| GAWAINE, his body trembling and his heart | |
| Pounding as if he were a boy in battle, | |
| Sat crouched as far away from everything | 935 |
| As walls would give him distance. Bedivere | |
| Stood like a man of stone with folded arms, | |
| And wept in stony silence. The King moved | |
| His pallid lips and uttered fitfully | |
| Low fragments of a prayer that was half sad, | 940 |
| Half savage, and was ended in a crash | |
| Of distant sound that anguish lifted near | |
| To those who heard it. Gawaine sprang again | |
| To the same casement where the towers and roofs | |
| Had glimmered faintly a long hour ago, | 945 |
| But saw no terrors yet—though now he heard | |
| A fiercer discord than allegiance rings | |
| To rouse a mourning city: blows, groans, cries, | |
| Loud iron struck on iron, horses trampling, | |
| Death-yells and imprecations, and at last | 950 |
| A moaning silence. Then a murmuring | |
| Of eager fearfulness, which had a note | |
| Of exultation and astonishment, | |
| Came nearer, till a tumult of hard feet | |
| Filled the long corridor where late the King | 955 |
| Had made a softer progress. | |
| |
| “Well then, Lucan,” | |
| The King said, urging an indignity | |
| To qualify suspense: “For what arrears | |
| Of grace are we in debt for this attention? | 960 |
| Why all this early stirring of our sentries, | |
| And their somewhat unseasoned innovation, | |
| To bring you at this unappointed hour? | |
| Are we at war with someone or another, | |
| Without our sanction or intelligence? | 965 |
| Are Lucius and the Romans here to greet us, | |
| Or was it Lucius we saw dead?” | |
| |
| Sir Lucan | |
| Bowed humbly in amazed acknowledgment | |
| Of his intrusion, meanwhile having scanned | 970 |
| What three grief-harrowed faces were revealing: | |
| “Praise God, sir, there are tears in the King’s eyes, | |
| And in his friends’. Having regarded them, | |
| And having ventured an abrupt appraisal | |
| Of what I translate….” | 975 |
| |
| “Lucan,” the King said, | |
| “No matter what procedure or persuasion | |
| Gave you an entrance—tell us what it is | |
| That you have come to tell us, and no more. | |
| There was a most uncivil sound abroad | 980 |
| Before you came. Who riots in the city?” | |
| |
| “Sir, will your patience with a element ear, | |
| Attend the confirmation of events, | |
| I will, with all available precision, | |
| Say what this morning has inaugurated. | 985 |
| No preface or prolonged exordium | |
| Need aggravate the narrative, I venture. | |
| The man of God, requiring of the Queen | |
| A last assoiling prayer for her salvation, | |
| Heard what none else did hear save God the Father. | 990 |
| Then a great hush descended on a scene | |
| Where stronger men than I fell on their knees, | |
| And wet with tears their mail of shining iron | |
| That soon was to be cleft unconscionably | |
| Beneath a blast of anguish as intense | 995 |
| And fabulous in ardor and effect | |
| As Jove’s is in his lightning. To be short, | |
| They led the Queen—and she went bravely to it, | |
| Or so she was configured in the picture— | |
| A brief way more; and we who did see that, | 1000 |
| Believed we saw the last of all her sharing | |
| In this conglomerate and perplexed existence. | |
| But no—and here the prodigy comes in— | |
| The penal flame had hardly bit the faggot, | |
| When, like an onslaught out of Erebus, | 1005 |
| There came a crash of horses, and a flash | |
| Of axes, and a hewing down of heroes, | |
| Not like to any in its harsh, profound, | |
| Unholy, and uneven execution. | |
| I felt the breath of one horse on my neck, | 1010 |
| And of a sword that all but left a chasm | |
| Where still, praise be to God, I have intact | |
| A face, if not a fair one. I achieved | |
| My flight, I trust, with honorable zeal, | |
| Not having arms, or mail, or preservation | 1015 |
| In any phase of necessary iron. | |
| I found a refuge; and there saw the Queen, | |
| All white, and in a swound of woe uplifted | |
| By Lionel, while a dozen fought about him, | |
| And Lancelot, who seized her while he struck, | 1020 |
| And with his insane army galloped away, | |
| Before the living, whom he left amazed, | |
| Were sure they were alive among the dead. | |
| Not even in the legendary mist | |
| Of wars that none today may verify, | 1025 |
| Did ever men annihilate their kind | |
| With a more vicious inhumanity, | |
| Or a more skilful frenzy. Lancelot | |
| And all his heated adjuncts are by now | |
| Too far, I fear, for such immediate | 1030 |
| Reprisal as your majesty perchance…” | |
| “O’ God’s name, Lucan,” the King cried, “be still!” | |
| He gripped with either sodden hand an arm | |
