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

other, while the Queen, who sat

With lips severely placid, felt the knot

Climb in her throat, and with her feet unseen

Crushed the wild passion out against the floor

Beneath the banquet, where all the meats became

As wormwood, and she hated all who pledged.

 

But far away the maid in Astolat,

Her guiltless rival, she that ever kept

The one-day-seen Sir Lancelot in her heart,

Crept to her father, while he mused alone,

Sat on his knee, stroked his gray face and said,

‘Father, you call me wilful, and the fault

Is yours who let me have my will, and now,

Sweet father, will you let me lose my wits?’

‘Nay,’ said he, ‘surely.’ ‘Wherefore, let me hence,’

She answered, ‘and find out our dear Lavaine.’

‘Ye will not lose your wits for dear Lavaine:

Bide,’ answered he: ‘we needs must hear anon

Of him, and of that other.’ ‘Ay,’ she said,

‘And of that other, for I needs must hence

And find that other, wheresoe’er he be,

And with mine own hand give his diamond to him,

Lest I be found as faithless in the quest

As yon proud Prince who left the quest to me.

Sweet father, I behold him in my dreams

Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself,

Death-pale, for lack of gentle maiden’s aid.

The gentler-born the maiden, the more bound,

My father, to be sweet and serviceable

To noble knights in sickness, as ye know

When these have worn their tokens: let me hence

I pray you.’ Then her father nodding said,

‘Ay, ay, the diamond: wit ye well, my child,

Right fain were I to learn this knight were whole,

Being our greatest: yea, and you must give it—

And sure I think this fruit is hung too high

For any mouth to gape for save a queen’s—

Nay, I mean nothing: so then, get you gone,

Being so very wilful you must go.’

 

Lightly, her suit allowed, she slipt away,

And while she made her ready for her ride,

Her father’s latest word hummed in her ear,

‘Being so very wilful you must go,’

And changed itself and echoed in her heart,

‘Being so very wilful you must die.’

But she was happy enough and shook it off,

As we shake off the bee that buzzes at us;

And in her heart she answered it and said,

‘What matter, so I help him back to life?’

Then far away with good Sir Torre for guide

Rode o’er the long backs of the bushless downs

To Camelot, and before the city-gates

Came on her brother with a happy face

Making a roan horse caper and curvet

For pleasure all about a field of flowers:

Whom when she saw, ‘Lavaine,’ she cried, ‘Lavaine,

How fares my lord Sir Lancelot?’ He amazed,

‘Torre and Elaine! why here? Sir Lancelot!

How know ye my lord’s name is Lancelot?’

But when the maid had told him all her tale,

Then turned Sir Torre, and being in his moods

Left them, and under the strange-statued gate,

Where Arthur’s wars were rendered mystically,

Past up the still rich city to his kin,

His own far blood, which dwelt at Camelot;

And her, Lavaine across the poplar grove

Led to the caves: there first she saw the casque

Of Lancelot on the wall: her scarlet sleeve,

Though carved and cut, and half the pearls away,

Streamed from it still; and in her heart she laughed,

Because he had not loosed it from his helm,

But meant once more perchance to tourney in it.

And when they gained the cell wherein he slept,

His battle-writhen arms and mighty hands

Lay naked on the wolfskin, and a dream

Of dragging down his enemy made them move.

Then she that saw him lying unsleek, unshorn,

Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself,

Uttered a little tender dolorous cry.

The sound not wonted in a place so still

Woke the sick knight, and while he rolled his eyes

Yet blank from sleep, she started to him, saying,

‘Your prize the diamond sent you by the King:’

His eyes glistened: she fancied ‘Is it for me?’

And when the maid had told him all the tale

Of King and Prince, the diamond sent, the quest

Assigned to her not worthy of it, she knelt

Full lowly by the corners of his bed,

And laid the diamond in his open hand.

Her face was near, and as we kiss the child

That does the task assigned, he kissed her face.

At once she slipt like water to the floor.

‘Alas,’ he said, ‘your ride hath wearied you.

Rest must you have.’ ‘No rest for me,’ she said;

‘Nay, for near you, fair lord, I am at rest.’

What might she mean by that? his large black eyes,

Yet larger through his leanness, dwelt upon her,

Till all her heart’s sad secret blazed itself

In the heart’s colours on her simple face;

And Lancelot looked and was perplext in mind,

And being weak in body said no more;

But did not love the colour; woman’s love,

Save one, he not regarded, and so turned

Sighing, and feigned a sleep until he slept.

 

Then rose Elaine and glided through the fields,

And past beneath the weirdly-sculptured gates

Far up the dim rich city to her kin;

There bode the night: but woke with dawn, and past

Down through the dim rich city to the fields,

Thence to the cave: so day by day she past

In either twilight ghostlike to and fro

Gliding, and every day she tended him,

And likewise many a night: and Lancelot

Would, though he called his wound a little hurt

Whereof he should be quickly whole, at times

Brain-feverous in his heat and agony, seem

Uncourteous, even he: but the meek maid

Sweetly forbore him ever, being to him

Meeker than any child to a rough nurse,

Milder than any mother to a sick child,

And never woman yet, since man’s first fall,

Did kindlier unto man, but her deep love

Upbore her; till the hermit, skilled in all

The simples and the science of that time,

Told him that her fine care had saved his life.

