MARRIAGE MORNING. LIGHT, So low upon earth, You send a flash to the sun. Here is the golden close of love, All my wooing is done. O the woods and the meadows, Woods where we hid from the wet, Stiles where we stay'd to be kind, Meadows in which we met ! Light, so low in the vale, You flash and lighten afar : For this is the golden morning of love, And you are his morning star. Flash, I am coming, I come, By meadow and stile and wood: O lighten into my eyes and my heart, Into my heart and my blood! Heart, are you great enough For a love that never tires? O heart, are you great enough for love! I have heard of thorns and bries. Over the thorns and briers, Over the meadows and stiles, Over the world to the end of it Flash for a million miles. THE LAST TOURNAMENT. DAGONET, the fool, whom Gawain in his Had made mock-knight of Arthur's Table At Camelot, high above the yellowing Danced like a wither'd leaf before the Hall. And from the crown thereof a carcanet For Arthur and Sir Lancelot riding once Far down beneath a winding wall of rock Heard a child wail. A stump of oak half-dead, From roots like some black coil of carven snakes Clutch'd at the crag, and started thro' mid-air Bearing an eagle's nest : and thro' the tree Rush'd ever a rainy wind, and thro' the wind Pierced ever a child's cry: and crag and tree Scaling, Sir Lancelot from the perilous nest, This ruby necklace thrice around her neck, And all unscarr'd from beak or talon, brought A maiden babe; which Arthur pitying took, Then gave it to his Queen to rear the Queen But coldly acquiescing, in her white arms A moment, and her cares; till that Past from her; and in time the carcanet So she, delivering it to Arthur, said, And make them, an thou wilt, a tourney- To whom the King, "Peace to thine eagle-borne Dead nestling, and this honor after death, Following thy will! but, O my Queen, I muse Why ye not wear on arm, or neck, or zone, Those diamonds that I rescued from the tarn, And Lancelot won, methought, for thee to wear." "Would rather ye had let them fall," she cried, 'Plunge and be lost- ill-fated as they were, A bitterness to me ! - ye look amazed, Not knowing they were lost as soon as given Slid from my hands, when I was leaning Hath drawn his claws athwart thy face? | Thieves, bandits, leavings of confusion, or fiend? Man was it who marr'd Heaven's image in thee thus ?" whom The wholesome realm is purged of otherwhere, Friends, thro' your manhood and your fealty, now Make their last head like Satan in the North. My younger knights, new-made, in whom your flower Waits to be solid fruit of golden deeds, Move with me toward their quelling, which achieved, The loneliest ways are safe from shore to shore. But thou, Sir Lancelot, sitting in my place Enchair'd to-morrow, arbitrate the field; For wherefore shouldst thou care to mingle with it, Only to yield my Queen her own again? Speak, Lancelot, thou art silent: is it well?" have I dream'd the bearing of our knights Tells of a manhood ever less and lower! Or whence the fear lest this my realm, uprear'd, By noble deeds at one with noble vows, From flat confusion and brute violences, Reel back into the beast, and be no more?" He spoke, and taking all his younger knights, Down the slope city rode, and sharply turn'd North by the gate. In her high bower | Sat their great umpire, looking o'er the the Queen, Working a tapestry, lifted up her head, Watch'd her lord pass, and knew not that she sigh'd. Then ran across her memory the strange rhyme Of bygone Merlin, "Where is he who knows? From the great deep to the great deep he goes." But when the morning of a tournament, By these in earnest, those in mockery, call'd lists. He saw the laws that ruled the tournament Broken, but spake not; once, a knight cast down Before his throne of arbitration cursed The dead babe and the follies of the King; And once the laces of a helmet crack'd, And show'd him, like a vermin in its hole, Modred, a narrow face anon he heard The voice that billow'd round the bar riers roar An ocean-sounding welcome to one knight, But newly-enter'd, taller than the rest, The Tournament of the Dead Innocence, And armor'd all in forest green, whereon Brake with a wet wind blowing, Lance-There tript a hundred tiny silver deer, sad steps And wearing but a holly-spray for crest, With ever-scattering berries, and on shield A spear, a harp, a bugle - Tristram late From overseas in Brittany return'd, And marriage with a princess of that realm, Whom Lancelot knew, had held sometime with pain Ascending, fill'd his double-dragon'd His own against him, and now yearn'd chair. He glanced and saw the stately galleries, Dame, damsel, each thro' worship of their Queen White-robed in honor of the stainless child, And some with scatter'd jewels, like a bank Of maiden snow mingled with sparks of fire. He lookt but once, and veil'd his eyes again. The sudden trumpet sounded as in a dream To ears but half-awaked, then one low roll Of Autumn thunder, and the jousts began: And ever the wind blew, and yellowing leaf And gloom and gleam, and shower and shorn plume Went down it. Sighing weariedly, as one Who sits and gazes on a faded fire, When all the goodlier guests are past away, to shake Tristram, half plagued by Lancelot's languorous mood, Made answer, 66 'Ay, but wherefore toss me this Like a dry bonc cast to some hungry hound? Let be thy fair Queen's fantasy. Strength of heart And might of limb, but mainly use and skill, Are winners in this pastime of our King. My hand-belike the lance hath dript upon it No blood of mine, I trow; but O chief knight, Right arm of Arthur in the battlefield, Great brother, thou nor I have made the world; Be happy in thy fair Queen as I in mine." High over all the yellowing Autumn-tide, Danced like a wither'd leaf before the hall. Then Tristram saying, "Why skip ye so, Sir Fool? Wheel'd round on either heel, Dagonet replied, "Belike for lack of wiser company ; Or being fool, and seeing too much wit Makes the world rotten, why, belike I skip To know myself the wisest knight of all.' "Ay, fool," said Tristram, "but 't is eating dry To dance without a catch, a roundelay To dance to." Then he twangled on his harp, And while he twangled little Dagonet stood, Quiet as any water-sodden log Stay'd in the wandering warble of a brook; But when the twangling ended, skipt again; Then being ask'd, "Why skipt ye not Sir Fool?" Made answer, "I had liefer twenty years Skip to the broken music of my brains Than any broken music ye can make," |