Works of Edwin Arlington Robinson
Page 27
“Why all this new insistence upon sin?”
She said; “I wonder if I understand
This king of yours, with all his pits and dragons; 1830
I know I do not like him.” A thinner light
Was in her eyes than he had found in them
Since he became the willing prisoner
That she had made of him; and on her mouth
Lay now a colder line of irony 1835
Than all his fears or nightmares could have drawn
Before today: “What reason do you know
For me to listen to this king of yours?
What reading has a man of woman’s days,
Even though the man be Merlin and a prophet?” 1840
“I know no call for you to love the king,”
Said Merlin, driven ruinously along
By the vindictive urging of his fate;
“I know no call for you to love the king,
Although you serve him, knowing not yet the king 1845
You serve. There is no man, or any woman,
For whom the story of the living king
Is not the story of the living sin.
I thought my story was the common one,
For common recognition and regard.” 1850
“Then let us have no more of it,” she said;
“For we are not so common, I believe,
That we need kings and pits and flags and dragons
To make us know that we have let the world
Go by us. Have you missed the world so much 1855
That you must have it in with all its clots
And wounds and bristles on to make us happy —
Like Blaise, with shouts and horns and seven men
Triumphant with a most unlovely boar?
Is there no other story in the world 1860
Than this one of a man that you made king
To be a moral for the speckled ages?
You said once long ago, if you remember,
‘You are too strange a lady to fear specks’;
And it was you, you said, who feared them not. 1865
Why do you look at me as at a snake
All coiled to spring at you and strike you dead?
I am not going to spring at you, or bite you;
I’m going home. And you, if you are kind,
Will have no fear to wander for an hour. 1870
I’m sure the time has come for you to wander;
And there may come a time for you to say
What most you think it is that we need here
To make of this Broceliande a refuge
Where two disheartened sinners may forget 1875
A world that has today no place for them.”
A melancholy wave of revelation
Broke over Merlin like a rising sea,
Long viewed unwillingly and long denied.
He saw what he had seen, but would not feel, 1880
Till now the bitterness of what he felt
Was in his throat, and all the coldness of it
Was on him and around him like a flood
Of lonelier memories than he had said
Were memories, although he knew them now 1885
For what they were — for what this eyes had seen,
For what his ears had heard and what his heart
Had felt, with him not knowing what it felt.
But now he knew that his cold angel’s name
Was Change, and that a mightier will than his 1890
Or Vivian’s had ordained that he be there.
To Vivian he could not say anything
But words that had no more of hope in them
Than anguish had of peace: “I meant the world …
I meant the world,” he groaned; “not you — not me.” 1895
Again the frozen line of irony
Was on her mouth. He looked up once at it.
And then away — too fearful of her eyes
To see what he could hear now in her laugh
That melted slowly into what she said, 1900
Like snow in icy water: “This world of yours
Will surely be the end of us. And why not?
I’m overmuch afraid we’re part of it, —
Or why do we build walls up all around us,
With gates of iron that make us think the day 1905
Of judgment’s coming when they clang behind us?
And yet you tell me that you fear no specks!
With you I never cared for them enough
To think of them. I was too strange a lady.
And your return is now a speckled king 1910
And something that you call a living sin —
That’s like an uninvited poor relation
Who comes without a welcome, rather late,
And on a foundered horse.”
“Specks? What are specks?” 1915
He gazed at her in a forlorn wonderment
That made her say: “You said, ‘I fear them not.’
‘If I were king in Camelot,’ you said,
‘I might fear more than specks.’ Have you forgotten?
Don’t tell me, Merlin, you are growing old. 1920
Why don’t you make somehow a queen of me,
And give me half the world? I’d wager thrushes
That I should reign, with you to turn the wheel,
As well as any king that ever was.
The curse on me is that I cannot serve 1925
A ruler who forgets that he is king.”
In this bewildered misery Merlin then
Stared hard at Vivian’s face, more like a slave
Who sought for common mercy than like Merlin:
“You speak a language that was never mine, 1930
Or I have lost my wits. Why do you seize
The flimsiest of opportunities
To make of what I said another thing
Than love or reason could have let me say,
Or let me fancy? Why do you keep the truth 1935
So far away from me, when all your gates
Will open at your word and let me go
To some place where no fear or weariness
Of yours need ever dwell? Why does a woman,
Made otherwise a miracle of love 1940
And loveliness, and of immortal beauty,
Tear one word by the roots out of a thousand,
And worry it, and torture it, and shake it,
Like a small dog that has a rag to play with?
