I ask you, is it clamor'd by the child,

Or whisper'd in the corner? do you know it?"

To which he answer'd sadly: "Yea, I know it. Sir Lancelot went ambassador, at first, To fetch her, and she took him for the King; So fixt her fancy on him: let him be.

But have you no one word of loyal praise

For Arthur, blameless King and stainless man?"

She answer'd with a low and chuckling laugh:

Him? is he man at all, who knows and winks? Sees what his fair bride is and does, and winks? By which the good king means to blind himself, And blinds himself and all the Table Round To all the foulness that they work. Myself Could call him (were it not for womanhood) The pretty, popular name such manhood earns, Could call him the main cause of all their crime; Yea, were he not crown'd king, coward, and fool."

Then Merlin to his own heart, loathing, said:
"O true and tender! O my liege and king!
O selfless man and stainless gentleman,
Who wouldst against thine own eyewitness fain
Have all men true and leal, all women pure;
How, in the mouths of base interpreters,
From over-fineness not intelligible

To things with every sense as false and foul
As the poach'd filth that floods the middle street,
Is thy white blamelessness accounted blame!"

But Vivien deeming Merlin overborne
By instance, recommenced, and let her tongue
Rage like a fire among the noblest names,
Polluting, and imputing her whole self,
Defaming and defacing, till she left

Not even Lancelot brave, nor Galahad clean.

Her words had issue other than she will'd.

He dragg'd his eyebrow bushes down, and made
A snowy penthouse for his hollow eyes,
And mutter'd in himself, "Tell her the charm!

So, if she had it, would she rail on me

To snare the next, and if she have it not,

So will she rail. What did the wanton say?

'Not mount as high'; we scarce can sink as low:
For men at most differ as heaven and earth,
But women, worst and best, as heaven and hell.
I know the Table Round, my friends of old;
All brave, and many generous, and some chaste.
I think she cloaks the wounds of loss with lies;
I do believe she tempted them and fail'd,
She is so bitter: for fine plots may fail,
Tho' harlots paint their talk as well as face
With colors of the heart that are not theirs.
I will not let her know: nine tithes of times
Face-flatterers and backbiters are the same.
And they, sweet soul, that most impute a crime
Are pronest to it, and impute themselves,
Wanting the mental rage; or low desire
Not to feel lowest makes them level all;

Yea, they would pare the mountain to the plain,

To leave an equal baseness; and in this
Are harlots like the crowd, that if they find
Some stain or blemish in a name of note,
Not grieving that their greatest are so small,
Inflate themselves with some insane delight,
And judge all nature from her feet of clay,
Without the will to lift their eyes, and see
Her godlike head crown'd with spiritual fire,
And touching other worlds. I am weary of her."

He spoke in words part heard, in whispers part, Half-suffocated in the hoary fell

And many-winter'd fleece of throat and chin.
But Vivien, gathering somewhat of his mood,
And hearing "harlot" mutter'd twice or thrice,
Leapt from her session on his lap, and stood
Stiff as a viper frozen; loathsome sight,

How from the rosy lips of life and love,
Flash'd the bare-grinning skeleton of death!
White was her cheek; sharp breaths of anger puff'd
Her fairy nostril out; her hand half-clench'd
Went faltering sideways downward to her belt,

And feeling; had she found a dagger there

(For in a wink the false love turns to hate)

She would have stabb'd him; but she found it not :

His eye was calm, and suddenly she took

To bitter weeping like a beaten child,

A long, long weeping, not consolable.

Then her false voice made way broken with sobs.

"O crueller than was ever told in tale,

Or sung in song! O vainly lavish'd love!

O cruel, there was nothing wild or strange,
Or seeming shameful, for what shame in love,
So love be true, and not as yours is nothing

Poor Vivien had not done to win his trust
Who call'd her what he call'd her- all her crime,
All-all- the wish to prove him wholly hers."

"Stabb'd through the heart's affections to the heart!

Seeth'd like the kid in its own mother's milk!

Kill'd with a word worse than a life of blows!

I thought that he was gentle, being great:

O God, that I had loved a smaller man!
I should have found in him a greater heart.

O, I, that flattering my true passion, saw

The knights, the court, the king, dark in your light, Who loved to make men darker than they are,

Because of that high pleasure which I had

To seat you sole upon my pedestal

Of worship- I am answer'd, and henceforth
The course of life that seem'd so flowery to me
With you for guide and master, only you,
Becomes the sea-cliff pathway broken short,
And ending in a ruin — nothing left,

But into some low cave to crawl, and there,
If the wolf spare me, weep my life away,
Kill'd with inutterable unkindliness."

She paused, she turn'd away, she hung her head, The snake of gold slid from her hair, the braid Slipt and uncoil'd itself, she wept afresh,

And the dark wood grew darker toward the storm

In silence, while his anger slowly died

Within him, till he let his wisdom go

For ease of heart, and half believed her true :

Call'd her to shelter in the hollow oak,
"Come from the storm," and having no reply,
Gazed at the heaving shoulder, and the face
Hand-hidden, as for utmost grief or shame;