Idylls of the King and a New Selection of Poems

by Alfred Tennyson

  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 abash’d, 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-broider’d gift,

  And robed them in her ancient suit again,

  And so descended. Never man rejoiced

  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 he 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 reach’d this ruin’d hall,

  Beholding one so bright in dark estate,

  I vow’d 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 tho’ 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

  Link’d with such love for me that at a word,

  No reason given her, she could cast aside

  A splendor 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 learn’d 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 kiss’d her, and they rode away.

  Now thrice that morning Guinevere had climb’d

  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

  Look’d 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 honor 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 array’d herself therein.

  GERAINT AND ENID

  O PURBLIND race of miserable men,

  How many among us at this very hour

  Do forge a lifelong trouble for ourselves,

  By taking true for false, or false for true;

  Here, thro’ 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 hurl’d it toward the squire.

  So the last sight that Enid had of home

  Was all the marble threshold flashing, strown

  With gold and scatter’d coinage, and the squire

  Chafing his shoulder. Then he cried again,

  “To the wilds!” and Enid leading down the tracks

  Thro’ which he bade 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 slacken’d soon.

  A stranger meeting them had surely thought,

  They rode so slowly and they look’d so pale,

  That each had suffer’d 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 fear’d

  In every 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,<
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  Then Enid was aware of three tall knights

  On horseback, wholly arm’d, 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 armor, and his damsel shall be ours.”

  Then Enid ponder’d 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 armor, 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 vigor 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 thro’ his breast

  And out beyond; and then against his brace

  Of comrades, each of whom had broken on him

  A lance that splinter’d like an icicle,

  Swung from his brand a windy buffet out

  Once, twice, to right, to left, and stunn’d 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 armor which they wore,

  And let the bodies lie, but bound the suits

  Of armor 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 thro’ the waste.

  He follow’d nearer; ruth began to work

  Against his anger in him, while he watch’d

  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 smoulder’d wrong that burnt him all within;

  But evermore it seem’d 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,

  Before a gloom of stubborn-shafted oaks,

  Three other horsemen waiting, wholly arm’d,

  Whereof one seem’d far larger than her lord,

  And shook her pulses, crying, “Look, a prize!

  Three horses and three goodly suits of arms,

  And all in charge of whom? a girl! set on.”

  “Nay,” said the second, “yonder comes a knight.”

  The third, “A craven; how he hangs his head!”

  The giant answer’d merrily, “Yea, but one?

  Wait here, and when he passes fall upon him!”

  And Enid ponder’d in her heart and said:

  “I will abide the coming of my lord,

  And I will tell him all their villainy.

  My lord is weary with the fight before,

  And they will fall upon him unawares.

  I needs must disobey him for his good;

  How should I dare obey him to his harm?

  Needs must I speak, and tho’ he kill me for it,

  I save a life dearer to me than mine.”

  And she abode his coming, and said to him

  With timid firmness, “Have I leave to speak?”

  He said, “Ye take it, speaking,” and she spoke:

  “There lurk three villains yonder in the wood,

  And each of them is wholly arm’d, and one

  Is larger-limb’d than you are, and they say

  That they will fall upon you while ye pass.”

  To which he flung a wrathful answer back:

  “And if there were an hundred in the wood,

  And every man were larger-limb’d than I,

  And all at once should sally out upon me,

  I swear it would not ruffle me so much

  As you that not obey me. Stand aside,

  And if I fall, cleave to the better man.”

  And Enid stood aside to wait the event,

  Not dare to watch the combat, only breathe.

  Short fits of prayer, at every stroke a breath,

  And he she dreaded most bare down upon him.

  Aim’d at the helm, his lance err’d; but Geraint’s,

  A little in the late encounter strain’d,

  Struck thro’ the bulky bandit’s corselet home,

  And then brake short, and down his enemy roll’d,

  And there lay still; as he that tells the tale

  Saw once a great piece of a promontory,

  That had a sapling growing on it, slide

  From the long shore-cliff’s windy walls to the beach,

  And there lie still, and yet the sapling grew;

  So lay the man transfixt. His craven pair

  Of comrades making slowlier at the prince,

  When now they saw their bulwark fallen, stood;

  On whom the victor, to confound them more,

  Spurr’d with his terrible war-cry; for as one,

  That listens near a torrent mountain-brook,

  All thro’ the crash of the near cataract hears

  The drumming thunder of the huger fall

  At distance, were the soldiers wont to hear

  His voice in battle, and be kindled by it,

  And foemen scared, like that false pair who turn’d

  Flying, but, overtaken, died the death

  Themselves had wrought on many an innocent.

  Thereon Geraint, dismounting, pick’d the lance

  That pleased him best, and drew from those dead

  wolves

  Their three gay suits of armor, each from each,

  And bound them 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 thro’ the wood.

  He follow’d nearer still. The pain she had

  To keep them in the wild ways of the wood,

  Two sets of three laden with jingling arms,

  Together, served a little to disedge

  The sharpness of that pain about her heart;

  And they themselves, like creatures gently born

  But into bad hands fallen, and now so long

  By bandits groom’d, prick’d their light ears, and felt

  Her low firm voice and tender government.

  So thro’ the green gloom of the wood they past,

  And issuing under open heavens beheld

  A little town with
towers, upon a rock,

  And close beneath, a meadow gemlike chased

  In the brown wild, and mowers mowing in it;

  And down a rocky pathway from the place

  There came a fair-hair’d youth, that in his hand

  Bare victual for the mowers; and Geraint

  Had ruth again on Enid looking pale.

  Then, moving downward to the meadow ground,

  He, when the fair-hair’d youth came by him, said,

  “Friend, let her eat; the damsel is so faint.”

  “Yea, willingly,” replied the youth; “and thou,

  My lord, eat also, tho’ the fare is coarse,

  And only meet for mowers;” then set down

  His basket, and dismounting on the sward

  They let the horses graze, and ate themselves.

  And Enid took a little delicately,

  Less having stomach for it than desire

  To close with her lord’s pleasure, but Geraint

  Ate all the mowers’ victual unawares,

  And when he found all empty was amazed;

  And “Boy,” said he, “I have eaten all, but take

  A horse and arms for guerdon; choose the best.”

  He, reddening in extremity of delight,

  “My lord, you overpay me fifty-fold.”

  “Ye will be all the wealthier,” cried the prince.

  “I take it as free gift, then,” said the boy,

  “Not guerdon; for myself can easily,

  While your good damsel rests, return and fetch

  Fresh victual for these mowers of our earl;

  For these are his, and all the field is his,

  And I myself am his; and I will tell him

  How great a man thou art. He loves to know

  When men of mark are in his territory;

  And he will have thee to his palace here,

  And serve thee costlier than with mowers’ fare.”

  Then said Geraint: “I wish no better fare;

  I never ate with angrier appetite

  Than when I left your mowers dinnerless.

  And into no earl’s palace will I go.

  I know, God knows, too much of palaces!

  And if he want me, let him come to me.

  But hire us some fair chamber for the night,