The Tale of Balen | Page 9

no man's life
knows love more fair And fruitful of memorial things Than this the
deep dear love that breaks With sense of life on life, and makes The
sundawn sunnier as it wakes Where morning round it rings.
"O brother, O my brother!" cried Each upon each, and cast aside Their
helms unbraced that might not hide From sight of memory single-eyed
The likeness graven of face and face, And kissed and wept upon each
other For joy and pity of either brother, And love engrafted by sire and
mother, God's natural gift of grace.
And each with each took counsel meet For comfort, making sorrow
sweet, And grief a goodly thing to greet: And word from word leapt
light and fleet Till all the venturous tale was told, And how in Balen's
hope it lay To meet the wild Welsh king and slay, And win from Arthur
back for pay The grace he gave of old.
"And thither will not thou with me And win as great a grace for thee?"
"That will I well," quoth Balan: "we Will cleave together, bound and
free, As brethren should, being twain and one." But ere they parted
thence there came A creature withered as with flame, A dwarf mismade
in nature's shame, Between them and the sun.

And riding fleet as fire may glide He found the dead lie side by side,
And wailed and rent his hair and cried, "Who hath done this deed?"
And Balen eyed The strange thing loathfully, and said, "The knight I
slew, who found him fain And keen to slay me: seeing him slain, The
maid I sought to save in vain, Self-stricken, here lies dead.
"Sore grief was mine to see her die, And for her true faith's sake shall I
Love, and with love of heart more high, All women better till I die."
"Alas," the dwarf said, "ill for thee In evil hour this deed was done: For
now the quest shall be begun Against thee, from the dawning sun Even
to the sunset sea.
"From shore to mountain, dawn to night, The kinsfolk of this great dead
knight Will chase thee to thy death." A light Of swift blithe scorn
flashed answer bright As fire from Balen's eye. "For that, Small fear
shall fret my heart," quoth he: "But that my lord the king should be For
this dead man's sake wroth with me, Weep might it well thereat."
Then murmuring passed the dwarf away, And toward the knights in fair
array Came riding eastward up the way From where the flower-soft
lowlands lay A king whose name the sweet south-west Held high in
honour, and the land That bowed beneath his gentle hand Wore on its
wild bright northern strand Tintagel for a crest.
And Balen hailed with homage due King Mark of Cornwall, when he
knew The pennon that before him flew: And for those lovers dead and
true The king made moan to hear their doom; And for their sorrow's
sake he sware To seek in all the marches there The church that man
might find most fair And build therein their tomb.

V

As thought from thought takes wing and flies, As month on month with
sunlit eyes Tramples and triumphs in its rise, As wave smites wave to
death and dies, So chance on hurtling chance like steel Strikes, flashes,
and is quenched, ere fear Can whisper hope, or hope can hear, If sorrow
or joy be far or near For time to hurt or heal.
Swift as a shadow and strange as light That cleaves in twain the
shadow of night Before the wide-winged word takes flight That thunder
speaks to depth and height And quells the quiet hour with sound, There
came before King Mark and stood Between the moorside and the wood

The man whose word God's will made good, Nor guile was in it found.
And Merlin said to Balen: "Lo, Thou hast wrought thyself a grievous
woe To let this lady die, and know Thou mightst have stayed her
deadly blow." And Balen answered him and said, "Nay, by my truth to
faith, not I, So fiercely fain she was to die; Ere well her sword had
flashed on high, Self-slain she lay there dead."
Again and sadly Merlin spake: "My heart is wrung for this deed's sake,
To know thee therefore doomed to take Upon thine hand a curse, and
make Three kingdoms pine through twelve years' change, In want and
woe: for thou shalt smite The man most noble and truest knight That
looks upon the live world's light A dolorous stroke and strange.
"And not till years shall round their goal May this man's wound thou
hast given be whole." And Balen, stricken through the soul By