For what am I? what profits me my name Of greatest knight? I fought for it, and have it: Pleasure to have it, none; to lose it, pain;
Now grown a part of me: but what use in it? To make men worse by making my sin known? Or sin seem less, the sinner seeming great? Alas for Arthur's greatest knight, a man
Not after Arthur's heart! I needs must break These bonds that so defame me: not without She wills it would I, if she will'd it? nay, Who knows? but if I would not, then may God, I pray him, send a sudden Angel down To seize me by the hair and bear me far, And fling me deep in that forgotten mere, Among the tumbled fragments of the hills."
So groan'd Sir Lancelot in remorseful pain, Not knowing he should die a holy man.
UEEN GUINEVERE had fled the
There in the holy house at Almes
Weeping, none with her save a little
A novice: one low light betwixt them burn'd Blurr'd by the creeping mist, for all abroad, Beneath a moon unseen albeit at full,
The white mist, like a face-cloth to the face, Clung to the dead earth, and the land was still.
For hither had she fled, her cause of flight Sir Modred; he the nearest to the King, His nephew, ever like a subtle beast Lay couchant with his eyes upon the throne, Ready to spring, waiting a chance for this, He chill'd the popular praises of the King With silent smiles of slow disparagement;
And tamper'd with the Lords of the White Horse, Heathen, the brood by Hengist left; and sought To make disruption in the Table Round
Of Arthur, and to splinter it into feuds Serving his traitorous end; and all his aims Were sharpen'd by strong hate for Lancelot.
For thus it chanced one morn when all the court, Green-suited, but with plumes that mock'd the May, Had been, their wont, a-maying and return'd, That Modred still in green, all ear and eye, Climb'd to the high top of the garden-wall To spy some secret scandal if he might, And saw the Queen who sat betwixt her best
Enid, and lissome Vivien, of her court
The wiliest and the worst; and more than this
He saw not, for Sir Lancelot passing by
Spied where he couch'd, and as the gardener's hand
Picks from the colewort a green caterpillar,
So from the high wall and the flowering grove
Of grasses Lancelot pluck'd him by the heel,
And cast him as a worm upon the way;
But when he knew the Prince tho' marr'd with dust, He, reverencing king's blood in a bad man,
Made such excuses as he might, and these Full knightly without scorn; for in those days No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in scorn; But, if a man were halt or hunch'd, in him
By those whom God had made full-limb'd and tall, Scorn was allow'd as part of his defect,
And he was answer'd softly by the King
And all his Table. So Sir Lancelot holp
To raise the Prince, who rising twice or thrice Full sharply smote his knees, and smiled, and went:
But, ever after, the small violence done Rankled in him and ruffled all his heart,
As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long A little bitter pool about a stone
But when Sir Lancelot told This matter to the Queen, at first she laugh'd Lightly, to think of Modred's dusty fall, Then shudder'd, as the village wife who cries,
'I shudder, some one steps across my grave"; Then laugh'd again, but faintlier, for indeed She half-foresaw that he, the subtle beast, Would track her guilt until he found, and hers Would be forevermore a name of scorn. Henceforward rarely could she front in Hall, Or elsewhere, Modred's narrow foxy face, Heart-hiding smile, and gray persistent eye: Henceforward too, the Powers that tend the soul, To help it from the death that cannot die, And save it even in extremes, began
To vex and plague her. Many a time for hours,
Beside the placid breathings of the King, In the dead night, grim faces came and went Before her, or a vague spiritual fear- Like to some doubtful noise of creaking doors, Heard by the watcher in a haunted house, That keeps the rust of murder on the walls Held her awake: or if she slept, she dream'd An awful dream; for then she seem'd to stand On some vast plain before a setting sun, And from the sun there swiftly made at her A ghastly something, and its shadow flew Before it, till it touch'd her, and she turn'd- When lo! her own, that broadening from her feet, And blackening, swallow'd all the land, and in it Far cities burnt, and with a cry she woke. And all this trouble did not pass but grew;
Till ev'n the clear face of the guileless King, And trustful courtesies of household life, Became her bane; and at the last she said, "O Lancelot, get thee hence to thine own land, For if thou tarry we shall meet again,
And if we meet again, some evil chance
Will make the smouldering scandal break and blaze Before the people, and our lord the King." And Lancelot ever promised, but remain'd, And still they met and met. Again she said, "O Lancelot, if thou love me get thee hence." And then they were agreed upon a night
(When the good King should not be there) to meet And part forever. Passion-pale they met
And greeted: hands in hands, and eye to eye,
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