| SIR LAMORAK, the man of oak and iron, | |
| Had with him now, as a care-laden guest, | |
| Sir Bedivere, a man whom Arthur loved | |
| As he had loved no man save Lancelot. | |
| Like one whose late-flown shaft of argument | 220 |
| Had glanced and fallen afield innocuously, | |
| He turned upon his host a sudden eye | |
| That met from Lamorak’s an even shaft | |
| Of native and unused authority; | |
| And each man held the other till at length | 225 |
| Each turned away, shutting his heavy jaws | |
| Again together, prisoning thus two tongues | |
| That might forget and might not be forgiven. | |
| Then Bedivere, to find a plain way out, | |
| Said, “Lamorak, let us drink to some one here, | 230 |
| And end this dryness. Who shall it be—the King, | |
| The Queen, or Lancelot?”—“Merlin,” Lamorak growled; | |
| And then there were more wrinkles round his eyes | |
| Than Bedivere had said were possible. | |
| “There’s no refusal in me now for that,” | 235 |
| The guest replied; “so, ‘Merlin’ let it be. | |
| We’ve not yet seen him, but if he be here, | |
| And even if he should not be here, say ‘Merlin.’” | |
| They drank to the unseen from two new tankards, | |
| And fell straightway to sighing for the past, | 240 |
| And what was yet before them. Silence laid | |
| A cogent finger on the lips of each | |
| Impatient veteran, whose hard hands lay clenched | |
| And restless on his midriff, until words | |
| Were stronger than strong Lamorak: | 245 |
| |
| “Bedivere,” | |
| Began the solid host, “you may as well | |
| Say now as at another time hereafter | |
| That all your certainties have bruises on ’em, | |
| And all your pestilent asseverations | 250 |
| Will never make a man a salamander— | |
| Who’s born, as we are told, so fire won’t bite him,— | |
| Or a slippery queen a nun who counts and burns | |
| Herself to nothing with her beads and candles. | |
| There’s nature, and what’s in us, to be sifted | 255 |
| Before we know ourselves, or any man | |
| Or woman that God suffers to be born. | |
| That’s how I speak; and while you strain your mazard, | |
| Like Father Jove, big with a new Minerva, | |
| We’ll say, to pass the time, that I speak well. | 260 |
| God’s fish! The King had eyes; and Lancelot | |
| Won’t ride home to his mother, for she’s dead. | |
| The story is that Merlin warned the King | |
| Of what’s come now to pass; and I believe it | |
| And Arthur, he being Arthur and a king, | 265 |
| Has made a more pernicious mess than one, | |
| We’re told, for being so great and amorous: | |
| It’s that unwholesome and inclement cub | |
| Young Modred I’d see first in hell before | |
| I’d hang too high the Queen or Lancelot; | 270 |
| The King, if one may say it, set the pace, | |
| And we’ve two strapping bastards here to prove it. | |
| Young Borre, he’s well enough; but as for Modred, | |
| I squirm as often as I look at him. | |
| And there again did Merlin warn the King, | 275 |
| The story goes abroad; and I believe it.” | |
| |
| Sir Bedivere, as one who caught no more | |
| Than what he would of Lamorak’s outpouring, | |
| Inclined his grizzled head and closed his eyes | |
| Before he sighed and rubbed his beard and spoke: | 280 |
| “For all I know to make it otherwise, | |
| The Queen may be a nun some day or other; | |
| I’d pray to God for such a thing to be, | |
| If prayer for that were not a mockery. | |
| We’re late now for much praying, Lamorak, | 285 |
| When you and I can feel upon our faces | |
| A wind that has been blowing over ruins | |
| That we had said were castles and high towers— | |
| Till Merlin, or the spirit of him, came | |
| As the dead come in dreams. I saw the King | 290 |
| This morning, and I saw his face. Therefore, | |
| I tell you, if a state shall have a king, | |
| The king must have the state, and be the state; | |