What coil of an ingenious destiny 1945
Is this that makes of what I never meant
A meaning as remote as hell from heaven?”
“I don’t know,” Vivian said reluctantly,
And half as if in pain; “I’m going home.
I’m going home and leave you here to wander, 1950
Pray take your kings and sins away somewhere
And bury them, and bury the Queen in also.
I know this king; he lives in Camelot,
And I shall never like him. There are specks
Almost all over him. Long live the king, 1955
But not the king who lives in Camelot,
With Modred, Lancelot, and Guinevere —
And all four speckled like a merry nest
Of addled eggs together. You made him King
Because you loved the world and saw in him 1960
From infancy a mirror for the millions.
The world will see itself in him, and then
The world will say its prayers and wash its face,
And build for some new king a new foundation.
Long live the King! … But now I apprehend 1965
A time for me to shudder and grow old
And garrulous — and so become a fright
For Blaise to take out walking in warm weather —
Should I give way to long considering
Of worlds you may have lost while prisoned here 1970
With me and
my light mind. I contemplate
Another name for this forbidden place,
And one more fitting. Tell me, if you find it,
Some fitter name than Eden. We have had
A man and woman in it for some time, 1975
And now, it seems, we have a Tree of Knowledge.”
She looked up at the branches overhead
And shrugged her shoulders. Then she went away;
And what was left of Merlin’s happiness,
Like a disloyal phantom, followed her. 1980
He felt the sword of his cold angel thrust
And twisted in his heart, as if the end
Were coming next, but the cold angel passed
Invisibly and left him desolate,
With misty brow and eyes. “The man who sees 1985
May see too far, and he may see too late
The path he takes unseen,” he told himself
When he found thought again. “The man who sees
May go on seeing till the immortal flame
That lights and lures him folds him in its heart, 1990
And leaves of what there was of him to die
An item of inhospitable dust
That love and hate alike must hide away;
Or there may still be charted for his feet
A dimmer faring, where the touch of time 1995
Were like the passing of a twilight moth
From flower to flower into oblivion,
If there were not somewhere a barren end
Of moths and flowers, and glimmering far away
Beyond a desert where the flowerless days 2000
Are told in slow defeats and agonies,
The guiding of a nameless light that once
Had made him see too much — and has by now
Revealed in death, to the undying child
Of Lancelot, the Grail. For this pure light 2005
Has many rays to throw, for many men
To follow; and the wise are not all pure,
Nor are the pure all wise who follow it.
There are more rays than men. But let the man
Who saw too much, and was to drive himself 2010
From paradise, play too lightly or too long
Among the moths and flowers, he finds at last
There is a dim way out; and he shall grope
Where pleasant shadows lead him to the plain
That has no shadow save his own behind him. 2015
And there, with no complaint, nor much regret,
Shall he plod on, with death between him now
And the far light that guides him, till he falls
And has an empty thought of empty rest;
Then Fate will put a mattock in his hands 2020
And lash him while he digs himself the grave
That is to be the pallet and the shroud
Of his poor blundering bones. The man who saw
Too much must have an eye to see at last
Where Fate has marked the clay; and he shall delve, 2025
Although his hand may slacken, and his knees
May rock without a method as he toils;
For there’s a delving that is to be done —
If not for God, for man. I see the light,
But I shall fall before I come to it; 2030
For I am old. I was young yesterday.
Time’s hand that I have held away so long
Grips hard now on my shoulder. Time has won.
Tomorrow I shall say to Vivian
That I am old and gaunt and garrulous, 2035
And tell her one more story: I am old.”
There were long hours for Merlin after that,
And much long wandering in his prison-yard,
Where now the progress of each heavy step
Confirmed a stillness of impending change 2040
And imminent farewell. To Vivian’s ear
There came for many days no other story
Than Merlin’s iteration of his love
And his departure from Broceliande,
Where Merlin still remained. In Vivian’s eye, 2045
There was a quiet kindness, and at times
A smoky flash of incredulity
That faded into pain. Was this the Merlin —
This incarnation of idolatry
And all but supplicating deference — 2050
This bowed and reverential contradiction
Of all her dreams and her realities —
Was this the Merlin who for years and years
Before she found him had so made her love him
That kings and princes, thrones and diadems, 2055
And honorable men who drowned themselves
For love, were less to her than melon-shells?
