Lancelot, looking off into the fog,
In which his fancy found the watery light
Of a dissolving moon, sighed without hope
Of saying what the Queen would have him say: 1405
“I fear, my lady, my fair nephew Bors,
Whose tongue affords a random wealth of sound,
May lately have been scattering on the air
For you a music less oracular
Than to your liking…. Say, then, you had split 1410
The uncovered heads of two men with an axe,
Not knowing whose heads — if that’s a palliation —
And seen their brains fly out and splash the ground
As they were common offal, and then learned
That you had butchered Gaheris and Gareth — 1415
Gareth, who had for me a greater love
Than any that has ever trod the ways
Of a gross world that early would have crushed him, —
Even you, in your quick fever of dispatch,
Might hesitate before you drew the blood 1420
Of him that was their brother, and my friend.
Yes, he was more my friend, was I to know,
Than I had said or guessed; for it was Gawaine
Who gave to Bors the word that might have saved us,
And Arthur’s fading empire, for the time 1425
Till Modred had in his dark wormy way
Crawled into light again with a new ruin
At work in that occult snake’s brain of his.
And even in your prompt obliteration
Of Arthur from a changing world that rocks 1430
Itself into a dizziness around him,
A moment of attendant reminiscence
Were possible, if not likely. Had he made
A knight of you, scrolling your name with his
Among the first of men — and in his love 1435
Inveterately the first — and had you then
Betrayed his fame and honor to the dust
That now is choking him, you might in time —
You might, I say — to my degree succumb.
Forgive me, if my lean words are for yours 1440
Too bare an answer, and ascribe to them
No tinge of allegation or reproach.
What I said once to you I said for ever —
That I would pay the price of hell to save you.
As for the Light, leave that for me alone; 1445
Or leave as much of it as yet for me
May shine. Should I, through any unforeseen
Remote effect of awkwardness or chance,
Be done to death or durance by the King,
I leave some writing wherein I beseech 1450
For you the clemency of afterthought.
Were I to die and he to see me dead,
My living prayer, surviving the cold hand
That wrote, would leave you in his larger prudence,
If I have known the King, free and secure 1455
To bide the summoning of another King
More great than Arthur. But all this is language;
And I know more than words have yet the scope
To show of what’s to come. Go now to rest;
And sleep, if there be sleep. There was a moon; 1460
And now there is no sky where the moon was.
Sometimes I wonder if this be the world
We live in, or the world that lives in us.”
The new day, with a cleansing crash of rain
That washed and sluiced the soiled and hoof-torn field 1465
Of Joyous Gard, prepared for Lancelot
And his wet men the not unwelcome scene
Of a drenched emptiness without an army.
“Our friend the foe is given to dry fighting,”
Said Lionel, advancing with a shrug, 1470
To Lancelot, who saw beyond the rain.
And later Lionel said, “What fellows are they,
Who are so thirsty for their morning ride
That swimming horses would have hardly time
To eat before they swam? You, Lancelot, 1475
If I see rather better than a blind man,
Are waiting on three pilgrims who must love you,
To voyage a flood like this. No friend have I,
To whisper not of three, on whom to count
For such a loyal wash. The King himself 1480
Would entertain a kindly qualm or so,
Before he suffered such a burst of heaven
To splash even three musicians.”
“Good Lionel,
I thank you, but you need afflict your fancy 1485
No longer for my sake. For these who come,
If I be not immoderately deceived,
Are bearing with them the white flower of peace —
Which I could hope might never parch or wither,
Were I a stranger to this ravening world 1490
Where we have mostly a few rags and tags
Between our skins and those that wrap the flesh
Of less familiar brutes we feed upon
That we may feed the more on one another.”
“Well, now that we have had your morning grace 1495
Before our morning meat, pray tell to me
The why and whence of this anomalous
Horse-riding offspring of the Fates. Who are they?”
“I do not read their features or their names;
But if I read the King, they are from Rome, 1500
Spurred here by the King’s prayer for no delay;
And I pray God aloud that I say true.”
And after a long watching, neither speaking,
“You do,” said Lionel; “for by my soul,
I see no other than my lord the Bishop, 1505
Who does God’s holy work in Rochester.
Since you are here, you may as well abide here,
While I go foraging.”
Now in the gateway,
The Bishop, who rode something heavily, 1510
Was glad for rest though grim in his refusal
At once of entertainment or refection:
“What else you do, Sir Lancelot, receive me
As one among the honest when I say
That my voluminous thanks were less by cantos 1515
Than my damp manner feels. Nay, hear my voice:
If once I’m off this royal animal,
How o’ God’s name shall I get on again?
