Brake up their sports, then slowly to her bower

Parted, and in her bosom pain was lord.

And little Dagonet on the morrow

morn,

High over all the yellowing Autumn-tide, Danced like a wither'd leaf before the hall.

Then Tristram saying, 'Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?'

Wheel'd round on either heel, Dagonet replied,

'Belike for lack of wiser company; Or being fool, and seeing too much wit Makes the world rotten, why belike I skip To know myself the wisest knight of all.' 'Ay, fool,' said Tristram, but 'tis eating dry

To dance without a catch, a roundelay To dance to.' Then he twangled on his harp,

And while he twangled little Dagonet stood

Quiet as any water-sodden log

Stay'd in the wandering warble of a

brook;

his hand,

'Friend, did ye mark that fountain yesterday

Made to run wine?- but this had run

itself

All out like a long life to a sour end
And them that round it sat with golden

cups

To hand the wine to whomsoever came — The twelve small damosels white as In

nocence,

In honour of poor Innocence the babe, Who left the gems which Innocence the

Queen

Lent to the King, and Innocence the King Gave for a prize- and one of those white

slips

Handed her cup and piped, the pretty one, "Drink, drink, Sir Fool," and thereupon I drank,

Spat pish the cup was gold, the draught was mud.'

And Tristram, Was it muddier than

thy gibes?

Is all the laughter gone dead out of

thee?

Not marking how the knighthood mock thee, fool

"Fear God: honour the King - his one true knight

Sole follower of the vows" for here be they

Who knew thee swine enow before I came, Smuttier than blasted grain: but when the King

Had made thee fool, thy vanity so shot up It frighted all free fool from out thy heart;

Which left thee less than fool, and less than swine,

A naked aught-yet swine I hold thee still,

For I have flung thee pearls and find thee swine.'

And little Dagonet mincing with his feet,

'Knight, an ye fling those rubies round my neck

In lieu of hers, I'll hold thou hast some touch

Of music, since I care not for thy pearls. Swine? I have wallow'd, I have wash'd the world

Is flesh and shadow - I have had my day. The dirty nurse, Experience, in her kind Hath foul'd mean I wallow'd then I wash'd

I have had my day and my philosophiesAnd thank the Lord I am King Arthur's fool.

Swine, say ye? swine, goats, asses, rams

After she left him lonely here? a name?
Was it the name of one in Brittany,
Isolt, the daughter of the King? 'Isolt
Of the white hands' they call'd her: the
sweet name

Allured him first, and then the maid herself,

Who served him well with those white hands of hers,

And loved him well, until himself had thought

He loved her also, wedded easily,
But left her all as easily, and return'd.
The black-blue Irish hair and Irish eyes
Had drawn him home-what marvel?
then he laid

His brows upon the drifted leaf and dream'd.

He seem'd to pace the strand of Brittany

Between Isolt of Britain and his bride, And show'd them both the ruby-chain, and both

Began to struggle for it, till his Queen Graspt it so hard, that all her hand was red.

Then cried the Breton, 'Look, her hand is red!

These be no rubies, this is frozen blood, And melts within her hand her hand is

hot

With ill desires, but this I gave thee, look, Is all as cool and white as any flower.' Follow'd a rush of eagle's wings, and then A whimpering of the spirit of the child, Because the twain had spoil'd her car

canet.

He dream'd; but Arthur with a hundred spears

Rode far, till o'er the illimitable reed, And many a glancing plash and sallowy isle,

The wide-wing'd sunset of the misty marsh Glared on a huge machicolated tower That stood with open doors, whereout was roll'd

A roar of riot, as from men secure Amid their marshes, ruffians at their ease Among their harlot-brides, an evil song. 'Lo there,' said one of Arthur's youth, for there,

"The teeth of Hell flay bare and gnash thee flat!

Lo! art thou not that eunuch-hearted King

Who fain had clipt free manhood from the world

The woman-worshipper? Yea, God's curse, and I!

Slain was the brother of my paramour By a knight of thine, and I that heard her whine

And snivel, being eunuch-hearted too, Sware by the scorpion-worm that twists in hell,

And stings itself to everlasting death,
To hang whatever knight of thine I fought
And tumbled. Art thou King? - Look
to thy life!'

He ended: Arthur knew the voice; the face

Wellnigh was helmet-hidden, and the

name

Went wandering somewhere darkling in his mind.

And Arthur deign'd not use of word or

sword,

But let the drunkard, as he stretch'd from

horse

To strike him, overbalancing his bulk,

Down from the causeway heavily to the swamp

Fall, as the crest of some slow-arching

wave,

Heard in dead night along that tableshore,

Drops flat, and after the great waters break

Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves,

Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud,

From less and less to nothing; thus he fell

Head-heavy; then the knights, who watch'd him, roar'd

And shouted and leapt down upon the fall'n;

There trampled out his face from being known,

And sank his head in mire, and slimed themselves:

Nor heard the King for their own cries, but sprang

Thro' open doors, and swording right and left

Men, women, on their sodden faces, hurl'd

The tables over and the wines, and slew Till all the rafters rang with woman-yells, And all the pavement stream'd with

massacre:

Then, echoing yell with yell, they fired the tower,

Which half that Autumn night, like the live North,

Red-pulsing up thro' Alioth and Alcor, Made all above it, and a hundred meres About it, as the water Moab saw

Come round by the East, and out beyond

them flush'd

The long low dune, and lazy-plunging

sea.

So all the ways were safe from shore to shore,

But in the heart of Arthur pain was lord.

Then, out of Tristram waking, the red dream

Fled with a shout, and that low lodge return'd,

Down in a casement sat, A low sea-sunset glorying round her hair And glossy-throated grace, Isolt the Queen.

And when she heard the feet of Tristram grind

The spiring stone that scaled about her tower,

Flush'd, started, met him at the doors, and there

Belted his body with her white embrace, Crying aloud, 'Not Mark-not Mark, my soul!

The footstep flutter'd me at first: not he: Catlike thro' his own castle steals my Mark,

But warrior-wise thou stridest thro' his halls

Who hates thee, as I him-ev'n to the