Was this the Merlin whom her fate had sent
One spring day to come ringing at her gate,
Bewildering her love with happy terror 2060
That later was to be all happiness?
Was this the Merlin who had made the world
Half over, and then left it with a laugh
To be the youngest, oldest, weirdest, gayest,
And wisest, and sometimes the foolishest 2065
Of all the men of her consideration?
Was this the man who had made other men
As ordinary as arithmetic?
Was this man Merlin who came now so slowly
Towards the fountain where she stood again 2070
In shimmering green? Trembling, he took her hands
And pressed them fondly, one upon the other,
Between his:
“I was wrong that other day,
For I have one more story. I am old.” 2075
He waited like one hungry for the word
Not said; and she found in his eyes a light
As patient as a candle in a window
That looks upon the sea and is a mark
For ships that have gone down. “Tomorrow,” he said; 2080
“Tomorrow I shall go away again
To Camelot; and I shall see the King
Once more; and I may come to you again
Once more; and I shall go away again
For ever. There is now no more than that 2085
For me to do; and I shall do no more.
I saw too much when I saw Camelot;
And I saw farther backward into Time,
And forward, than a man may see and live,
When I made Arthur king. I saw too far, 2090
But not so far as this. Fate played with me
As I have played with Time; and Time, like me,
Being less than Fate, will have on me his vengeance.
On Fate there is no vengeance, even for God.”
He drew her slowly into his embrace 2095
And held her there, but when he kissed her lips
They were as cold as leaves and had no answer;
For Time had given him then, to prove his words,
A frozen moment of a woman’s life.
When Merlin the next morning came again 2100
In the same pilgrim robe that he had worn
While he sat waiting where the cherry-blossoms
Outside the gate fell on him and around him
Grief came to Vivian at the sight of him;
And like a flash of a swift ugly knife, 2105
A blinding fear came with it. “Are you going?”
She said, more with her lips than with her voice;
And he said, “I am going. Blaise and I
Are going down together to the shore,
And Blaise is coming back. For this one day 2110
Be good enough to spare him, for I like him.
I tell you now, as once I told the King,
That I can be no more than what I was,
And I can say no more than I have said.
Sometimes you told me that I spoke too long 2115
And sent me off to wander. That was good.
I go now for another wandering,
And I pray God that all be well with you.”
For long there was a whining in her ears
Of distant wheels departing. When it ceased, 2120
She closed the gate again so quietly
That Merlin could have heard no sound of it.
Merlin VII
BY Merlin’s Rock, where Dagonet the fool
Was given through many a dying afternoon
To sit and meditate on human ways 2125
And ways divine, Gawaine and Bedivere
Stood silent, gazing down on Camelot.
The two had risen and were going home:
“It hits me sore, Gawaine,” said Bedivere,
“To think on all the tumult and affliction 2130
Down there, and all the noise and preparation
That hums of coming death, and, if my fears
Be born of reason, of what’s more than death.
Wherefore, I say to you again, Gawaine, —
To you — that this late hour is not too late 2135
For you to change yourself and change the King:
For though the King may love me with a love
More tried, and older, and more sure, may be,
Than for another, for such a time as this
The friend who turns him to the world again 2140
Shall have a tongue more gracious and an eye
More shrewd than mine. For such a time as this
The King must have a glamour to persuade him.”
“The King shall have a glamour, and anon,”
Gawaine said, and he shot death from his eyes; 2145
“If you were King, as Arthur is — or was —
And Lancelot had carried off your Queen,
And killed a score or so of your best knights —
Not mentioning my two brothers, whom he slew
Unarmored and unarmed — God save your wits! 2150
Two stewards with skewers could have done as much,
And you and I might now be rotting for it.”
“But Lancelot’s men were crowded, — they were crushed;
And there was nothing for them but to strike
Or die, not seeing where they struck. Think you 2155
They would have slain Gareth and Gaheris,
And Tor, and all those other friends of theirs?
God’s mercy for the world he made, I say,
And for the blood that writes the story of it.
Gareth and Gaheris, Tor and Lamorak, — 2160
All dead, with all the others that are dead!
These years have made me turn to Lamorak
For counsel — and now Lamorak is dead.”