

  I, whose vast pity almost makes me die

  To see thee, laying there thy golden head,

  My pride in happier summers, at my feet.

  The wrath which forced my thoughts on that fierce law,

  The doom of treason and the flaming death,

  (When first I learnt thee hidden here) is past.

  The pang — which while I weighed thy heart with one

  Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee,

  Made my tears burn — is also past — in part.

  And all is past, the sin is sinned, and I,

  Lo! I forgive thee, as Eternal God

  Forgives: do thou for thine own soul the rest.

  But how to take last leave of all I loved?

  O golden hair, with which I used to play

  Not knowing! O imperial-moulded form,

  And beauty such as never woman wore,

  Until it became a kingdom’s curse with thee —

  I cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine,

  But Lancelot’s: nay, they never were the King’s.

  I cannot take thy hand: that too is flesh,

  And in the flesh thou hast sinned; and mine own flesh,

  Here looking down on thine polluted, cries

  “I loathe thee:” yet not less, O Guinevere,

  For I was ever virgin save for thee,

  My love through flesh hath wrought into my life

  So far, that my doom is, I love thee still.

  Let no man dream but that I love thee still.

  Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul,

  And so thou lean on our fair father Christ,

  Hereafter in that world where all are pure

  We two may meet before high God, and thou

  Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine, and know

  I am thine husband — not a smaller soul,

  Nor Lancelot, nor another. Leave me that,

  I charge thee, my last hope. Now must I hence.

  Through the thick night I hear the trumpet blow:

  They summon me their King to lead mine hosts

  Far down to that great battle in the west,

  Where I must strike against the man they call

  My sister’s son — no kin of mine, who leagues

  With Lords of the White Horse, heathen, and knights,

  Traitors — and strike him dead, and meet myself

  Death, or I know not what mysterious doom.