Idylls of the King and a New Selection of Poems

by Alfred Tennyson

  And stalling for the horses, and return

  With victual for these men, and let us know.”

  “Yea, my kind lord,” said the glad youth, and

  went,

  Held his head high, and thought himself a knight,

  And up the rocky pathway disappear’d,

  Leading the horse, and they were left alone.

  But when the prince had brought his errant eyes

  Home from the rock, sideways he let them glance

  At Enid, where she droopt. His own false doom,

  That shadow of mistrust should never cross

  Betwixt them, came upon him, and he sigh’d;

  Then with another humorous ruth remark’d

  The lusty mowers laboring dinnerless,

  And watch’d the sun blaze on the turning scythe,

  And after nodded sleepily in the heat.

  But she, remembering her old ruin’d hall,

  And all the windy clamor of the daws

  About her hollow turret, pluck’d the grass

  There growing longest by the meadow’s edge,

  And into many a listless annulet,

  Now over, now beneath her marriage ring,

  Wove and unwove it, till the boy return’d

  And told them of a chamber, and they went;

  Where, after saying to her, “If ye will,

  Call for the woman of the house,” to which

  She answer’d, “Thanks, my lord;” the two remain’d

  Apart by all the chamber’s width, and mute

  As creatures voiceless thro’ the fault of birth,

  Or two wild men supporters of a shield,

  Painted, who stare at open space, nor glance

  The one at other, parted by the shield.

  On a sudden, many a voice along the street,

  And heel against the pavement echoing, burst

  Their drowse; and either started while the door,

  Push’d from without, drave backward to the wall,

  And midmost of a rout of roisterers,

  Femininely fair and dissolutely pale,

  Her suitor in old years before Geraint

  Enter’d, the wild lord of the place, Limours.

  He moving up with pliant courtliness

  Greeted Geraint full face, but stealthily,

  In the mid-warmth of welcome and graspt hand,

  Found Enid with the corner of his eye,

  And knew her sitting sad and solitary.

  Then cried Geraint for wine and goodly cheer

  To feed the sudden guest, and sumptuously,

  According to his fashion, bade the host

  Call in what men soever were his friends,

  And feast with these in honor of their earl;

  “And care not for the cost; the cost is mine.”

  And wine and food were brought, and Earl

  Limours

  Drank till he jested with all ease, and told

  Free tales, and took the word and play’d upon it,

  And made it of two colors; for his talk,

  When wine and free companions kindled him,

  Was wont to glance and sparkle like a gem

  Of fifty facets; thus he moved the prince

  To laughter and his comrades to applause.

  Then when the prince was merry, ask’d Limours,

  “Your leave, my lord, to cross the room, and speak

  To your good damsel there who sits apart,

  And seems so lonely?” “My free leave,” he said;

  “Get her to speak; she doth not speak to me.”

  Then rose Limours, and looking at his feet,

  Like him who tries the bridge he fears may fail,

  Crost and came near, lifted adoring eyes,

  Bow’d at her side and utter’d whisperingly:

  “Enid, the pilot star of my lone life,

  Enid, my early and my only love,

  Enid, the loss of whom hath turn’d me wild—

  What chance is this? how is it I see you here?

  Ye are in my power at last, are in my power.

  Yet fear me not; I call mine own self wild,

  But keep a touch of sweet civility

  Here in the heart of waste and wilderness.

  I thought, but that your father came between,

  In former days you saw me favorably.

  And if it were so do not keep it back.

  Make me a little happier; let me know it.

  Owe you me nothing for a life half-lost?

  Yea, yea, the whole dear debt of all you are.

  And, Enid, you and he, I see with joy,

  Ye sit apart, you do not speak to him,

  You come with no attendance, page or maid,

  To serve you—doth he love you as of old?

  For, call it lovers’ quarrels, yet I know

  Tho’ men may bicker with the things they love,

  They would not make them laughable in all eyes,

  Not while they loved them; and your wretched dress,

  A wretched insult on you, dumbly speaks

  Your story, that this man loves you no more.

  Your beauty is no beauty to him now.

  A common chance—right well I know it—pall’d—

  For I know men; nor will ye win him back,

  For the man’s love once gone never returns.

  But here is one who loves you as of old;

  With more exceeding passion than of old.

  Good, speak the word; my followers ring him round.

  He sits unarm’d; I hold a finger up;

  They understand. Nay, I do not mean blood;

  Nor need ye look so scared at what I say.

  My malice is no deeper than a moat,

  No stronger than a wall. There is the keep;

  He shall not cross us more; speak but the word.

  Or speak it not; but then by Him that made me

  The one true lover whom you ever own’d,

  I will make use of all the power I have.

  O, pardon me! the madness of that hour

  When first I parted from thee moves me yet.”

