And Modred whom he left in charge of all,
The traitor-ah, sweet lady, the King's grief
For his own self, and his own Queen, and realm,
Must needs be thrice as great as any of ours.
For me, I thank the saints I am not great.
For if there ever come a grief to me
I cry my cry in silence, and have done:

When three gray linnets wrangle for the seed:
And still at evenings on before his horse
The flickering fairy-circle wheeled and broke
Flying, and linked again, and wheeled and broke
Flying, for all the land was full of life.
And when at last he came to Camelot,
A wreath of airy dancers hand-in-hand

good.

But even were the griefs of little ones

As great as those of great ones, yet this grief
Is added to the griefs the great must bear,
That howsoever much they may desire
Silence, they cannot weep behind a cloud:
As even here they talk at Almesbury
About the good King and his wicked Queen,
And were I such a King with such a Queen,
Well might I wish to veil her wickedness,
But were I such a King, it could not be."

Then to her own sad heart muttered the Queen, "Will the child kill me with her innocent talk?"

But openly she answered, "Must not I,
If this false traitor have displaced his lord,
Grieve with the common grief of all the realm?”

"Yea," said the maid, "this is all woman's grief,

That she is woman, whose disloyal life

Hath wrought confusion in the Table Round Which good King Arthur founded, years ago, With signs and miracles and wonders, there At Camelot, ere the coming of the Queen."

Then thought the Queen within herself again, "Will the child kill me with her foolish prate? But openly she spake and said to her:

"O little maid, shut in by nunnery walls,
What canst thou know of Kings and Tables
Round,

Or what of signs and wonders, but the signs
And simple miracles of thy nunnery?"

To whom the little novice garrulously:
"Yea, but I know: the land was full of signs
And wonders ere the coming of the Queen.
So said my father, and himself was knight
Of the great Table-at the founding of it:
And rode thereto from Lyonnesse, and he said
That as he rode, an hour or may be twain
After the sunset, down the coast, he heard
Strange music, and he paused and turning-
there,

All down the lonely coast of Lyonnesse,
Each with a beacon-star upon his head,
And with a wild sea-light about his feet,
He saw them-headland after headland flame
Far on into the rich heart of the west:
And in the light the white mermaiden swam,
And strong man-breasted things stood from the

sea,

And sent a deep sea-voice through all the land,
To which the little elves of chasm and cleft
Made answer, sounding like a distant horn.
So said my father-yea, and furthermore,
Next morning, while he passed the dim-lit woods,
Himself beheld three spirits mad with joy
Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower,
That shook beneath them, as the thistle shakes

And in the hall itself was such a feast
As never man had dreamed; for every knight
Had whatsoever meat he longed for served
By hands unseen; and even as he said
Down in the cellars merry, bloated things
Shouldered the spigot, straddling on the butts
While the wine ran: so glad were spirits and men
Before the coming of the sinful Queen."

Then spake the Queen, and somewhat bitterly: "Were they so glad? ill prophets were they all, Spirits and men: could none of them foresee, Not even thy wise father with his signs And wonders, what has fall'n upon the realm?"

To whom the novice garrulousy again: "Yea, one, a bard; of whom my father said, Full many a noble war-song had he sung, Even in the presence of an enemy's fleet, Between the steep cliff and the coming wave; And many a mystic lay of life and death Had chanted on the smoky mountain-tops, When round him bent the spirits of the hills With all their dewy hair blown back like flame: So said my father-and that night the bard Sang Arthur's glorious wars, and sang the King As wellnigh more than man, and railed at those Who called him the false son of Gorloïs: For there was no man knew from whence he

came;

But after tempest, when the long wave broke
All down the thundering shores of Bude and
Bos,

There came a day as still as heaven, and then
They found a naked child upon the sands
Of dark Dundagil by the Cornish sea;
And that was Arthur; and they fostered him
Till he by miracle was approven king:
And that his grave should be a mystery
From all men, like his birth; and could he find
A woman in her womanhood as great
As he was in his manhood, then, he sang,
The twain together well-might change the world.
But even in the middle of his song

He faltered, and his hand feil from the harp, And pale he turned, and reeled, and would have fall'n,

But that they stayed him up; nor would he tell His vision; but what doubt that he foresaw This evil work of Lancelot and the Queen?"

Then thought the Queen, "Lo! they have set her on,

Our simple seeming abbess and her nuns,
To play upon me," and bowed her head nor
spake.

