The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems | Page 7

rather
Arthur, God would not let die,
I hoped, these many years; he should grow great, And in his great arms
still encircle me, Kissing my face, half blinded with the heat Of king's
love for the queen I used to be.
Launcelot, Launcelot, why did he take your hand, When he had kissed
me in his kingly way? Saying: This is the knight whom all the land
Calls Arthur's banner, sword, and shield to-day;
Cherish him, love. Why did your long lips cleave In such strange way
unto my fingers then? So eagerly glad to kiss, so loath to leave When
you rose up? Why among helmed men
Could I always tell you by your long strong arms, And sway like an
angel's in your saddle there? Why sicken'd I so often with alarms Over
the tilt-yard? Why were you more fair
Than aspens in the autumn at their best? Why did you fill all lands with
your great fame, So that Breuse even, as he rode, fear'd lest At turning
of the way your shield should flame?

Was it nought then, my agony and strife? When as day passed by day,
year after year, I found I could not live a righteous life! Didst ever think
queens held their truth for dear?
O, but your lips say: Yea, but she was cold Sometimes, always
uncertain as the spring; When I was sad she would be overbold,
Longing for kisses. When war-bells did ring,
The back-toll'd bells of noisy Camelot. 'Now, Lord God, listen! listen,
Guenevere, Though I am weak just now, I think there's not A man who
dares to say: You hated her,
And left her moaning while you fought your fill In the daisied
meadows! lo you her thin hand, That on the carven stone can not keep
still, Because she loves me against God's command,
Has often been quite wet with tear on tear, Tears Launcelot keeps
somewhere, surely not In his own heart, perhaps in Heaven, where He
will not be these ages.' 'Launcelot!
Loud lips, wrung heart! I say when the bells rang, The noisy back-toll'd
bells of Camelot, There were two spots on earth, the thrushes sang In
the lonely gardens where my love was not,
Where I was almost weeping; I dared not Weep quite in those days, lest
one maid should say, In tittering whispers: Where is Launcelot To wipe
with some kerchief those tears away?
Another answer sharply with brows knit, And warning hand up,
scarcely lower though: You speak too loud, see you, she heareth it,
This tigress fair has claws, as I well know,
As Launcelot knows too, the poor knight! well-a-day! Why met he not
with Iseult from the West, Or better still, Iseult of Brittany? Perchance
indeed quite ladyless were best.
Alas, my maids, you loved not overmuch Queen Guenevere, uncertain
as sunshine In March; forgive me! for my sin being such, About my

whole life, all my deeds did twine,
Made me quite wicked; as I found out then, I think; in the lonely palace
where each morn We went, my maids and I, to say prayers when They
sang mass in the chapel on the lawn.
And every morn I scarce could pray at all, For Launcelot's red-golden
hair would play, Instead of sunlight, on the painted wall, Mingled with
dreams of what the priest did say;
Grim curses out of Peter and of Paul; Judging of strange sins in
Leviticus; Another sort of writing on the wall, Scored deep across the
painted heads of us.
Christ sitting with the woman at the well, And Mary Magdalen
repenting there, Her dimmed eyes scorch'd and red at sight of hell So
hardly 'scaped, no gold light on her hair.
And if the priest said anything that seemed To touch upon the sin they
said we did, (This in their teeth) they looked as if they deem'd That I
was spying what thoughts might be hid
Under green-cover'd bosoms, heaving quick Beneath quick thoughts;
while they grew red with shame, And gazed down at their feet: while I
felt sick, And almost shriek'd if one should call my name.
The thrushes sang in the lone garden there: But where you were the
birds were scared I trow: Clanging of arms about pavilions fair, Mixed
with the knights' laughs; there, as I well know,
Rode Launcelot, the king of all the band, And scowling Gauwaine, like
the night in day, And handsome Gareth, with his great white hand
Curl'd round the helm-crest, ere he join'd the fray;
And merry Dinadan with sharp dark face, All true knights loved to see;
and in the fight Great Tristram, and though helmed you could trace In
all his bearing the frank noble knight;

And by him Palomydes, helmet off, He fought, his