  At this the tender sound of his own voice

  And sweet self-pity, or the fancy of it,

  Made his eye moist; but Enid fear’d his eyes,

  Moist as they were, wine-heated from the feast,

  And answer’d with such craft as women use,

  Guilty or guiltless, to stave off a chance

  That breaks upon them perilously, and said:

  “Earl, if you love me as in former years,

  And do not practise on me, come with morn,

  And snatch me from him as by violence.

  Leave me to-night; I am weary to the death.”

  Low at leave-taking, with his brandish’d plume

  Brushing his instep, bow’d the all-amorous earl,

  And the stout prince bade him a loud good-night.

  He moving homeward babbled to his men,

  How Enid never loved a man but him,

  Nor cared a broken egg-shell for her lord.

  But Enid left alone with Prince Geraint,

  Debating his command of silence given,

  And that she now perforce must violate it,

  Held commune with herself, and while she held

  He fell asleep, and Enid had no heart

  To wake him, but hung o’er him wholly pleased

  To find him yet unwounded after fight,

  And hear him breathing low and equally.

  Anon she rose and, stepping lightly, heap’d

  The pieces of his armor in one place,

  All to be there against a sudden need;

  Then dozed awhile herself, but, over toil’d

  By that day’s grief and travel, evermore

  Seem’d catching at a rootless thorn, and then

  Went slipping down horrible precipices,

  And strongly striking out her limbs awoke;

  Then thought she h
eard the wild earl at the door,

  With all his rout of random followers,

  Sound on a dreadful trumpet, summoning her;

  Which was the red cock shouting to the light,

  As the gray dawn stole o’er the dewy world

  And glimmer’d on his armor in the room.

  And once again she rose to look at it,

  But touch’d it unawares; jangling, the casque

  Fell, and he started up and stared at her.

  Then breaking his command of silence given,

  She told him all that Earl Limours had said,

  Except the passage that he loved her not;

  Nor left untold the craft herself had used,

  But ended with apology so sweet,

  Low-spoken, and of so few words, and seem’d

  So justified by that necessity,

  That tho’ he thought, “Was it for him she wept

  In Devon?” he but gave a wrathful groan,

  Saying, “Your sweet faces make good fellows fools

  And traitors. Call the host and bid him bring

  Charger and palfrey.” So she glided out

  Among the heavy breathings of the house,

  And like a household spirit at the walls

  Beat, till she woke the sleepers, and return’d;

  Then tending her rough lord, tho’ all unask’d,

  In silence, did him service as a squire;

  Till issuing arm’d he found the host and cried,

  “Thy reckoning, friend?” and ere he learnt it, “Take

  Five horses and their armors;” and the host,

  Suddenly honest, answer’d in amaze,

  “My lord, I scarce have spent the worth of one!”

  “Ye will be all the wealthier,” said the prince,

  And then to Enid, “Forward! and today

  I charge you, Enid, more especially,

  What thing soever ye may hear, or see,

  Or fancy—tho’ I count it of small use

  To charge you—that ye speak not but obey.”

  And Enid answer’d: “Yea, my lord, I know

  Your wish and would obey; but, riding first,

  I hear the violent threats you do not hear,

  I see the danger which you cannot see.

  Then not to give you warning, that seems hard,

  Almost beyond me; yet I would obey.”

  “Yea so,” said he, “do it; be not too wise,

  Seeing that ye are wedded to a man,

  Not all mismated with a yawning clown,

  But one with arms to guard his head and yours,

  With eyes to find you out however far,

  And ears to hear you even in his dreams.”

  With that he turn’d and look’d as keenly at her

  As careful robins eye the delver’s toil;

  And that within her which a wanton fool

  Or hasty judger would have call’d her guilt

  Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall.

  And Geraint look’d and was not satisfied.

  Then forward by a way which, beaten broad,

  Led from the territory of false Limours

  To the waste earldom of another earl,

  Doorm, whom his shaking vassals call’d the Bull,

  Went Enid with her sullen follower on.

  Once she look’d back, and when she saw him ride

  More near by many a rood than yester-morn,

  It wellnigh made her cheerful; till Geraint,

  Waving an angry hand as who should say,

  “Ye watch me,” sadden’d all her heart again.

  But while the sun yet beat a dewy blade,

  The sound of many a heavily-galloping hoof

  Smote on her ear, and turning round she saw

  Dust, and the points of lances bicker in it.

  Then, not to disobey her lord’s behest,

  And yet to give him warning, for he rode

  As if he heard not, moving back she held

  Her finger up, and pointed to the dust.

  At which the warrior in his obstinacy,

  Because she kept the letter of his word,

  Was in a manner pleased, and turning stood.