Whereat the novice crying, with clasped hands,
Shame on her own garrulity garrulously,
Said the good nuns would check her gadding

tongue

Full often, "And, sweet lady, if I seem To vex an ear too sad to listen to me,

And knowest thou now from whence I comefrom him,

From waging bitter war with him and he,
That did not shun to smite me in worse way,
Had yet that grace of courtesy in him left,
He spared to lift his hand against the King
Who made him knight; but many a knight was
slain;

And many more, and all his kith and kin
Clave to him, and abode in his own land.
And many more when Modred raised revolt,
Forgetful of their troth and fealty, clave
To Modred, and a remnant stays with me.
And of this remnant will I leave a part,
True men who love me still, for whom I live,
To guard thee in the wild hour coming on,
Lest but a hair of this low head be harmed.
Fear not thou shalt be guarded till my death.
Howbeit I know, if ancient prophecies
Have erred not, that I march to meet my doom.
Thou hast not made my life so sweet to me,
That I the King should greatly care to live;
For thou hast spoiled the purpose of my life.
Bear with me for the last time while I show,
Ev'n for thy sake, the sin which thou hast
sinned.

For when the Roman left us, and their law
Relaxed its hold upon us, and the ways
Were filled with rapine, here and there a deed
Of prowess done redressed a random wrong.
But I was first of all the kings who drew
The knighthood-errant of this realm and all
The realms together under me, their Head,
In that fair order of my Table Round,
A glorious company, the flower of men,
To serve as model for the mighty world,
And be the fair beginning of a time.

I made them lay their hands in mine and swear
To reverence the King, as if he were

Their conscience, and their conscience as their
King,

To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it,
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,
To love one maiden only, cleave to her,
And worship her by years of noble deeds,
Until they won her; for indeed I knew
Of no more subtle master under heaven
Than is the maiden passion for a maid,
Not only to keep down the base in man,
But teach high thought, and amiable words
And courtliness, and the desire of fame,
And love of truth, and all that makes a man.
And all this throve until I wedded thee!
Believing, 'lo mine help-mate, one to feel
My purpose and rejoicing in my joy.'
Then came thy shameful sin with Lancelot ;
Then came the sin of Tristram and Isolt;
Then others, following these my mightiest
knights,

And drawing foul ensample from fair names,
Sinned also, till the loathsome opposite
Of all my heart had destined did obtain,
And all through thee! so that this life of mine
I guard as God's high gift from scathe and
wrong,

Not greatly care to lose; but rather think
How sad it were for Arthur, should he live,
To sit once more within his lonely hall,

And miss the wonted number of my knights,
And miss to hear high talk of noble deeds
As in the golden days before thy sin.
For which of us, who might be left, could speak
Of the pure heart, nor seem to glance at thee?
And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Usk
Thy shadow still would glide from room to room,
And I should evermore be vexed with thee
In hanging robe or vacant ornament,
Or ghostly footfall echoing on the stair.
For think not, though thou wouldst not love thy
lord,

Thy lord has wholly lost his love for thee.
I am not made of so slight elements.
Yet must I leave thee, woman, to thy shame.
I hold that man the worst of public foes
Who either for his own or children's sake,
To save his blood from scandal, lets the wife
Whom he knows false, abide and rule the house:
For being through his cowardice allowed
Her station, taken everywhere for pure,
She like a new disease, unknown to men,
Creeps, no precaution used, among the crowd,
Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes, and saps
The fealty of our friends, and stirs the pulse
With devil's leaps, and poisons half the young.
Worst of the worst were that man he that reigns!
Better the king's waste hearth and aching heart
Than thou reseated in thy place of light,
The mockery of my people, and their bane."

Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee,
Made my tears burn-is also past, in part.
And all is past, the sin is sinned, and I,
Lo! I forgive thee, as Eternal God
Forgives do thou for thine own soul the rest.
But how to take last leave of all I loved?
O golden hair, with which I used to play
Not knowing! O imperial-moulded form,
And beauty such as never woman wore,
Until it came a kingdom's curse with thee-
I cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine,
But Lancelot's: nay, they never were the King's.
I cannot take thy hand; that too is flesh,
And in the flesh thou hast sinned; and mine own
flesh,

Here looking down on thine polluted, cries,
'I loathe thee;' yet not less, O Guinevere,
For I was ever virgin save for thee,
My love through flesh hath wrought into my life
So far, that my doom is, I love thee still.
Let no man dream but that I love thee still.
Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul,

And so thou lean on our fair father Christ,
Hereafter in that world where all are pure
We two may meet before high God, and thou
Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine, and know
I am thine husband-not a smaller soul,
Nor Lancelot, nor another. Leave me that,
I charge thee, my last hope. Now must I hence.
Through the thick night I hear the trumpet
blow:

They summon me their King to lead mine hosts
Far down to that great battle in the west,
Where I must strike against my sister's son,
Leagued with the lords of the White Horse and
knights

Once mine, and strike him dead, and meet myself
Death, or I know not what mysterious doom.
And thou remaining here wilt learn the event;
But hither shall I never come again,
Never lie by thy side, see thee no more,
Farewell!"