| Or then shall we have neither king nor state, | |
| But bones and ashes, and high towers all fallen: | 295 |
| And we shall have, where late there was a kingdom, | |
| A dusty wreck of what was once a glory— | |
| A wilderness whereon to crouch and mourn | |
| And moralize, or else to build once more | |
| For something better or for something worse. | 300 |
| Therefore again, I say that Lancelot | |
| Has wrought a potent wrong upon the King, | |
| And all who serve and recognize the King, | |
| And all who follow him and all who love him. | |
| Whatever the stormy faults he may have had, | 305 |
| To look on him today is to forget them; | |
| And if it be too late for sorrow now | |
| To save him—for it was a broken man | |
| I saw this morning, and a broken king— | |
| The God who sets a day for desolation | 310 |
| Will not forsake him in Avilion, | |
| Or whatsoever shadowy land there be | |
| Where peace awaits him on its healing shores.” | |
| |
| Sir Lamorak, shifting in his oaken chair, | |
| Growled like a dog and shook himself like one: | 315 |
| “For the stone-chested, helmet-cracking knight | |
| That you are known to be from Lyonnesse | |
| To northward, Bedivere, you fol-de-rol | |
| When days are rancid, and you fiddle-faddle | |
| More like a woman than a man with hands | 320 |
| Fit for the smiting of a crazy giant | |
| With armor an inch thick, as we all know | |
| You are, when you’re not sermonizing at us. | |
| As for the King, I say the King, no doubt, | |
| Is angry, sorry, and all sorts of things, | 325 |
| For Lancelot, and for his easy Queen, | |
| Whom he took knowing she’d thrown sparks already | |
| On that same piece of tinder, Lancelot, | |
| Who fetched her with him from Leodogran | |
| Because the King—God save poor human reason!— | 330 |
| Would prove to Merlin, who knew everything | |
| Worth knowing in those days, that he was wrong. | |
| I’ll drink now and be quiet,—but, by God, | |
| I’ll have to tell you, Brother Bedivere, | |
| Once more, to make you listen properly, | 335 |
| That crowns and orders, and high palaces, | |
| And all the manifold ingredients | |
| Of this good solid kingdom, where we sit | |
| And spit now at each other with our eyes, | |
| Will not go rolling down to hell just yet | 340 |
| Because a pretty woman is a fool. | |
| And here’s Kay coming with his fiddle face | |
| As long now as two fiddles. Sit ye down, | |
| Sir Man, and tell us everything you know | |
| Of Merlin—or his ghost without a beard. | 345 |
| What mostly is it?” | |
| |
| Sir Kay, the seneschal, | |
| Sat wearily while he gazed upon the two: | |
| “To you it mostly is, if I err not, | |
| That what you hear of Merlin’s coming back | 350 |
| Is nothing more or less than heavy truth. | |
| But ask me nothing of the Queen, I say, | |
| For I know nothing. All I know of her | |
| Is what her eyes have told the silences | |
| That now attend her; and that her estate | 355 |
| Is one for less complacent execration | |
| Than quips and innuendoes of the city | |
| Would augur for her sin—if there be sin— | |
| Or for her name—if now she have a name. | |
| And where, I say, is this to lead the King, | 360 |
| And after him, the kingdom and ourselves? | |
| Here be we, three men of a certain strength | |
| And some confessed intelligence, who know | |
| That Merlin has come out of Brittany— | |
| Out of his grave, as he would say it for us— | 365 |
| Because the King has now a desperation | |
| More strong upon him than a woman’s net | |
| Was over Merlin—for now Merlin’s here, | |
| And two of us who knew him know how well | |
| His wisdom, if he have it any longer, | 370 |
| Will by this hour have sounded and appraised | |
| The grief and wrath and anguish of the King, | |
| Requiring mercy and inspiring fear | |
| Lest he forego the vigil now most urgent, | |
| And leave unwatched a cranny where some worm | 375 |
