Idylls of the King | Page 8

of the world,?Strode in, and claimed their tribute as of yore.?But Arthur spake, 'Behold, for these have sworn?To wage my wars, and worship me their King;?The old order changeth, yielding place to new;?And we that fight for our fair father Christ,?Seeing that ye be grown too weak and old?To drive the heathen from your Roman wall,?No tribute will we pay:' so those great lords?Drew back in wrath, and Arthur strove with Rome.
And Arthur and his knighthood for a space?Were all one will, and through that strength the King?Drew in the petty princedoms under him,?Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame?The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reigned.
Gareth and Lynette
The last tall son of Lot and Bellicent,?And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring?Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted Pine?Lost footing, fell, and so was whirled away.?'How he went down,' said Gareth, 'as a false knight?Or evil king before my lance if lance?Were mine to use--O senseless cataract,?Bearing all down in thy precipitancy--?And yet thou art but swollen with cold snows?And mine is living blood: thou dost His will,?The Maker's, and not knowest, and I that know,?Have strength and wit, in my good mother's hall?Linger with vacillating obedience,?Prisoned, and kept and coaxed and whistled to--?Since the good mother holds me still a child!?Good mother is bad mother unto me!?A worse were better; yet no worse would I.?Heaven yield her for it, but in me put force?To weary her ears with one continuous prayer,?Until she let me fly discaged to sweep?In ever-highering eagle-circles up?To the great Sun of Glory, and thence swoop?Down upon all things base, and dash them dead,?A knight of Arthur, working out his will,?To cleanse the world. Why, Gawain, when he came?With Modred hither in the summertime,?Asked me to tilt with him, the proven knight.?Modred for want of worthier was the judge.?Then I so shook him in the saddle, he said,?"Thou hast half prevailed against me," said so--he--?Though Modred biting his thin lips was mute,?For he is alway sullen: what care I?'
And Gareth went, and hovering round her chair?Asked, 'Mother, though ye count me still the child,?Sweet mother, do ye love the child?' She laughed,?'Thou art but a wild-goose to question it.'?'Then, mother, an ye love the child,' he said,?'Being a goose and rather tame than wild,?Hear the child's story.' 'Yea, my well-beloved,?An 'twere but of the goose and golden eggs.'
And Gareth answered her with kindling eyes,?'Nay, nay, good mother, but this egg of mine?Was finer gold than any goose can lay;?For this an Eagle, a royal Eagle, laid?Almost beyond eye-reach, on such a palm?As glitters gilded in thy Book of Hours.?And there was ever haunting round the palm?A lusty youth, but poor, who often saw?The splendour sparkling from aloft, and thought?"An I could climb and lay my hand upon it,?Then were I wealthier than a leash of kings."?But ever when he reached a hand to climb,?One, that had loved him from his childhood, caught?And stayed him, "Climb not lest thou break thy neck,?I charge thee by my love," and so the boy,?Sweet mother, neither clomb, nor brake his neck,?But brake his very heart in pining for it,?And past away.'
To whom the mother said,?'True love, sweet son, had risked himself and climbed,?And handed down the golden treasure to him.'
And Gareth answered her with kindling eyes,?'Gold?' said I gold?--ay then, why he, or she,?Or whosoe'er it was, or half the world?Had ventured--had the thing I spake of been?Mere gold--but this was all of that true steel,?Whereof they forged the brand Excalibur,?And lightnings played about it in the storm,?And all the little fowl were flurried at it,?And there were cries and clashings in the nest,?That sent him from his senses: let me go.'
Then Bellicent bemoaned herself and said,?'Hast thou no pity upon my loneliness??Lo, where thy father Lot beside the hearth?Lies like a log, and all but smouldered out!?For ever since when traitor to the King?He fought against him in the Barons' war,?And Arthur gave him back his territory,?His age hath slowly droopt, and now lies there?A yet-warm corpse, and yet unburiable,?No more; nor sees, nor hears, nor speaks, nor knows.?And both thy brethren are in Arthur's hall,?Albeit neither loved with that full love?I feel for thee, nor worthy such a love:?Stay therefore thou; red berries charm the bird,?And thee, mine innocent, the jousts, the wars,?Who never knewest finger-ache, nor pang?Of wrenched or broken limb--an often chance?In those brain-stunning shocks, and tourney-falls,?Frights to my heart; but stay: follow the deer?By these tall firs and our fast-falling burns;?So make thy manhood mightier day by day;?Sweet is the chase: and I will seek thee out?Some comfortable bride and fair, to grace?Thy climbing life, and cherish my prone year,?Till falling into Lot's forgetfulness?I know not thee, myself, nor anything.?Stay, my best son! ye are yet more boy than man.'
Then Gareth, 'An ye hold me