Moreover, the King waits. With your accord,
Sir Lancelot, I’ll dry my rainy face, 1520
While you attend what’s herein written down,
In language of portentous brevity,
For the King’s gracious pleasure and for yours,
Whereof the burden is the word of Rome,
Requiring your deliverance of the Queen 1525
Not more than seven days hence. The King returns
Anon to Camelot; and I go with him,
Praise God, if what he waits now is your will
To end an endless war. No recrudescence,
As you may soon remark, of what is past 1530
Awaits the Queen, or any doubt soever
Of the King’s mercy. Have you more to say
Than Rome has written, or do I perceive
Your tranquil acquiescence? Is it so?
Then be it so! Venite. Pax vobiscum.” 1535
“To end an endless war with ‘pax vobiscum’
Would seem a ready schedule for a bishop;
Would God that I might see the end of it!”
Lancelot, like a statue in the gateway,
Regarded with a qualified rejoicing 1540
The fading out of his three visitors
Into the cold and swallowing wall of storm
Between him and the battle-wearied King
And the unwearying hatred of Gawaine.
To Bors his nephew, and to Lionel, 1545
He glossed a tale of Roman
intercession,
Knowing that for a time, and a long time,
The sweetest fare that he might lay before them
Would hold an evil taste of compromise.
To Guinevere, who questioned him at noon 1550
Of what by then had made of Joyous Gard
A shaken hive of legend-heavy wonder,
He said what most it was the undying Devil,
Who ruled him when he might, would have him say:
“Your confident arrangement of the board 1555
For this day’s game was notably not to be;
Today was not for the King’s move or mine,
But for the Bishop’s; and the board is empty.
The words that I have waited for more days
Than are to now my tallage of gray hairs 1560
Have come at last, and at last you are free.
So, for a time, there will be no more war;
And you are going home to Camelot.”
“To Camelot?”…
“To Camelot.” But his words 1565
Were said for no queen’s hearing. In his arms
He caught her when she fell; and in his arms
He carried her away. The word of Rome
Was in the rain. There was no other sound.
Lancelot VII
ALL day the rain came down on Joyous Gard, 1570
Where now there was no joy, and all that night
The rain came down. Shut in for none to find him
Where an unheeded log-fire fought the storm
With upward swords that flashed along the wall
Faint hieroglyphs of doom not his to read, 1575
Lancelot found a refuge where at last
He might see nothing. Glad for sight of nothing,
He saw no more. Now and again he buried
A lonely thought among the coals and ashes
Outside the reaching flame and left it there, 1580
Quite as he left outside in rainy graves
The sacrificial hundreds who had filled them.
“They died, Gawaine,” he said, “and you live on,
You and the King, as if there were no dying;
And it was I, Gawaine, who let you live — 1585
You and the King. For what more length of time,
I wonder, may there still be found on earth
Foot-room for four of us? We are too many
For one world, Gawaine; and there may be soon,
For one or other of us, a way out. 1590
As men are listed, we are men for men
To fear; and I fear Modred more than any.
But even the ghost of Modred at the door —
The ghost I should have made him — would employ
For time as hard as this a louder knuckle, 1595
Assuredly now, than that. And I would see
No mortal face till morning…. Well, are you well
Again? Are you as well again as ever?”
He led her slowly on with a cold show
Of care that was less heartening for the Queen 1600
Than anger would have been, into the firelight,
And there he gave her cushions. “Are you warm?”
He said; and she said nothing. “Are you afraid?”
He said again; “are you still afraid of Gawaine?
As often as you think of him and hate him, 1605
Remember too that he betrayed his brothers
To us that he might save us. Well, he saved us;
And Rome, whose name to you was never music,
Saves you again, with heaven alone may tell
What others who might have their time to sleep 1610
In earth out there, with the rain falling on them,
And with no more to fear of wars tonight
Than you need fear of Gawaine or of Arthur.
The way before you is a safer way
For you to follow than when I was in it. 1615
We children who forget the whips of Time,
To live within the hour, are slow to see
That all such hours are passing. They were past
When you came here with me.”
She looked away, 1620
Seeming to read the firelight on the walls
Before she spoke: “When I came here with you,
And found those eyes of yours, I could have wished
And prayed it were the end of hours, and years.
