The Last Tournament | Page 5

carcanet.
He dream'd; but Arthur with a hundred spears
Rode far, till o'er the
illimitable reed,
And many a glancing plash and sallowy isle,
The
wide-wing'd sunset of the misty marsh
Glared on a huge
machicolated tower
That stood with open doors, whereout was roll'd

A roar of riot, as from men secure
Amid their marshes, ruffians at
their ease
Among their harlot-brides, an evil song.
"Lo there," said
one of Arthur's youth, for there,
High on a grim dead tree before the
tower,
A goodly brother of The Table Round
Swung by the neck:
and on the boughs a shield
Showing a shower of blood in a field noir,

And therebeside a horn, inflamed the knights
At that dishonor done
the gilded spur,
Till each would clash the shield, and blow the horn.

But Arthur waved them back: alone he rode.
Then at the dry harsh
roar of the great horn,
That sent the face of all the marsh aloft
An ever upward-rushing storm and cloud

Of shriek and plume, the
Red Knight heard, and all,
Even to tipmost lance and topmost helm,

In blood-red armor sallying, howl'd to the King,
"The teeth of Hell

flay bare and gnash thee flat!--
Lo! art thou not that eunuch-hearted
King
Who fain had clipt free manhood from the world--
The
woman-worshipper? Yea, God's curse, and I!
Slain was the brother of
my paramour
By a knight of thine, and I that heard her whine
And
snivel, being eunuch-hearted too,
Sware by the scorpion-worm that
twists in hell,
And stings itself to everlasting death,
To hang
whatever knight of thine I fought
And tumbled. Art thou
King?--Look to thy life!"
He ended: Arthur knew the voice; the face

Wellnigh was helmet-hidden, and the name
Went wandering
somewhere darkling in his mind.
And Arthur deign'd not use of word
or sword,
But let the drunkard, as he stretch'd from horse
To strike
him, overbalancing his bulk,
Down from the causeway heavily to the
swamp
Fall, as the crest of some slow-arching wave
Heard in dead
night along that table-shore
Drops flat, and after the great waters
break
Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves
Far over
sands marbled with moon and cloud.
From less and less to nothing;
thus he fell
Head-heavy, while the knights, who watch'd him, roar'd

And shouted and leapt down upon the fall'n;
There trampled out his
face from being known,
And sank his head in mire, and slimed
themselves:
Nor heard the King for their own cries, but sprang

Thro' open doors, and swording right and left
Men, women, on their
sodden faces, hurl'd
The tables over and the wines, and slew
Till all
the rafters rang with woman-yells,
And all the pavement stream'd
with massacre:
Then, yell with yell echoing, they fired the tower,

Which half that autumn night, like the live North,
Red-pulsing up
thro' Alioth and Alcor,
Made all above it, and a hundred meres

About it, as the water Moab saw
Come round by the East, and out
beyond them flush'd

The long low dune, and lazy-plunging sea.
So all the ways were safe from shore to shore,
But in the heart of
Arthur pain was lord.
Then out of Tristram waking the red dream

Fled with a shout, and that low lodge return'd,
Mid-forest, and the
wind among the boughs.
He whistled his good warhorse left to graze


Among the forest greens, vaulted upon him,
And rode beneath an
ever-showering leaf,
Till one lone woman, weeping near a cross,

Stay'd him, "Why weep ye?" "Lord," she said, "my man
Hath left me
or is dead;" whereon he thought--
"What an she hate me now? I
would not this.
What an she love me still? I would not that.
I know
not what I would"--but said to her,--
"Yet weep not thou, lest, if thy
mate return,
He find thy favor changed and love thee not"--
Then
pressing day by day thro' Lyonesse
Last in a roky hollow, belling,
heard
The hounds of Mark, and felt the goodly hounds
Yelp at his
heart, but, turning, past and gain'd
Tintagil, half in sea, and high on
land,
A crown of towers.
Down in a casement sat,
A low sea-sunset glorying round her hair

And glossy-throated grace, Isolt the Queen.
And when she heard the
feet of Tristram grind
The spiring stone that scaled about her tower,

Flush'd, started, met him at the doors, and there
Belted his body
with her white embrace,
Crying aloud, "Not Mark--not Mark, my soul!

The footstep flutter'd me at first: not he:
Catlike thro' his own
castle steals my Mark,
But warrior-wise thou stridest through his
halls
Who hates thee, as I him--ev'n to the death.
My soul, I felt my
hatred for my Mark
Quicken within me, and knew that thou wert
nigh."
To whom Sir Tristram smiling, "I am here.
Let be thy Mark,
seeing he is not thine."
And drawing somewhat backward she replied,
"Can he be wrong'd
who is not ev'n his own,
But save for dread of thee had beaten me,

Scratch'd, bitten, blinded, marr'd me somehow--Mark?
What rights
are his that dare not strike for them?
Not lift a hand--not, tho' he
found me thus!
But hearken, have ye met him? hence he went

To-day for three days' hunting--as he said--
And so returns belike
within an hour.

Mark's way, my soul!--but eat not thou with him,

Because he hates thee even more