And the sick man forgot her simple blush,

Would call her friend and sister, sweet Elaine,

Would listen for her coming and regret

Her parting step, and held her tenderly,

And loved her with all love except the love

Of man and woman when they love their best,

Closest and sweetest, and had died the death

In any knightly fashion for her sake.

And peradventure had he seen her first

She might have made this and that other world

Another world for the sick man; but now

The shackles of an old love straitened him,

His honour rooted in dishonour stood,

And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.

 

Yet the great knight in his mid-sickness made

Full many a holy vow and pure resolve.

These, as but born of sickness, could not live:

For when the blood ran lustier in him again,

Full often the bright image of one face,

Making a treacherous quiet in his heart,

Dispersed his resolution like a cloud.

Then if the maiden, while that ghostly grace

Beamed on his fancy, spoke, he answered not,

Or short and coldly, and she knew right well

What the rough sickness meant, but what this meant

She knew not, and the sorrow dimmed her sight,

And drave her ere her time across the fields

Far into the rich city, where alone

She murmured, ‘Vain, in vain: it cannot be.

He will not love me: how then? must I die?’

Then as a little helpless innocent bird,

That has but one plain passage of few notes,

Will sing the simple passage o’er and o’er

For all an April morning, till the ear

Wearies to hear it, so the simple maid

Went half the night repeating, ‘Must I die?’

And now to right she turned, and now to left,

And found no ease in turning or in rest;

And ‘Him or death,’ she muttered, ‘death or him,’

Again and like a burthen, ‘Him or death.’

 

But when Sir Lancelot’s deadly hurt was whole,

To Astolat returning rode the three.

There morn by morn, arraying her sweet self

In that wherein she deemed she looked her best,

She came before Sir Lancelot, for she thought

‘If I be loved, these are my festal robes,

If not, the victim’s flowers before he fall.’

And Lancelot ever prest upon the maid

That she should ask some goodly gift of him

For her own self or hers; ‘and do not shun

To speak the wish most near to your true heart;

Such service have ye done me, that I make

My will of yours, and Prince and Lord am I

In mine own land, and what I will I can.’

Then like a ghost she lifted up her face,

But like a ghost without the power to speak.

And Lancelot saw that she withheld her wish,

And bode among them yet a little space

Till he should learn it; and one morn it chanced

He found her in among the garden yews,

And said, ‘Delay no longer, speak your wish,

Seeing I go today:’ then out she brake:

‘Going? and we shall never see you more.

And I must die for want of one bold word.’

‘Speak: that I live to hear,’ he said, ‘is yours.’

Then suddenly and passionately she spoke:

‘I have gone mad. I love you: let me die.’

‘Ah, sister,’ answered Lancelot, ‘what is this?’

And innocently extending her white arms,

‘Your love,’ she said, ‘your love—to be your wife.’

And Lancelot answered, ‘Had I chosen to wed,

I had been wedded earlier, sweet Elaine:

But now there never will be wife of mine.’

‘No, no,’ she cried, ‘I care not to be wife,

But to be with you still, to see your face,

To serve you, and to follow you through the world.’

And Lancelot answered, ‘Nay, the world, the world,

All ear and eye, with such a stupid heart

To interpret ear and eye, and such a tongue

To blare its own interpretation—nay,

Full ill then should I quit your brother’s love,

And your good father’s kindness.’ And she said,

‘Not to be with you, not to see your face—

Alas for me then, my good days are done.’

‘Nay, noble maid,’ he answered, ‘ten times nay!

This is not love: but love’s first flash in youth,

Most common: yea, I know it of mine own self:

And you yourself will smile at your own self

Hereafter, when you yield your flower of life

To one more fitly yours, not thrice your age:

And then will I, for true you are and sweet

Beyond mine old belief in womanhood,

More specially should your good knight be poor,

Endow you with broad land and territory

Even to the half my realm beyond the seas,

So that would make you happy: furthermore,

Even to the death, as though ye were my blood,

In all your quarrels will I be your knight.

This I will do, dear damsel, for your sake,

And more than this I cannot.’

 

While he spoke

She neither blushed nor shook, but deathly-pale

Stood grasping what was nearest, then replied:

‘Of all this will I nothing;’ and so fell,

And thus they bore her swooning to her tower.

 

Then spake, to whom through those black walls of yew

Their talk had pierced, her father: ‘Ay, a flash,

I fear me, that will strike my blossom dead.

Too courteous are ye, fair Lord Lancelot.

I pray you, use some rough discourtesy

To blunt or break her passion.’

 

Lancelot said,

‘That were against me: what I can I will;’

And there that day remained, and toward even

Sent for his shield: full meekly rose the maid,

Stript off the case, and gave the naked