Idylls of the King, Alfred Lord Tennyson [the reading strategies book TXT] 📗

Balin, ‘Good my brother, hear!

Let not thy moods prevail, when I am gone

Who used to lay them! hold them outer fiends,

Who leap at thee to tear thee; shake them aside,

Dreams ruling when wit sleeps! yea, but to dream

That any of these would wrong thee, wrongs thyself.

Witness their flowery welcome. Bound are they

To speak no evil. Truly save for fears,

My fears for thee, so rich a fellowship

Would make me wholly blest: thou one of them,

Be one indeed: consider them, and all

Their bearing in their common bond of love,

No more of hatred than in Heaven itself,

No more of jealousy than in Paradise.’

 

So Balan warned, and went; Balin remained:

Who—for but three brief moons had glanced away

From being knighted till he smote the thrall,

And faded from the presence into years

Of exile—now would strictlier set himself

To learn what Arthur meant by courtesy,

Manhood, and knighthood; wherefore hovered round

Lancelot, but when he marked his high sweet smile

In passing, and a transitory word

Make knight or churl or child or damsel seem

From being smiled at happier in themselves—

Sighed, as a boy lame-born beneath a height,

That glooms his valley, sighs to see the peak

Sun-flushed, or touch at night the northern star;

For one from out his village lately climed

And brought report of azure lands and fair,

Far seen to left and right; and he himself

Hath hardly scaled with help a hundred feet

Up from the base: so Balin marvelling oft

How far beyond him Lancelot seemed to move,

Groaned, and at times would mutter, ‘These be gifts,

Born with the blood, not learnable, divine,

Beyond my reach. Well had I foughten—well—

In those fierce wars, struck hard—and had I crowned

With my slain self the heaps of whom I slew—

So—better!—But this worship of the Queen,

That honour too wherein she holds him—this,

This was the sunshine that hath given the man

A growth, a name that branches o’er the rest,

And strength against all odds, and what the King

So prizes—overprizes—gentleness.

Her likewise would I worship an I might.

I never can be close with her, as he

That brought her hither. Shall I pray the King

To let me bear some token of his Queen

Whereon to gaze, remembering her—forget

My heats and violences? live afresh?

What, if the Queen disdained to grant it! nay

Being so stately-gentle, would she make

My darkness blackness? and with how sweet grace

She greeted my return! Bold will I be—

Some goodly cognizance of Guinevere,

In lieu of this rough beast upon my shield,

Langued gules, and toothed with grinning savagery.’

 

And Arthur, when Sir Balin sought him, said

‘What wilt thou bear?’ Balin was bold, and asked

To bear her own crown-royal upon shield,

Whereat she smiled and turned her to the King,

Who answered ‘Thou shalt put the crown to use.

The crown is but the shadow of the King,

And this a shadow’s shadow, let him have it,

So this will help him of his violences!’

‘No shadow’ said Sir Balin ‘O my Queen,

But light to me! no shadow, O my King,

But golden earnest of a gentler life!’

 

So Balin bare the crown, and all the knights

Approved him, and the Queen, and all the world

Made music, and he felt his being move

In music with his Order, and the King.

 

The nightingale, full-toned in middle May,

Hath ever and anon a note so thin

It seems another voice in other groves;

Thus, after some quick burst of sudden wrath,

The music in him seemed to change, and grow

Faint and far-off.

And once he saw the thrall

His passion half had gauntleted to death,

That causer of his banishment and shame,

Smile at him, as he deemed, presumptuously:

His arm half rose to strike again, but fell:

The memory of that cognizance on shield

Weighted it down, but in himself he moaned:

 

‘Too high this mount of Camelot for me:

These high-set courtesies are not for me.

Shall I not rather prove the worse for these?

Fierier and stormier from restraining, break

Into some madness even before the Queen?’

 

Thus, as a hearth lit in a mountain home,

And glancing on the window, when the gloom

Of twilight deepens round it, seems a flame

That rages in the woodland far below,

So when his moods were darkened, court and King

And all the kindly warmth of Arthur’s hall

Shadowed an angry distance: yet he strove

To learn the graces of their Table, fought

Hard with himself, and seemed at length in peace.

 

Then chanced, one morning, that Sir Balin sat

Close-bowered in that garden nigh the hall.

A walk of roses ran from door to door;

A walk of lilies crost it to the bower:

And down that range of roses the great Queen

Came with slow steps, the morning on her face;

And all in shadow from the counter door

Sir Lancelot as to meet her, then at once,

As if he saw not, glanced aside, and paced

The long white walk of lilies toward the bower.

Followed the Queen; Sir Balin heard her ‘Prince,

Art thou so little loyal to thy Queen,

As pass without good morrow to thy Queen?’

To whom Sir Lancelot with his eyes on earth,

‘Fain would I still be loyal to the Queen.’

‘Yea so’ she said ‘but so to pass me by—

So loyal scarce is loyal to thyself,

Whom all men rate the king of courtesy.

Let be: ye stand, fair lord, as in a dream.’

 

Then Lancelot with his hand among the flowers

‘Yea—for a dream. Last night methought I saw

That maiden Saint who stands with lily in hand

In yonder shrine. All round her prest the dark,

And all the light upon her silver face

Flowed from the spiritual lily that she held.

Lo! these her emblems drew mine eyes—away:

For see, how perfect-pure! As light a flush

As hardly tints the blossom of the quince

Would mar their charm of stainless maidenhood.’

