Upon my grave, and be the grieving image 1490
Of lean remorse, and suffer miserably;
And often, all day long, you’d only shake
Your celebrated head and all it holds,
Or beat it with your fist the while you groaned
Aloud and went on saying to yourself: 1495
‘Never should I have killed her, or believed
She was a bee that buzzed herself to death,
First having made me crazy, had there been
Judicious distance and wise absences
To keep the two of us inquisitive.’” — 1500
“I fear you bow your unoffending head
Before a load that should be mine,” said he;
“If so, you led me on by listening.
You should have shrieked and jumped, and then fled yelling;
That’s the best way when a man talks too long. 1505
God’s pity on me if I love your feet
More now than I could ever love the face
Of any one of all those Vivians
You summoned out of nothing on the night
When I saw towers. I’ll wander and amend.” — 1510
At that she flung the noose of her soft arms
Around his neck and kissed him instantly:
“You are the wisest man that ever was,
And I’ve a prayer to make: May all you say
To Vivian be a part of what you knew 1515
Before the curse of her unquiet head
Was on your shoulder, as you have it now,
To punish you for knowing beyond knowledge.
You are the only one who sees enough
To make me see how far away I am 1520
From all that I have seen and have not been;
You are the only thing there is alive
Between me as I am and as I was
When Merlin was a dream. You are to listen
When I say now to you that I’m alone. 1525
Like you, I saw too much; and unlike you
I made no kingdom out of what I saw —
Or none save this one here that you must rule,
Believing you are ruled. I see too far
To rule myself. Time’s way with you and me 1530
Is our way, in that we are out of Time
And out of tune with Time. We have this place,
And you must hold us in it or we die.
Look at me now and say if what I say
Be folly or not; for my unquiet head 1535
Is no conceit of mine. I had it first
When I was born; and I shall have it with me
Till my unquiet soul is on its way
To be, I hope, where souls are quieter.
So let the first and last activity 1540
Of what you say so often is your love
Be always to remember that our lyres
Are not strung for Today. On you it falls
To keep them in accord here with each other,
For you have wisdom, I have only sight 1545
For distant things — and you. And you are Merlin.
Poor wizard! Vivian is your punishment
For making kings of men who are not kings;
And you are mine, by the same reasoning,
For living out of Time and out of tune 1550
With anything but you. No other man
Could make me say so much of what I know
As I say now to you. And you are Merlin!”
She looked up at him till his way was lost
Again in the familiar wilderness 1555
Of night that love made for him in her eyes,
And there he wandered as he said he would;
He wandered also in his prison-yard,
And, when he found her coming after him,
Beguiled her with her own admonishing 1560
And frowned upon her with a fierce reproof
That many a time in the old world outside
Had set the mark of silence on strong men —
Whereat she laughed, not always wholly sure,
Nor always wholly glad, that he who played 1565
So lightly was the wizard of her dreams:
“No matter — if only Merlin keep the world
Away,” she thought. “Our lyres have many strings,
But he must know them all, for he is Merlin.”
And so far years, till ten of them were gone, — 1570
Ten years, ten seasons, or ten flying ages —
Fate made Broceliande a paradise,
By none invaded, until Dagonet,
Like a discordant, awkward bird of doom,
Flew in with Arthur’s message. For the King, 1575
In sorrow cleaving to simplicity,
And having in his love a quick remembrance
Of Merlin’s old affection for the fellow,
Had for this vain, reluctant enterprise
Appointed him — the knight who made men laugh, 1580
And was a fool because he played the fool.
“The King believes today, as in his boyhood,
That I am Fate; and I can do no more
Than show again what in his heart he knows,”
Said Merlin to himself and Vivian: 1585
“This time I go because I made him King,
Thereby to be a mirror for the world;
This time I go, but never after this,
For I can be no more than what I was,
And I can do no more than I have done.” 1590
He took her slowly in his arms and felt
Her body throbbing like a bird against him:
“This time I go; I go because I must.”
And in the morning, when he rode away
With Dagonet and Blaise through the same gate 1595
That once had clanged as if to shut for ever,
She had not even asked him not to go;
For it was then that in his lonely gaze
Of helpless love and sad authority
She found the gleam of his imprisoned power 1600
That Fate withheld; and, pitying herself,
She pitied the fond Merlin she had changed,
And saw the Merlin who had changed the world.