And while she grovelled at his feet,
She felt the King's breath wander o'er her neck,
And, in the darkness o'er her fallen head,
Perceived the waving of his hands that blessed.

Then, listening till those armèd steps were gone,

Rose the pale Queen, and in her anguish found
The casement: "Peradventure," so she thought,
"If I might see his face, and not be seen."
And lo! he sat on horseback at the door!
And near him the sad nuns with each a light
Stood, and he gave them charge about the Queen,
To guard and foster her for evermore.
And while he spake to these his helm was
lowered,

To which for crest the golden dragon clung
Of Britain; so she did not see the face,
Which then was as an angel's, but she saw,
Wet with the mists and smitten by the lights,
The Dragon of the great Pendragon-ship
Blaze, making all the night a stream of fire.
And even then he turned: and more and more
The moony vapor rolling round the King,
Who seemed the phantom of a Giant in it,
Enwound him fold by fold, and made him gray
And grayer, till himself became as mist
Before her, moving ghostlike to his doom.

Then she stretched out her arms and cried aloud,

"O Arthur!" there her voice brake suddenly, Then as a stream that spouting from a cliff Fails in mid-air, but gathering at the base Remakes itself, and flashes down the valeWent on in passionate utterance:

"Gone-my lord! Gone through my sin to slay and to be slain! And he forgave me, and I could not speak. Farewell? I should have answered his farewell. His mercy choked me. Gone, my lord the King, My own true lord! how dare I call him mine? The shadow of another cleaves to me, And makes me one pollution: he, the King, Called me polluted: shall I kill myself? What help in that? I cannot kill my sin, If soul be soul; nor can I kill my shame; No, nor by living can I live it down.

411

The months will add themselves and make the years,

The years will roll into the centuries,
And mine will ever be a name of scorn.

I must not dwell on that defeat of fame.
Let the world be; that is but of the world.
What else? what hope? I think there was a
hope,

Except he mocked me when he spake of hope;
His hope he called it; but he never mocks,
For mockery is the fume of little hearts.
And blessed be the King, who hath forgiven
My wickedness to him, and left me hope
That in mine own heart I can live down sin
And be his mate hereafter in the heavens
Before high God. Ah, great and gentle lord,
Who wast, as is the conscience of a saint
Among his warring senses, to thy knights-
To whom my false voluptuous pride, that took
Full easily all impressions from below,
Would not look up, or half-despised the height
To which I would not or I could not climb
I thought I could not breathe in that fine air
That pure severity of perfect light-

I wanted warmth and color which I found
In Lancelot-now I see thee what thou art,
Thou art the highest and most human too,
Not Lancelot, nor another. Is there none
Will tell the King I love him though so late?
Now-ere he goes to the great battle? none:
Myself must tell him in that purer life,
But now it were too daring. Ah, my God,
What might I not have made of thy fair world,
Had I but loved thy highest creature here?
It was my duty to have loved the highest :
It surely was my profit had I known:
It would have been my pleasure had I seen.
We needs must love the highest when we see it,
Not Lancelot, nor another."

Here her hand

"Ye know me then, that wicked one, who broke

The vast design and purpose of the King.
Oh, shut me round with narrowing nunnery-walls,
Meek maidens, from the voices crying 'Shame.'
I must not scorn myself: he loves me still.
Let no one dream but that he loves me still.
So let me, if you do not shudder at me
Nor shun to call me sister, dwell with you;
Wear black and white, and be a nun like you;
Fast with your fasts, not feasting with your

feasts;

Grieve with your griefs, not grieving at your joys,
But not rejoicing; mingle with your rites;
Pray and be prayed for; lie before your shrines;
Do each low office of your holy house;
Walk your dim cloister and distribute dole
To poor sick people, richer in his eyes
Who ransomed us, and haler too than I;