| Or serpent may come in to speculate.” | |
| |
| “I know your worm, and his worm’s name is Modred— | |
| Albeit the streets are not yet saying so,” | |
| Said Lamorak, as he lowered his wrath and laughed | |
| A sort of poisonous apology | 380 |
| To Kay: “And in the meantime, I’ll be gyved! | |
| Here’s Bedivere a-wailing for the King, | |
| And you, Kay, with a moist eye for the Queen. | |
| I think I’ll blow a horn for Lancelot; | |
| For by my soul a man’s in sorry case | 385 |
| When Guineveres are out with eyes to scorch him: | |
| I’m not so ancient or so frozen certain | |
| That I’d ride horses down to skeletons | |
| If she were after me. Has Merlin seen him— | |
| This Lancelot, this Queen-fed friend of ours?” | 390 |
| |
| Kay answered sighing, with a lonely scowl: | |
| “The picture that I conjure leaves him out; | |
| The King and Merlin are this hour together, | |
| And I can say no more; for I know nothing. | |
| But how the King persuaded or beguiled | 395 |
| The stricken wizard from across the water | |
| Outriddles my poor wits. It’s all too strange.” | |
| |
| “It’s all too strange, and half the world’s half crazy!” | |
| Roared Lamorak, forgetting once again | |
| The devastating carriage of his voice. | 400 |
| “Is the King sick?” he said, more quietly; | |
| “Is he to let one damned scratch be enough | |
| To paralyze the force that heretofore | |
| Would operate a way through hell and iron, | |
| And iron already slimy with his blood? | 405 |
| Is the King blind—with Modred watching him? | |
| Does he forget the crown for Lancelot? | |
| Does he forget that every woman mewing | |
| Shall some day be a handful of small ashes?” | |
| |
| “You speak as one for whom the god of Love | 410 |
| Has yet a mighty trap in preparation. | |
| We know you, Lamorak,” said Bedivere: | |
| “We know you for a short man, Lamorak,— | |
| In deeds, if not in inches or in words; | |
| But there are fens and heights and distances | 415 |
| That your capricious ranging has not yet | |
| Essayed in this weird region of man’s love. | |
| Forgive me, Lamorak, but your words are words. | |
| Your deeds are what they are; and ages hence | |
| Will men remember your illustriousness, | 420 |
| If there be gratitude in history. | |
| For me, I see the shadow of the end, | |
| Wherein to serve King Arthur to the end, | |
| And, if God have it so, to see the Grail | |
| Before I die.” | 425 |
| |
| But Lamorak shook his head: | |
| “See what you will, or what you may. For me, | |
| I see no other than a stinking mess— | |
| With Modred stirring it, and Agravaine | |
| Spattering Camelot with as much of it | 430 |
| As he can throw. The Devil got somehow | |
| Into God’s workshop once upon a time, | |
| And out of the red clay that he found there | |
| He made a shape like Modred, and another | |
| As like as eyes are to this Agravaine. | 435 |
| ‘I never made ’em,’ said the good Lord God, | |
| ‘But let ’em go, and see what comes of ’em.’ | |
| And that’s what we’re to do. As for the Grail, | |
| I’ve never worried it, and so the Grail | |
| Has never worried me.” | 440 |
| |
| Kay sighed. “I see | |
| With Bedivere the coming of the end,” | |
| He murmured; “for the King I saw today | |
| Was not, nor shall he ever be again, | |
| The King we knew. I say the King is dead; | 445 |
| The man is living, but the King is dead. | |
| The wheel is broken.” | |
| |
| “Faugh!” said Lamorak; | |
| “There are no dead kings yet in Camelot; | |
| But there is Modred who is hatching ruin,— | 450 |
| And when it hatches I may not be here. | |
| There’s Gawaine too, and he does not forget | |
| My father, who killed his. King Arthur’s house | |
| Has more divisions in it than I like | |
| In houses; and if Modred’s aim be good | 455 |
| For backs like mine, I’m not long for the scene.” | |
