The Last Tournament | Page 7

men believed
the King!
They lied not then, who sware, and thro' their vows
The
King prevailing made his realm:--I say,
Swear to me thou wilt love
me ev'n when old,
Gray-haired, and past desire, and in despair."
Then Tristram, pacing moodily up and down,
"Vows! did ye keep the
vow ye made to Mark
More than I mine? Lied, say ye? Nay, but
learnt,
The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself--
My knighthood
taught me this--ay, being snapt--
We run more counter to the soul
thereof
Than had we never sworn. I swear no more.
I swore to the
great King, and am forsworn.
For once--ev'n to the height--I honor'd
him.
'Man, is he man at all?' methought, when first
I rode from our
rough Lyonesse, and beheld
That victor of the Pagan throned in hall--

His hair, a sun that ray'd from off a brow
Like hillsnow high in
heaven, the steel-blue eyes,

The golden beard that clothed his lips
with light--
Moreover, that weird legend of his birth,
With Merlin's
mystic babble about his end,
Amazed me; then, his foot was on a
stool
Shaped as a dragon; he seem'd to me no man,
But Michael
trampling Satan; so I sware,
Being amazed: but this went by--the

vows!
O ay--the wholesome madness of an hour--
They served their
use, their time; for every knight
Believed himself a greater than
himself,
And every follower eyed him as a God;
Till he, being lifted
up beyond himself,
Did mightier deeds than elsewise he had done,

And so the realm was made; but then their vows--
First mainly thro'
that sullying of our Queen--
Began to gall the knighthood, asking
whence
Had Arthur right to bind them to himself?
Dropt down
from heaven? wash'd up from out the deep?
They fail'd to trace him
thro' the flesh and blood
Of our old Kings: whence then? a doubtful
lord
To bind them by inviolable vows,
Which flesh and blood
perforce would violate:
For feel this arm of mine--the tide within

Red with free chase and heather-scented air,
Pulsing full man; can
Arthur make me pure
As any maiden child? lock up my tongue

From uttering freely what I freely hear?
Bind me to one? The great
world laughs at it.
And worldling of the world am I, and know
The
ptarmigan that whitens ere his hour
Wooes his own end; we are not
angels here
Nor shall be: vows--I am woodman of the woods,
And
hear the garnet-headed yaffingale
Mock them: my soul, we love but
while we may;
And therefore is my love so large for thee,
Seeing it
is not bounded save by love."
Here ending, he moved toward her, and she said,
"Good: an I turn'd
away my love for thee
To some one thrice as courteous as thyself--

For courtesy wins woman all as well
As valor may--but he that closes
both
Is perfect, he is Lancelot--taller indeed,
Rosier, and comelier,
thou--but say I loved
This knightliest of all knights, and cast thee
back
Thine own small saw 'We love but while we may,'
Well then,
what answer?"
He that while she spake,

Mindful of what he brought to adorn her
with,
The jewels, had let one finger lightly touch
The warm white
apple of her throat, replied,
"Press this a little closer, sweet, until--

Come, I am hunger'd and half-anger'd--meat,
Wine, wine--and I will

love thee to the death,
And out beyond into the dream to come."
So then, when both were brought to full accord,
She rose, and set
before him all he will'd;
And after these had comforted the blood

With meats and wines, and satiated their hearts--
Now talking of their
woodland paradise,
The deer, the dews, the fern, the founts, the lawns;

Now mocking at the much ungainliness,
And craven shifts, and
long crane legs of Mark--
Then Tristram laughing caught the harp,
and sang:
"Ay, ay, O ay--the winds that bend the brier!
A star in heaven, a star
within the mere!
Ay, ay, O ay--a star was my desire,
And one was
far apart, and one was near:
Ay, ay, O ay--the winds that bow the
grass!
And one was water and one star was fire,
And one will ever
shine and one will pass.
Ay, ay, O ay--the winds that move the mere."
Then in the light's last glimmer Tristram show'd
And swung the ruby
carcanet. She cried,
"The collar of some order, which our King

Hath newly founded, all for thee, my soul,
For thee, to yield thee
grace beyond thy peers."
"Not so, my Queen," he said, "but the red
fruit
Grown on a magic oak-tree in mid-heaven,
And won by
Tristram as a tourney-prize,
And hither brought by Tristram for his
last
Love-offering and peace-offering unto thee."
He rose, he turn'd, and flinging round her neck,
Claspt it; but while he
bow'd himself to lay
Warm kisses in the hollow of her throat,
Out
of the dark, just as the lips had touch'd,
Behind him rose a shadow
and a shriek--
"Mark's way," said Mark, and clove him thro' the brain.
That night came Arthur home, and while he climb'd,
All in a
death-dumb autumn-dripping gloom,
The stairway to the hall, and
look'd and saw
The great Queen's bower was dark,--about his feet
A
voice clung sobbing till he question'd it,
"What art thou?" and the
voice about his feet
Sent