  And in the moment after, wild Limours,

  Borne on a black horse, like a thundercloud

  Whose skirts are loosen’d by the breaking storm,

  Half ridden off with by the thing he rode,

  And all in passion uttering a dry shriek,

  Dash’d on Geraint, who closed with him, and bore

  Down by the length of lance and arm beyond

  The crupper, and so left him stunn’d or dead,

  And overthrew the next that follow’d him,

  And blindly rush’d on all the rout behind.

  But at the flash and motion of the man

  They vanish’d panic-stricken, like a shoal

  Of darting fish, that on a summer morn

  Adown the crystal dykes at Camelot

  Come slipping o’er their shadows on the sand,

  But if a man who stands upon the brink

  But lift a shining hand against the sun,

  There is not left the twinkle of a fin

  Betwixt the cressy islets white in flower;

  So, scared but at the motion of the man,

  Fled all the boon companions of the earl,

  And left him lying in the public way;

  So vanish friendships only made in wine.

  Then like a stormy sunlight smiled Geraint,

  Who saw the chargers of the two that fell

  Start from their fallen lords and wildly fly,

  Mixt with the flyers. “Horse and man,” he said,

  “All of one mind and all right-honest friends!

  Not a hoof left! and I methinks till now

  Was honest—paid with horses and with arms;

  I cannot steal or plunder, no, nor beg.

  And so what say ye, shall we strip him there,

  Your lover? has your palfrey heart enough

  To bear his armor? shall we fast or dine?

  No?—then do thou, being right honest, pray

  That we may meet the horsemen of Earl Doorm;

  I too would still be honest.” Thus he said;

  And sadly gazing on her bridle-reins,

  And answering not one word, she led the way.

  But as a man to whom a dreadful loss

  Falls in a far land and he knows it not,

  But coming back he learns it, and the loss

  So pains him that he sickens nigh to death;

  So fared it with Geraint, who, being prick’d

  In combat with the followers of Limours,

  Bled underneath his armor secretly,

  And so rode on, nor told his gentle wife

  What ail’d him, hardly knowing it himself,

  Till his eye darken’d and his helmet wagg’d;

  And at a sudden swerving of the road,

  Tho’ happily down on a bank of grass,

  The prince, without a word, from his horse fell.

  And Enid heard the clashing of his fall,

  Suddenly came, and at his side all pale

  Dismounting loosed the fastenings of his arms,

  Nor let her true hand falter, nor blue eye

  Moisten, till she had lighted on his wound,

  And tearing off her veil of faded silk

  Had bared her forehead to the blistering sun,

  And swathed the hurt that drain’d her dear lord’s life.

  Then, after all was done that hand could do,

  She rested, and her desolation came

  Upon her, and she wept beside the way.

  And many past, but none regarded her,

  For in that realm of lawless turbulence

  A woman weeping for her murder’d mate

  Was cared as much for as a summer shower.

  One took him for a victim of Earl Doorm,

  Nor dared to waste a perilous pit
y on him.

  Another hurrying past, a man-at-arms,

  Rode on a mission to the bandit earl;

  Half whistling and half singing a coarse song,

  He drove the dust against her veilless eyes.

  Another, flying from the wrath of Doorm

  Before an ever-fancied arrow, made

  The long way smoke beneath him in his fear;

  At which her palfrey whinnying lifted heel,

  And scour’d into the coppices and was lost,

  While the great charger stood, grieved like a man.

  But at the point of noon the huge Earl Doorm,

  Broad-faced with under-fringe of russet beard,

  Bound on a foray, rolling eyes of prey,

  Came riding with a hundred lances up;

  But ere he came, like one that hails a ship,

  Cried out with a big voice, “What, is he dead?”

  “No, no, not dead!” she answer’d in all haste.

  “Would some of your kind people take him up,

  And bear him hence out of this cruel sun?

  Most sure am I, quite sure, he is not dead.”

  Then said Earl Doorm: “Well, if he be not dead,

  Why wail ye for him thus? ye seem a child.

  And be he dead, I count you for a fool;

  Your wailing will not quicken him; dead or not,

  Ye mar a comely face with idiot tears.

  Yet, since the face is comely—some of you,

  Here, take him up, and bear him to our hall.

  And if he live, we will have him of our band;

  And if he die, why earth has earth enough

  To hide him. See ye take the charger too,

  A noble one.”

  He spake and past away,

  But left two brawny spearmen, who advanced,

  Each growling like a dog, when his good bone

  Seems to be pluck’d at by the village boys

  Who love to vex him eating, and he fears

  To lose his bone, and lays his foot upon it,

  Gnawing and growling; so the ruffians growl’d,

  Fearing to lose, and all for a dead man,

  Their chance of booty from the morning’s raid,

  Yet raised and laid him on a litter-bier,

  Such as they brought upon their forays out

  For those that might be wounded; laid him on it