What was it made you save me from the fire, 1625
If only out of memories and forebodings
To build around my life another fire
Of slower faggots? If you had let me die,
Those other faggots would be ashes now,
And all of me that you have ever loved 1630
Would be a few more ashes. If I read
The past as well as you have read the future
You need say nothing of ingratitude,
For I say only lies. My soul, of course,
It was you loved. You told me so yourself. 1635
And that same precious blue-veined cream-white soul
Will soon be safer, if I understand you,
In Camelot, where the King is, than elsewhere
On earth. What more, in faith, have I to ask
Of earth or heaven than that! Although I fell 1640
When you said Camelot, are you to know,
Surely, the stroke you gave me then was not
The measure itself of ecstasy? We women
Are such adept inveterates in our swooning
That we fall down for joy as easily 1645
As we eat one another to show our love.
Even horses, seeing again their absent masters,
Have wept for joy; great dogs have died of it.”
Having said as much as that, she frowned and held
Her small white hands out for the fire to warm them. 1650
Forward she leaned, and forward her thoughts went —
To Camelot. But they were not there long,
Her thoughts; for soon she flashed her eyes again,
And he found in them what he wished were tears
Of angry sorrow for what she had said. 1655
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked;
And all her old incisiveness came back,
With a new thrust of malice, which he felt
And feared. “What are you going to do with me?
What does a child do with a worn-out doll? 1660
I was a child once; and I had a father.
He was a king; and, having royal ways,
He made a queen of me — King Arthur’s queen.
And if that happened, once upon a time,
Why may it not as well be happening now 1665
That I am not a queen? Was I a queen
When first you brought me here with one torn rag
To cover me? Was I overmuch a queen
When I sat up at last, and in a gear
That would have made a bishop dance to Cardiff 1670
To see me wearing it? Was I Queen then?”
“You were the Queen of Christendom,” he said,
Not smiling at her, “whether now or not
You deem it an unchristian exercise
To vilipend the wearing of the vanished. 1675
The women may have reasoned, insecurely,
That what one queen had worn would please another.
I left them to their ingenuities.”
Once more he frowned away a threatening smile,
But soon forgot the memory of all smiling 1680
While he gazed on the glimmering face and hair
Of Guinevere — the glory of white and gold
That had been his, and were, for taking of it,
Still his, to cloud, with an insidious gleam
Of earth, another that was not of earth, 1685
And so to make of him a thing of night —
A moth between a window and a star,
No
t wholly lured by one or led by the other.
The more he gazed upon her beauty there,
The longer was he living in two kingdoms, 1690
Not owning in his heart the king of either,
And ruling not himself. There was an end
Of hours, he told her silent face again,
In silence. On the morning when his fury
Wrenched her from that foul fire in Camelot, 1695
Where blood paid irretrievably the toll
Of her release, the whips of Time had fallen
Upon them both. All this to Guinevere
He told in silence and he told in vain.
Observing her ten fingers variously, 1700
She sighed, as in equivocal assent,
“No two queens are alike.”
“Is that the flower
Of all your veiled invention?” Lancelot said,
Smiling at last: “If you say, saying all that, 1705
You are not like Isolt — well, you are not.
Isolt was a physician, who cured men
Their wounds, and sent them rowelling for more;
Isolt was too dark, and too versatile;
She was too dark for Mark, if not for Tristram. 1710
Forgive me; I was saying that to myself,
And not to make you shiver. No two queens —
Was that it? — are alike? A longer story
Might have a longer telling and tell less.
Your tale’s as brief as Pelleas with his vengeance 1715
On Gawaine, whom he swore that he would slay
At once for stealing of the lady Ettard.”
“Treasure my scantling wits, if you enjoy them;
Wonder a little, too, that I conserve them
Through the eternal memory of one morning, 1720
And in these years of days that are the death
Of men who die for me. I should have died.
I should have died for them.”
“You are wrong,” he said;
“They died because Gawaine went mad with hate 1725
For loss of his two brothers and set the King
On fire with fear, the two of them believing
His fear was vengeance when it was in fact
A royal desperation. They died because
Your world, my world, and Arthur’s world is dying, 1730
As Merlin said it would. No blame is yours;
For it was I who led you from the King —
Or rather, to say truth, it was your glory
That led my love to lead you from the King —
By flowery ways, that always end somewhere, 1735
To fire and fright and exile, and release.
And if you bid your memory now to blot
Works of Edwin Arlington Robinson Page 37