Merlin VI
“NO kings are coming on their hands and knees,
Nor yet on horses or in chariots, 1605
To carry me away from you again,”
Said Merlin, winding around Vivian’s ear
A shred of her black hair. “King Arthur knows
That I have done with kings, and that I speak
No more their crafty language. Once I knew it, 1610
But now the only language I have left
Is one that I must never let you hear
Too long, or know too well. When towering deeds
Once done shall only out of dust and words
Be done again, the doer may then be wary 1615
Lest in the complement of his new fabric
There be more words than dust.”
“Why tell me so?”
Said Vivian; and a singular thin laugh
Came after her thin question. “Do you think 1620
That I’m so far away from history
That I require, even of the wisest man
Who ever said the wrong thing to a woman,
So large a light on what I know already —
When all I seek is here before me now 1625
In your new eyes that you have brought for me
From Camelot? The eyes you took away
Were sad and old; and I could see in them
A Merlin who remembered all the kings
He ever saw, and wished himself, almost, 1630
Away from Vivian, to make other kings,
And shake the world again in the old manner.
I saw myself no bigger than a beetle
For several days, and wondered if your love
Were large enough to make me any larger 1635
When you came back. Am I a beetle still?”
She stood up on her toes and held her cheek
For some time against his, and let him go.
“I fear the time has come for me to wander
A little in my prison-yard,” he said. — 1640
“No, tell me everything that you have seen
And heard and done, and seen done, and heard done,
Since you deserted me. And tell me first
What the King thinks of me.”— “The King believes
That you are almost what you are,” he told her: 1645
“The beauty of all ages that are vanished,
Reborn to be the wonder of one woman.” —
“I knew he hated me. What else of him?” —
“And all that I have seen and heard and done,
Which is not much, would make a weary telling; 1650
And all your part of it would be to sleep,
And dream that Merlin had his beard again.” —
“Then tell me more about your good fool knight,
Sir Dagonet. If Blaise were not half-mad
Already with his pondering on the name 1655
And shield of his unshielding nameless father,
I’d make a fool of him. I’d call him Ajax;
I’d have him shake his fist at thunder-storms,
And dance a jig as long as there was lightning,
And so till I forgot myself entirely. 1660
Not even your love may do so much as that.” —
“Thunder and lightning are no friends of mine,”
Said Merlin slowly, “more than they are yours;
They bring me nearer to the elements
From which I came than I care now to be.” — 1665
“You owe a service to those elements;
For by their service you outwitted age
And made the world a kingdom of your will.” —
He touched her hand, smiling: “Whatever service
Of mine awaits them will not be forgotten,” 1670
He said; and the smile faded on his face. —
“Now of all graceless and ungrateful wizards—”
But there she ceased, for she found in his eyes
The first of a new fear. “The wrong word rules
Today,” she said; “and we’ll have no more journeys.” 1675
Although he wandered rather more than ever
Since he had come again to Brittany
From Camelot, Merlin found eternally
Before him a new loneliness that made
Of garden, park, and woodland, all alike, 1680
A desolation and a changelessness
Defying reason, without Vivian
Beside him, like a child with a black head,
Or moving on before him, or somewhere
So near him that, although he saw it not 1685
With eyes, he felt the picture of her beauty
And shivered at the nearness of her being.
Without her now there was no past or future,
And a vague, soul-consuming premonition
He found the only tenant of the present; 1690
He wondered, when she was away from him,
If his avenging injured intellect
Might shine with Arthur’s kingdom a twin mirror,
Fate’s plaything, for new ages without eyes
To see therein themselves and their declension. 1695
Love made his hours a martyrdom without her;
The world was like an empty house without her,
Where Merlin was a prisoner of love
Confined within himself by too much freedom,
Repeating an unending exploration 1700
Of many solitary silent rooms,
And only in a way remembering now
That once their very solitude and silence
Had by the magic of expectancy
Made sure what now he doubted — though his doubts, 1705
Day after day, were founded on a shadow.
For now to Merlin, in his paradise,
Had come an unseen angel with a sword
Unseen, the touch of which was a long fear
For longer sorrow that had never come, 1710
Yet might if he compelled it. He discovered,
One golden day in autumn as he wandered,
That he had made the radiance of two years
A misty twilight when he might as well
Have had no mist between him and the sun, 1715
The sun being Vivian. On his coming then
To find her all in green against a wall
Of green and yellow leaves, and crumbling bread
For birds around the fountain while she sang
And the birds ate the bread, he told himself 1720
That everything today was as it was
At first, and for a minute he believed it.
