Idylls of the King, Alfred, Lord Tennyson [best historical biographies .TXT] 📗

And Tristram, fondling her light hands, replied,
“Grace, Queen, for being loved: she loved me well.
Did I love her? the name at least I loved.
Isolt?⁠—I fought his battles, for Isolt!
The night was dark; the true star set. Isolt!
The name was ruler of the dark⁠—Isolt?
Care not for her! patient, and prayerful, meek,
Pale-blooded, she will yield herself to God.”

And Isolt answered, “Yea, and why not I?
Mine is the larger need, who am not meek,
Pale-blooded, prayerful. Let me tell thee now.
Here one black, mute midsummer night I sat,
Lonely, but musing on thee, wondering where,
Murmuring a light song I had heard thee sing,
And once or twice I spake thy name aloud.
Then flashed a levin-brand; and near me stood,
In fuming sulphur blue and green, a fiend⁠—
Mark’s way to steal behind one in the dark⁠—
For there was Mark: ‘He has wedded her,’ he said,
Not said, but hissed it: then this crown of towers
So shook to such a roar of all the sky,
That here in utter dark I swooned away,
And woke again in utter dark, and cried,
‘I will flee hence and give myself to God’⁠—
And thou wert lying in thy new leman’s arms.”

Then Tristram, ever dallying with her hand,
“May God be with thee, sweet, when old and gray,
And past desire!” a saying that angered her.
“ ‘May God be with thee, sweet, when thou art old,
And sweet no more to me!’ I need Him now.
For when had Lancelot uttered aught so gross
Even to the swineherd’s malkin in the mast?
The greater man, the greater courtesy.
Far other was the Tristram, Arthur’s knight!
But thou, through ever harrying thy wild beasts⁠—
Save that to touch a harp, tilt with a lance
Becomes thee well⁠—art grown wild beast thyself.
How darest thou, if lover, push me even
In fancy from thy side, and set me far
In the gray distance, half a life away,
Her to be loved no more? Unsay it, unswear!
Flatter me rather, seeing me so weak,
Broken with Mark and hate and solitude,
Thy marriage and mine own, that I should suck
Lies like sweet wines: lie to me: I believe.
Will ye not lie? not swear, as there ye kneel,
And solemnly as when ye sware to him,
The man of men, our King⁠—My God, the power
Was once in vows when men believed the King!
They lied not then, who sware, and through their vows
The King prevailing made his realm:⁠—I say,
Swear to me thou wilt love me even when old,
Gray-haired, and past desire, and in despair.”

Then Tristram, pacing moodily up and down,
“Vows! did you keep the vow you made to Mark
More than I mine? Lied, say ye? Nay, but learnt,
The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself⁠—
My knighthood taught me this⁠—ay, being snapt⁠—
We run more counter to the soul thereof
Than had we never sworn. I swear no more.
I swore to the great King, and am forsworn.
For once⁠—even to the height⁠—I honoured him.
‘Man, is he man at all?’ methought, when first
I rode from our rough Lyonnesse, and beheld
That victor of the Pagan throned in hall⁠—
His hair, a sun that rayed from off a brow
Like hillsnow high in heaven, the steel-blue eyes,
The golden beard that clothed his lips with light⁠—
Moreover, that weird legend of his birth,
With Merlin’s mystic babble about his end
Amazed me; then, his foot was on a stool
Shaped as a dragon; he seemed to me no man,
But Michael trampling Satan; so I sware,
Being amazed: but this went by⁠—The vows!
O ay⁠—the wholesome madness of an hour⁠—
They served their use, their time; for every knight
Believed himself a greater than himself,
And every follower eyed him as a God;
Till he, being lifted up beyond himself,
Did mightier deeds than elsewise he had done,
And so the realm was made; but then their vows⁠—
First mainly through that sullying of our Queen⁠—
Began to gall the knighthood, asking whence
Had Arthur right to bind them to himself?
Dropt down from heaven? washed up from out the deep?
They failed to trace him through the flesh and blood
Of our old kings: whence then? a doubtful lord
To bind them by inviolable vows,
Which flesh and blood perforce would violate:
For feel this arm of mine⁠—the tide within
Red with free chase and heather-scented air,
Pulsing full man; can Arthur make me pure
As any maiden child? lock up my tongue
From uttering freely what I freely hear?
Bind me to one? The wide world laughs at it.
And worldling of the world am I, and know
The ptarmigan that whitens ere his hour
Woos his own end; we are not angels here
Nor shall be: vows⁠—I am woodman of the woods,
And hear the garnet-headed yaffingale
Mock them: my soul, we love but while we may;
And therefore is my love so large for thee,
Seeing it is not bounded save by love.”

Here ending, he moved toward her, and she said,
“Good: an I turned away my love for thee
To someone thrice as courteous as thyself⁠—
For courtesy wins woman all as well
As valour may, but he that closes both
Is perfect, he is Lancelot⁠—taller indeed,
Rosier and comelier, thou⁠—but say I loved
This knightliest of all knights, and cast thee back
Thine own small saw, ‘We love but while we may,’
Well then, what answer?”

He that while she spake,
Mindful of what he brought to adorn her with,
The jewels, had let one finger lightly touch
The warm white apple of her throat, replied,
“Press this a little closer, sweet, until⁠—
Come, I am hungered and half-angered⁠—meat,
Wine, wine⁠—and I will love thee to the death,
And out beyond into the dream to come.”

So then, when both were brought to full accord,
She rose, and set before him all he willed;
And after these had comforted the blood
With meats and wines, and satiated their hearts⁠—
Now talking of their woodland paradise,
The deer, the dews, the fern, the founts, the lawns;
Now mocking at the much ungainliness,
And craven shifts, and long crane legs of Mark⁠—
Then Tristram laughing caught the harp, and sang:

“Ay, ay, O ay⁠—the winds that bend the brier!
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