I saw your face, and there were no more kings.” 390
The sharp light softened in the Queen’s blue eyes,
And for a moment there was joy in them:
“Was I so menacing to the peace, I wonder,
Of anyone else alive? But why go back?
I tell you that I fear Gawaine no more; 395
And if you fear him not, and I fear not
What you fear not, what have we then to fear?”
Fatigued a little with her reasoning,
She waited longer than a woman waits,
Without a cloudy sign, for Lancelot’s 400
Unhurried answer: “Whether or not you fear,
Know always that I fear for me no stroke
Maturing for the joy of any knave
Who sees the world, with me alive in it,
A place too crowded for the furtherance 405
Of his inflammatory preparations.
But Lot of Orkney had a wife, a dark one;
And rumor says no man who gazed at her,
Attentively, might say his prayers again
Without a penance or an absolution. 410
I know not about that; but the world knows
That Arthur prayed in vain once, if he prayed,
Or we should have no Modred watching us.
Know then that what you fear to call my fear
Is all for you; and what is all for you 415
Is all for love, which were the same to me
As life — had I not seen what I have seen.
But first I am to tell you what I see,
And what I mean by fear. It is yourself
That I see now; and if I saw you only, 420
I might forego again all other service,
And leave to Time, who is Love’s almoner,
The benefaction of what years or days
Remaining might be found unchronicled
For two that have not always watched or seen 425
The sands of gold that flow for golden hours.
If I saw you alone! But I know now
That you are never more to be alone.
The shape of one infernal foul attendant
Will be for ever prowling after you, 430
To leer at me like a damned thing whipped out
Of the last cave in hell. You know his name.
Over your shoulder I could see him now,
Adventuring his misbegotten patience
For one destroying word in the King’s ear — 435
The word he cannot whisper there quite yet,
Not having it yet to say. If he should say it,
Then all this would be over, and our days
Of life, your days and mine, be over with it.
No day of mine that were to be for you 440
Your last, would light for me a longer span
Than for yourself; and there would be no twilight.”
The Queen’s implacable calm eyes betrayed
The doubt that had as yet for what he said
No healing answer: “If I fear no more 445
Gawaine, I fear your Modred even less.
Your fear, you say, is for an end outside
Your safety; and as much as that I grant you.
And I believe in your belief, moreover,
That some far-off unheard-of retribution 450
Hangs over Camelot, even as this oak-bough,
That I may almost reach, hangs overhead,
All dark now. Only a small time ago
The light was falling through it, and on me.
Another light, a longer time ago, 455
Was living in your eyes, and we were happy.
Yet there was Modred then as he is now,
As much a danger then as he is now,
And quite as much a nuisance. Let his eyes
Have all the darkness in them they may hold, 460
And there will be less left of it outside
For fear to grope and thrive in. Lancelot,
I say the dark is not what you fear most.
There is a Light that you fear more today
Than all the darkness that has ever been; 465
Yet I doubt not that your Light will burn on
For some time yet without your ministration.
I’m glad for Modred, — though I hate his eyes, —
That he should hold me nearer to your thoughts
Than I should hold myself, I fear, without him; 470
I’m glad for Gawaine, also, — who, you tell me,
Misled my fancy with his joy of living.”
Incredulous of her voice and of her lightness,
He saw now in the patience of her smile
A shining quiet of expectancy 475
That made as much of his determination
As he had made of giants and Sir Peris.
“But I have more to say than you have heard,”
He faltered— “though God knows what you have heard
Should be enough.” 480
“I see it now,” she said;
“I see it now as always women must
Who cannot hold what holds them any more.
If Modred’s hate were now the only hazard —
The only shadow between you and me — 485
How long should I be saying all this to you,
Or you be listening? No, Lancelot, — no.
I knew it coming for a longer time
Than you fared for the Grail. You told yourself,
When first that wild light came to make men mad 490
Round Arthur’s Table — as Gawaine told himself,
And many another tired man told himself —
That it was God, not something new, that called you.
