Then while they paced a city all on fire With sun and cloth of gold, the trumpets blew, 'Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May; Blow trumpet, the long night hath roll'd away! Blow thro' the living world-" Let the King reign." 'Shall Rome or Heathen rule in Arthur's realm? Flash brand and lance, fall battleaxe upon helm, Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign. 'Strike for the King and live! his knights have heard That God hath told the King a secret word. Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign. 'Blow trumpet! he will lift us from the dust. Blow trumpet! live the strength and die the lust! Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign. 'Strike for the King and die! and if thou diest, The King is King, and ever wills the highest. 'Blow, for our Sun is mighty in his May! Blow, for our Sun is mightier day by day! Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign. "The King will follow Christ, and we the King In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing. So sang the knighthood, moving to their hall. Strode in, and claim'd their tribute as of yore. No tribute will we pay :' so those great lords And Arthur and his knighthood for a space hede Were all one will, and thro' that strength the King of Drew in the petty princedoms under him, Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reign'd. THE last tall son of Lot and Bellicent, And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted Pine Lost footing, fell, and so was whirl'd away. 'How he went down,' said Gareth, 6 as a false knight Or evil king before my lance if lance Linger with vacillating obedience, Prison'd, and kept and coax'd and whistled to- A worse were better; yet no worse would I. In ever-highering eagle-circles up To the great Sun of Glory, and thence swoop To cleanse the world. came Why, Gawain, when he With Modred hither in the summertime, Then I so shook him in the saddle, he said, he Tho' Modred biting his thin lips was mute, For he is alway sullen: what care I?' And Gareth went, and hovering round her chair Ask'd, 'Mother, tho' ye count me still the child, Sweet mother, do ye love the child?' She laugh'd, 'Thou art but a wild-goose to question it.' 'Then, mother, an ye love the child,' he said, And Gareth answer'd her with kindling eyes, The splendour sparkling from aloft, and thought it, upon Then were I wealthier than a leash of kings." But ever when he reach'd a hand to climb, 416 50 One, that had loved him from his childhood, caught And stay'd him, "Climb not lest thou break thy neck, I charge thee by my love," and so the boy, Sweet mother, neither clomb, nor brake his neck, But brake his very heart in pining for it, And past away.' To whom the mother said, 'True love, sweet son, had risk'd himself and climb'd, And handed down the golden treasure to him.' |