“I’d have you always all in green out here,”
He said, “if I had much to say about it.” —
She clapped her crumbs away and laughed at him: 1725
“I’ve covered up my bones with every color
That I can carry on them without screaming,
And you have liked them all — or made me think so.” —
“I must have liked them if you thought I did,”
He answered, sighing; “but the sight of you 1730
Today as on the day I saw you first,
All green, all wonderful” … He tore a leaf
To pieces with a melancholy care
That made her smile.— “Why pause at ‘wonderful’?
You’ve hardly been yourself since you came back 1735
From Camelot, where that unpleasant King
Said things that you have never said to me.” —
He looked upon her with a worn reproach:
“The King said nothing that I keep from you.” —
“What is it then?” she asked, imploringly; 1740
“You man of moods and miracles, what is it?” —
He shook his head and tore another leaf:
“There is no need of asking what it is;
Whatever you or I may choose to name it,
The name of it is Fate, who played with me 1745
And gave me eyes to read of the unwritten
More lines than I have read. I see no more
Today than yesterday, but I remember.
My ways are not the ways of other men;
My memories go forward. It was you 1750
Who said that we were not in tune with Time;
It was not I who said it.”— “But you knew it;
What matter then who said it?”— “It was you
Who said that Merlin was your punishment
For being in tune with him and not with Time — 1755
With Time or with the world; and it was you
Who said you were alone, even here with Merlin;
It was not I who said it. It is I
Who tell you now my inmost thoughts.” He laughed
As if at hidden pain around his heart, 1760
But there was not much laughing in his eyes.
They walked, and for a season they were silent:
“I shall know what you mean by that,” she said,
“When you have told me. Here’s an oak you like,
And here’s a place that fits me wondrous well 1765
To sit in. You sit there. I’ve seen you there
Before; and I have spoiled your noble thoughts
By walking all my fingers up and down
Your countenance, as if they were the feet
Of a small animal with no great claws. 1770
Tell me a story now about the world,
And the men in it, what they do in it,
And why it is they do it all so badly.” —
“I’ve told you every story that I know,
Almost,” he said.— “O, don’t begin like that.” — 1775
�
��Well, once upon a time there was a King.” —
“That has a more commendable address;
Go on, and tell me all about the King;
I’ll bet the King had warts or carbuncles,
Or something wrong in his divine insides, 1780
To make him wish that Adam had died young.”
Merlin observed her slowly with a frown
Of saddened wonder. She laughed rather lightly,
And at his heart he felt again the sword
Whose touch was a long fear for longer sorrow. 1785
“Well, once upon a time there was a king,”
He said again, but now in a dry voice
That wavered and betrayed a venturing.
He paused, and would have hesitated longer,
But something in him that was not himself 1790
Compelled an utterance that his tongue obeyed,
As an unwilling child obeys a father
Who might be richer for obedience
If he obeyed the child: “There was a king
Who would have made his reign a monument 1795
For kings and peoples of the waiting ages
To reverence and remember, and to this end
He coveted and won, with no ado
To make a story of, a neighbor queen
Who limed him with her smile and had of him, 1800
In token of their sin, what he found soon
To be a sort of mongrel son and nephew —
And a most precious reptile in addition —
To ornament his court and carry arms,
And latterly to be the darker half 1805
Of ruin. Also the king, who made of love
More than he made of life and death together,
Forgot the world and his example in it
For yet another woman — one of many —
And this one he made Queen, albeit he knew 1810
That her unsworn allegiance to the knight
That he had loved the best of all his order
Must one day bring along the coming end
Of love and honor and of everything;
And with a kingdom builded on two pits 1815
Of living sin, — so founded by the will
Of one wise counsellor who loved the king,
And loved the world and therefore made him king
To be a mirror for it, — the king reigned well
For certain years, awaiting a sure doom; 1820
For certain years he waved across the world
A royal banner with a Dragon on it;
And men of every land fell worshipping
The Dragon as it were the living God,
And not the living sin.” 1825
She rose at that,
And after a calm yawn, she looked at Merlin:
Works of Edwin Arlington Robinson Page 26