Well, God was something new to most of them,
And so they went away. But you were changing 495
Long before you, or Bors, or Percival,
Or Galahad rode away — or poor Gawaine,
Who came back presently; and for a time
Before you went — albeit for no long time —
I may have made for your too loyal patience 500
A jealous exhibition of my folly —
All for those two Elaines; and one of them
Is dead, poor child, for you. How do you feel,
You men, when women die for you? They do,
Sometimes, you know. Not often, but sometimes.” 505
Discomfiture, beginning with a scowl
And ending in a melancholy smile,
Crept over Lancelot’s face the while he stared,
More like a child than like the man he was,
At Guinevere’s demure serenity 510
Before him in the shadow, soon to change
Into the darkness of a darker night
Than yet had been since Arthur was a king.
“What seizure of an unrelated rambling
Do you suppose it was that had you then?” 515
He said; and with a frown that had no smile
Behind it, he sat brooding.
The Queen laughed,
And looked at him again with lucent eyes
That had no sharpness in them; they were soft now, 520
And a blue light, made wet with happiness,
Distilled from pain into abandonment,
Shone out of them and held him while she smiled,
Although they trembled with a questioning
Of what his gloom foretold: “All that I saw 525
Was true, and I have paid for what I saw —
More than a man may know. Hear me, and listen:
You cannot put me or the truth aside,
With half-told words that I could only wish
No man had said to me; not you, of all men. 530
If there were only Modred in the way,
Should I see now, from here and in this light,
So many furrows over your changed eyes?
Why do you fear for me when all my fears
A
re for the needless burden you take on? 535
To put me far away, and your fears with me,
Were surely no long toil, had you the will
To say what you have known and I have known
Longer than I dare guess. Have little fear:
Never shall I become for you a curse 540
Laid on your conscience to be borne for ever;
Nor shall I be a weight for you to drag
On always after you, as a poor slave
Drags iron at his heels. Therefore, today,
These ominous reassurances of mine 545
Would seem to me to be a waste of life,
And more than life.”
Lancelot’s memory wandered
Into the blue and wistful distances
That her soft eyes unveiled. He knew their trick, 550
As he knew the great love that fostered it,
And the wild passionate fate that hid itself
In all the perilous calm of white and gold
That was her face and hair, and might as well
Have been of gold and marble for the world, 555
And for the King. Before he knew, she stood
Behind him with her warm hands on his cheeks,
And her lips on his lips; and though he heard
Not half of what she told, he heard enough
To make as much of it, or so it seemed, 560
As man was ever told, or should be told,
Or need be, until everything was told,
And all the mystic silence of the stars
Had nothing more to keep or to reveal.
“If there were only Modred in the way,” 565
She murmured, “would you come to me tonight?
The King goes to Carleon or Carlisle,
Or some place where there’s hunting. Would you come,
If there were only Modred in the way?”
She felt his hand on hers and laid her cheek 570
Upon his forehead, where the furrows were:
“All these must go away, and so must I —
Before there are more shadows. You will come,
And you may tell me everything you must
That I must hear you tell me — if I must — 575
Of bones and horrors and of horrid waves
That break for ever on the world’s last edge.”
Lancelot III
LANCELOT looked about him, but he saw
No Guinevere. The place where she had sat
Was now an empty chair that might have been 580
The shadowy throne of an abandoned world,
But for the living fragrance of a kiss
That he remembered, and a living voice
That hovered when he saw that she was gone.
There was too much remembering while he felt 585
Upon his cheek the warm sound of her words;
There was too much regret; there was too much
Remorse. Regret was there for what had gone,
Remorse for what had come. Yet there was time,
That had not wholly come. There was time enough 590
Between him and the night — as there were shoals
Enough, no doubt, that in the sea somewhere
Were not yet hidden by the drowning tide.
“So there is here between me and the dark
Some twilight left,” he said. He sighed, and said 595
Again, “Time, tide, and twilight — and the dark;
And then, for me, the Light. But what for her?
I do not think of anything but life
That I may give to her by going now;
And if I look into her eyes again, 600
Or feel her breath upon my face again,
God knows if I may give so much as life;
Or if the durance of her loneliness
Would have it for the asking. What am I?
What have I seen that I must leave behind 605
So much of heaven and earth to burn itself
Away in white and gold, until in time
There shall be no more white and no more gold?
I cannot think of such a time as that;
I cannot — yet I must; for I am he 610
That shall have hastened it and hurried on
To dissolution all that wonderment —
That envy of all women who have said
She was a child of ice and ivory;
And of all men, save one. And who is he? 615
Who is this Lancelot that has betrayed
His King, and served him with a cankered honor?
