The Last Tournament | Page 2

all adulterers like his own,?But mine are truer, seeing they profess?To be none other; and say his hour is come,?The heathen are upon him, his long lance?Broken, and his Excalibur a straw.'"
Then Arthur turn'd to Kay the seneschal,?"Take thou my churl, and tend him curiously?Like a king's heir, till all his hurts be whole.?The heathen--but that ever-climbing wave,?Hurl'd back again so often in empty foam,?Hath lain for years at rest--and renegades,?Thieves, bandits, leavings of confusion, 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?"

Thereto Sir Lancelot answer'd, "It is well:?Yet better if the King abide, and leave?The leading of his younger knights to me.?Else, for the King has will'd it, it is well."

Then Arthur rose and Lancelot follow'd him,?And while they stood without the doors, the King?Turn'd to him saying, "Is it then so well??Or mine the blame that oft I seem as he?Of whom was written, 'a sound is in his ears'--?The foot that loiters, bidden go,--the glance?That only seems half-loyal to command,--?A manner somewhat fall'n from reverence--?Or 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 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?The Tournament of the Dead Innocence,?Brake with a wet wind blowing, Lancelot,?Round whose sick head all night, like birds of prey,?The words of Arthur flying shriek'd, arose,?And down a streetway hung with folds of pure?White samite, and by fountains running wine,?Where children sat in white with cups of gold,?Moved to the lists, and there, with slow sad steps?Ascending, fill'd his double-dragon'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,?Sat their great umpire, looking o'er the 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 barriers roar?An ocean-sounding welcome to one knight,?But newly-enter'd, taller than the rest,?And armor'd all in forest green, whereon?There tript a hundred tiny silver deer,?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,?Isolt the White--Sir Tristram of the Woods--?Whom Lancelot knew, had held sometime with pain?His own against him, and now yearn'd to shake?The burthen off his heart in one full shock?With Tristram ev'n to death: his strong hands gript?And dinted the gilt dragons right and left,?Until he groan'd for wrath--so many of those,?That ware their ladies' colors on the casque,?Drew from before Sir Tristram to the bounds,?And there with gibes and nickering mockeries?Stood, while he mutter'd, "Craven chests! O shame!?What faith have these in whom they sware to love??The glory of our Round Table is no more."

So Tristram won, and Lancelot gave, the gems,?Not speaking other word than "Hast thou won??Art thou the purest, brother? See, the hand?Wherewith thou takest this is red!" to whom?Tristram, half plagued by Lancelot's languorous mood,?Made answer, "Ay, but wherefore toss me this?Like a dry bone 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