Idylls of the King | Page 6

there was heard among the holy hymns?A voice as of the waters, for she dwells?Down in a deep; calm, whatsoever storms?May shake the world, and when the surface rolls,?Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord.
'There likewise I beheld Excalibur?Before him at his crowning borne, the sword?That rose from out the bosom of the lake,?And Arthur rowed across and took it--rich?With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt,?Bewildering heart and eye--the blade so bright?That men are blinded by it--on one side,?Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world,?"Take me," but turn the blade and ye shall see,?And written in the speech ye speak yourself,?"Cast me away!" And sad was Arthur's face?Taking it, but old Merlin counselled him,?"Take thou and strike! the time to cast away?Is yet far-off." So this great brand the king?Took, and by this will beat his foemen down.'
Thereat Leodogran rejoiced, but thought?To sift his doubtings to the last, and asked,?Fixing full eyes of question on her face,?'The swallow and the swift are near akin,?But thou art closer to this noble prince,?Being his own dear sister;' and she said,?'Daughter of Gorlois and Ygerne am I;'?'And therefore Arthur's sister?' asked the King.?She answered, 'These be secret things,' and signed?To those two sons to pass, and let them be.?And Gawain went, and breaking into song?Sprang out, and followed by his flying hair?Ran like a colt, and leapt at all he saw:?But Modred laid his ear beside the doors,?And there half-heard; the same that afterward?Struck for the throne, and striking found his doom.
And then the Queen made answer, 'What know I??For dark my mother was in eyes and hair,?And dark in hair and eyes am I; and dark?Was Gorlois, yea and dark was Uther too,?Wellnigh to blackness; but this King is fair?Beyond the race of Britons and of men.?Moreover, always in my mind I hear?A cry from out the dawning of my life,?A mother weeping, and I hear her say,?"O that ye had some brother, pretty one,?To guard thee on the rough ways of the world."'
'Ay,' said the King, 'and hear ye such a cry??But when did Arthur chance upon thee first?'
'O King!' she cried, 'and I will tell thee true:?He found me first when yet a little maid:?Beaten I had been for a little fault?Whereof I was not guilty; and out I ran?And flung myself down on a bank of heath,?And hated this fair world and all therein,?And wept, and wished that I were dead; and he--?I know not whether of himself he came,?Or brought by Merlin, who, they say, can walk?Unseen at pleasure--he was at my side,?And spake sweet words, and comforted my heart,?And dried my tears, being a child with me.?And many a time he came, and evermore?As I grew greater grew with me; and sad?At times he seemed, and sad with him was I,?Stern too at times, and then I loved him not,?But sweet again, and then I loved him well.?And now of late I see him less and less,?But those first days had golden hours for me,?For then I surely thought he would be king.
'But let me tell thee now another tale:?For Bleys, our Merlin's master, as they say,?Died but of late, and sent his cry to me,?To hear him speak before he left his life.?Shrunk like a fairy changeling lay the mage;?And when I entered told me that himself?And Merlin ever served about the King,?Uther, before he died; and on the night?When Uther in Tintagil past away?Moaning and wailing for an heir, the two?Left the still King, and passing forth to breathe,?Then from the castle gateway by the chasm?Descending through the dismal night--a night?In which the bounds of heaven and earth were lost--?Beheld, so high upon the dreary deeps?It seemed in heaven, a ship, the shape thereof?A dragon winged, and all from stern to stern?Bright with a shining people on the decks,?And gone as soon as seen. And then the two?Dropt to the cove, and watched the great sea fall,?Wave after wave, each mightier than the last,?Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep?And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged?Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame:?And down the wave and in the flame was borne?A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet,?Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cried "The King!?Here is an heir for Uther!" And the fringe?Of that great breaker, sweeping up the strand,?Lashed at the wizard as he spake the word,?And all at once all round him rose in fire,?So that the child and he were clothed in fire.?And presently thereafter followed calm,?Free sky and stars: "And this the same child," he said,?"Is he who reigns; nor could I part in peace?Till this were told." And saying this the seer?Went through the strait and dreadful pass of death,?Not ever to be questioned any more?Save on the further