The Last Tournament | Page 6

than fears;
Nor drink: and when
thou passest any wood
Close visor, lest an arrow from the bush


Should leave me all alone with Mark and hell.
My God, the measure
of my hate for Mark
Is as the measure of my love for thee."
So, pluck'd one way by hate and one by love,
Drain'd of her force,
again she sat, and spake
To Tristram, as he knelt before her, saying,

"O hunter, and O blower of the horn,
Harper, and thou hast been a
rover too,
For, ere I mated with my shambling king,
Ye twain had
fallen out about the bride
Of one--his name is out of me--the prize,

If prize she were--(what marvel--she could see)--
Thine, friend; and
ever since my craven seeks
To wreck thee villanously: but, O Sir
Knight,
What dame or damsel have ye kneeled to last?"
And Tristram, "Last to my Queen Paramount,
Here now to my Queen
Paramount of love,
And loveliness, ay, lovelier than when first
Her
light feet fell on our rough Lyonesse,
Sailing from Ireland."
Softly laugh'd Isolt,
"Flatter me not, for hath not our great Queen

My dole of beauty trebled?" and he said,
"Her beauty is her beauty,
and thine thine,
And thine is more to me--soft, gracious, kind--

Save when thy Mark is kindled on thy lips
Most gracious; but she,
haughty, ev'n to him,
Lancelot; for I have seen him wan enow
To
make one doubt if ever the great Queen
Have yielded him her love."
To whom Isolt,
"Ah then, false hunter and false harper, thou
Who
brakest thro' the scruple of my bond,
Calling me thy white hind, and
saying to me
That Guinevere had sinned against the highest,
And
I--misyoked with such a want of man--
That I could hardly sin
against the lowest."
He answer'd, "O my soul, be comforted!
If this be sweet, to sin in
leading-strings,
If here be comfort, and if ours be sin,
Crown'd
warrant had we for the crowning sin
That made us happy: but how ye
greet me--fear
And fault and doubt--no word of that fond tale--
Thy
deep heart-yearnings, thy sweet memories

Of Tristram in that year he

was away."
And, saddening on the sudden, spake Isolt,
"I had forgotten all in my
strong joy
To see thee--yearnings?--ay! for, hour by hour,
Here in
the never-ended afternoon,
O sweeter than all memories of thee,

Deeper than any yearnings after thee
Seem'd those far-rolling,
westward-smiling seas,
Watched from this tower. Isolt of Britain
dash'd
Before Isolt of Brittany on the strand,
Would that have
chill'd her bride-kiss? Wedded her?
Fought in her father's battles?
wounded there?
The King was all fulfill'd with gratefulness,
And
she, my namesake of the hands, that heal'd
Thy hurt and heart with
unguent and caress--
Well--can I wish her any huger wrong
Than
having known thee? her too hast thou left
To pine and waste in those
sweet memories?
O were I not my Mark's, by whom all men
Are
noble, I should hate thee more than love."
And Tristram, fondling her light hands, replied,
"Grace, Queen, for
being loved: she loved me well.
Did I love her? the name at least I
loved.
Isolt?--I fought his battles, for Isolt!
The night was dark; the
true star set. Isolt!
The name was ruler of the dark----Isolt?
Care not
for her! patient, and prayerful, meek,
Pale-blooded, she will yield
herself to God."
And Isolt answer'd, "Yea, and why not I?
Mine is
the larger need, who am not meek,
Pale-blooded, prayerful. Let me
tell thee now.
Here one black, mute midsummer night I sat
Lonely,
but musing on thee, wondering where,
Murmuring a light song I had
heard thee sing,
And once or twice I spake thy name aloud.
Then
flash'd a levin-brand; and near me stood,
In fuming sulphur blue and
green, a fiend--
Mark's way to steal behind one in the dark--
For
there was Mark: 'He has wedded her,' he said,
Not said, but hiss'd it:
then this crown of towers

So shook to such a roar of all the sky,

That here in utter dark I swoon'd away,
And woke again in utter dark,
and cried,
'I will flee hence and give myself to God'--
And thou
wert lying in thy new leman's arms."

Then Tristram, ever dallying with her hand,
"May God be with thee,
sweet, when old and gray,
And past desire!" a saying that anger'd her.

"'May God be with thee, sweet, when thou art old,
And sweet no
more to me!' I need Him now.
For when had Lancelot utter'd aught so
gross
Ev'n to the swineherd's malkin in the mast?
The greater man,
the greater courtesy.
But thou, thro' ever harrying thy wild beasts--

Save that to touch a harp, tilt with a lance
Becomes thee well--art
grown wild beast thyself.
How darest thou, if lover, push me even

In fancy from thy side, and set me far
In the gray distance, half a life
away,
Her to be loved no more? Unsay it, unswear!
Flatter me
rather, seeing me so weak,
Broken with Mark and hate and solitude,

Thy marriage and mine own, that I should suck
Lies like sweet
wines: lie to me: I believe.
Will ye not lie? not swear, as there ye
kneel,
And solemnly as when ye sware to him,
The man of men,
our King--My God, the power
Was once in vows when