 

‘Sweeter to me’ she said ‘this garden rose

Deep-hued and many-folded! sweeter still

The wild-wood hyacinth and the bloom of May.

Prince, we have ridden before among the flowers

In those fair days—not all as cool as these,

Though season-earlier. Art thou sad? or sick?

Our noble King will send thee his own leech—

Sick? or for any matter angered at me?’

 

Then Lancelot lifted his large eyes; they dwelt

Deep-tranced on hers, and could not fall: her hue

Changed at his gaze: so turning side by side

They past, and Balin started from his bower.

 

‘Queen? subject? but I see not what I see.

Damsel and lover? hear not what I hear.

My father hath begotten me in his wrath.

I suffer from the things before me, know,

Learn nothing; am not worthy to be knight;

A churl, a clown!’ and in him gloom on gloom

Deepened: he sharply caught his lance and shield,

Nor stayed to crave permission of the King,

But, mad for strange adventure, dashed away.

 

He took the selfsame track as Balan, saw

The fountain where they sat together, sighed

‘Was I not better there with him?’ and rode

The skyless woods, but under open blue

Came on the hoarhead woodman at a bough

Wearily hewing. ‘Churl, thine axe!’ he cried,

Descended, and disjointed it at a blow:

To whom the woodman uttered wonderingly

‘Lord, thou couldst lay the Devil of these woods

If arm of flesh could lay him.’ Balin cried

‘Him, or the viler devil who plays his part,

To lay that devil would lay the Devil in me.’

‘Nay’ said the churl, ‘our devil is a truth,

I saw the flash of him but yestereven.

And some do say that our Sir Garlon too

Hath learned black magic, and to ride unseen.

Look to the cave.’ But Balin answered him

‘Old fabler, these be fancies of the churl,

Look to thy woodcraft,’ and so leaving him,

Now with slack rein and careless of himself,

Now with dug spur and raving at himself,

Now with droopt brow down the long glades he rode;

So marked not on his right a cavern-chasm

Yawn over darkness, where, nor far within,

The whole day died, but, dying, gleamed on rocks

Roof-pendent, sharp; and others from the floor,

Tusklike, arising, made that mouth of night

Whereout the Demon issued up from Hell.

He marked not this, but blind and deaf to all

Save that chained rage, which ever yelpt within,

Past eastward from the falling sun. At once

He felt the hollow-beaten mosses thud

And tremble, and then the shadow of a spear,

Shot from behind him, ran along the ground.

Sideways he started from the path, and saw,

With pointed lance as if to pierce, a shape,

A light of armour by him flash, and pass

And vanish in the woods; and followed this,

But all so blind in rage that unawares

He burst his lance against a forest bough,

Dishorsed himself, and rose again, and fled

Far, till the castle of a King, the hall

Of Pellam, lichen-bearded, grayly draped

With streaming grass, appeared, low-built but strong;

The ruinous donjon as a knoll of moss,

The battlement overtopt with ivytods,

A home of bats, in every tower an owl.

Then spake the men of Pellam crying ‘Lord,

Why wear ye this crown-royal upon shield?’

Said Balin ‘For the fairest and the best

Of ladies living gave me this to bear.’

So stalled his horse, and strode across the court,

But found the greetings both of knight and King

Faint in the low dark hall of banquet: leaves

Laid their green faces flat against the panes,

Sprays grated, and the cankered boughs without

Whined in the wood; for all was hushed within,

Till when at feast Sir Garlon likewise asked

‘Why wear ye that crown-royal?’ Balin said

‘The Queen we worship, Lancelot, I, and all,

As fairest, best and purest, granted me

To bear it!’ Such a sound (for Arthur’s knights

Were hated strangers in the hall) as makes

The white swan-mother, sitting, when she hears

A strange knee rustle through her secret reeds,

Made Garlon, hissing; then he sourly smiled.

‘Fairest I grant her: I have seen; but best,

Best, purest? thou from Arthur’s hall, and yet

So simple! hast thou eyes, or if, are these

So far besotted that they fail to see

This fair wife-worship cloaks a secret shame?

Truly, ye men of Arthur be but babes.’

 

A goblet on the board by Balin, bossed

With holy Joseph’s legend, on his right

Stood, all of massiest bronze: one side had sea

And ship and sail and angels blowing on it:

And one was rough with wattling, and the walls

Of that low church he built at Glastonbury.

This Balin graspt, but while in act to hurl,

Through memory of that token on the shield

Relaxed his hold: ‘I will be gentle’ he thought

‘And passing gentle’ caught his hand away,

Then fiercely to Sir Garlon ‘Eyes have I

That saw today the shadow of a spear,

Shot from behind me, run along the ground;

Eyes too that long have watched how Lancelot draws

From homage to the best and purest, might,

Name, manhood, and a grace, but scantly thine,

Who, sitting in thine own hall, canst endure

To mouth so huge a foulness—to thy guest,

Me, me of Arthur’s Table. Felon talk!

Let be! no more!’

But not the less by night

The scorn of Garlon, poisoning all his rest,

Stung him in dreams. At length, and dim through leaves

Blinkt the white morn, sprays grated, and old boughs

Whined in the wood. He rose, descended, met

The scorner in the castle court, and fain,

For hate and loathing, would have past him by;

But when Sir Garlon uttered mocking-wise;