Who is this Lancelot that sees the Light
And waits now in the shadow for the dark?
Who is this King, this Arthur, who believes 620
That what has been, and is, will be for ever, —
Who has no eyes for what he will not see,
And will see nothing but what’s passing here
In Camelot, which is passing? Why are we here?
What are we doing — kings, queens, Camelots, 625
And Lancelots? And what is this dim world
That I would leave, and cannot leave tonight
Because a Queen is in it and a King
Has gone away to some place where there’s hunting —
Carleon or Carlisle! Who is this Queen, 630
This pale witch-wonder of white fire and gold,
This Guinevere that I brought back with me
From Cameliard for Arthur, who knew then
What Merlin told, as he forgets it now
And rides away from her — God watch the world! — 635
To some place where there’s hunting! What are kings?
And how much longer are there to be kings?
When are the millions who are now like worms
To know that kings are worms, if they are worms?
When are the women who make toys of men 640
To know that they themselves are less than toys
When Time has laid upon their skins the touch
Of his all-shrivelling fingers? When are they
To know that men must have an end of them
When men have seen the Light and left the world 645
That I am leaving now. Yet, here I am,
And all because a king has gone a-hunting….
Carleon or Carlisle!”
So Lancelot
Fed with a sullen rancor, which he knew 650
To be as false as he was to the King,
The passion and the fear that now in him
Were burning like two slow infernal fires
That only flight and exile far away
From Camelot should ever cool again. 655
“Yet here I am,” he said,— “and here I am.
Time, tide, and twilight; and there is no twilight —
And there is not much time. But there’s enough
To eat and drink in; and there may be time
For me to frame a jest or two to prove 660
How merry a man may be who sees the Light.
And I must get me up and go along,
Before the shadows blot out everything,
And leave me stumbling among skeletons.
God, what a rain of ashes falls on him 665
Who sees the new and cannot leave the old!”
He rose and looked away into the south
Where a gate was, by which he might go out,
Now, if he would, while Time was yet there with him —
Time that was tearing minutes out of life 670
While he stood shivering in his loneliness,
And while the silver lights of memory
Shone faintly on a far-off eastern shore
Where he had seen on earth for the last time
The triumph and the sadness in the face 675
Of Galahad, for whom the Light was waiting.
Now he could see the face of him again,
He fancied; and his flickering will adjured him
&
nbsp; To follow it and be free. He followed it
Until it faded and there was no face, 680
And there was no more light. Yet there was time
That had not come, though he could hear it now
Like ruining feet of marching conquerors
That would be coming soon and were not men.
Forlornly and unwillingly he came back 685
To find the two dim chairs. In one of them
Was Guinevere, and on her phantom face
There fell a golden light that might have been
The changing gleam of an unchanging gold
That was her golden hair. He sprang to touch 690
The wonder of it, but she too was gone,
Like Galahad; he was alone again
With shadows, and one face that he still saw.
The world had no more faces now than one
That for a moment, with a flash of pain, 695
Had shown him what it is that may be seen
In embers that break slowly into dust,
Where for a time was fire. He saw it there
Before him, and he knew it was not good
That he should learn so late, and of this hour, 700
What men may leave behind them in the eyes
Of women who have nothing more to give,
And may not follow after. Once again
He gazed away to southward, but the face
Of Galahad was not there. He turned, and saw 705
Before him, in the distance, many lights
In Arthur’s palace; for the dark had come
To Camelot, while Time had come and gone.
Lancelot IV
NOT having viewed Carleon or Carlisle,
The King came home to Camelot after midnight, 710
Feigning an ill not feigned; and his return
Brought Bedivere, and after him Gawaine,
To the King’s inner chamber, where they waited
Through the grim light of dawn. Sir Bedivere,
By nature stern to see, though not so bleak 715
Within as to be frozen out of mercy,
Sat with arms crossed and with his head weighed low
In heavy meditation. Once or twice
His eyes were lifted for a careful glimpse
Of Gawaine at the window, where he stood 720
Twisting his fingers feverishly behind him,
Like one distinguishing indignantly,
For swift eclipse and for offence not his,
The towers and roofs and the sad majesty
Of Camelot in the dawn, for the last time. 725
Sir Bedivere, at last, with a long sigh
That said less of his pain than of his pity,
Addressed the younger knight who turned and heard
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