| Of his unyielding chair, while his eyes blazed | |
| In anger, wonder, and fierce hesitation. | 1035 |
| Then with a sigh that may have told unheard | |
| Of an unwilling gratitude, he gazed | |
| Upon his friends who gazed again at him; | |
| But neither King nor friend said anything | |
| Until the King turned once more to Sir Lucan: | 1040 |
| “Be still, or publish with a shorter tongue | |
| The names of our companions who are dead. | |
| Well, were you there? Or did you run so fast | |
| That you were never there? You must have eyes, | |
| Or you could not have run to find us here.” | 1045 |
| |
| Then Lucan, with a melancholy glance | |
| At Gawaine, who stood glaring his impatience, | |
| Addressed again the King: “I will be short, sir; | |
| Too brief to measure with finality | |
| The scope of what I saw with indistinct | 1050 |
| Amazement and incredulous concern. | |
| Sir Tor, Sir Griflet, and Sir Aglovale | |
| Are dead. Sir Gillimer, he is dead. Sir—Sir— | |
| But should a living error be detailed | |
| In my account, how should I meet your wrath | 1055 |
| For such a false addition to your sorrow?” | |
| He turned again to Gawaine, who shook now | |
| As if the fear in him were more than fury.— | |
| The King, observing Gawaine, beat his foot | |
| In fearful hesitancy on the floor: | 1060 |
| “No, Lucan; if so kind an error lives | |
| In your dead record, you need have no fear. | |
| My sorrow has already, in the weight | |
| Of this you tell, too gross a task for that.” | |
| “Then I must offer you cold naked words, | 1065 |
| Without the covering warmth of even one | |
| Forlorn alternative,” said Lucan, slowly: | |
| “Sir Gareth, and Sir Gaheris—are dead.” | |
| |
| The rage of a fulfilled expectancy, | |
| Long tortured on a rack of endless moments, | 1070 |
| Flashed out of Gawaine’s overflowing eyes | |
| While he flew forward, seizing Lucan’s arms, | |
| And hurled him while he held him.—“Stop, Gawaine,” | |
| The King said grimly. “Now is no time for that. | |
| If Lucan, in a too bewildered heat | 1075 |
| Of observation or sad reckoning, | |
| Has added life to death, our joy therefor | |
| Will be the larger. You have lost yourself.” | |
| |
| “More than myself it is that I have lost,” | |
| Gawaine said, with a choking voice that faltered: | 1080 |
| “Forgive me, Lucan; I was a little mad. | |
| Gareth?—and Gaheris? Do you say their names, | |
| And then say they are dead! They had no arms— | |
| No armor. They were like you—and you live! | |
| Why do you live when they are dead! You ran, | 1085 |
| You say? Well, why were they not running— | |
| If they ran only for a pike to die with? | |
| I knew my brothers, and I know your tale | |
| Is not all told. Gareth?—and Gaheris? | |
| Would they stay there to die like silly children? | 1090 |
| Did they believe the King would have them die | |
| For nothing? There are dregs of reason, Lucan, | |
| In lunacy itself. My brothers, Lucan, | |
| Were murdered like two dogs. Who murdered them? | |
| |
| Lucan looked helplessly at Bedivere, | 1095 |
| The changeless man of stone, and then at Gawaine: | |
| “I cannot use the word that you have used, | |
| Though yours must have an answer. Your two brothers | |
| Would not have squandered or destroyed themselves | |
| In a vain show of action. I pronounce it, | 1100 |
| If only for their known obedience | |
| To the King’s instant wish. Know then your brothers | |
| Were caught and crowded, this way and then that, | |
| With men and horses raging all around them; | |
| And there were swords and axes everywhere | 1105 |
| That heads of men were. Armored and unarmored, | |
| They knew the iron alike. In so great press, | |
| Discrimination would have had no pause | |
| To name itself; and therefore Lancelot | |
| Saw not—or seeing, he may have seen too late— | 1110 |
| On whom his axes fell.” | |
| |
| “Why do you flood | |
| The name of Lancelot with words enough | |
| To drown him and his army—and his axes!… | |
| His axes?—or his axe! Which, Lucan? Speak! | 1115 |
| Speak, or by God you’ll never speak again!… | |
| Forgive me, Lucan; I was a little mad. | |
| You, sir, forgive me; and you, Bedivere. | |
| There are too many currents in this ocean | |
| Where I’m adrift, and I see no land yet. | 1120 |
| Men tell of a great whirlpool in the north | |
| Where ships go round until the men aboard | |
| Go dizzy, and are dizzy when they’re drowning. | |
| But whether I’m to drown or find the shore, | |
| There is one thing—and only one thing now— | 1125 |
| For me to know…. His axes? or his axe! | |
| Say, Lucan, or I—O Lucan, speak—speak—speak! | |
| Lucan, did Lancelot kill my two brothers?” | |
| |
| “I say again that in all human chance | |
| He knew not upon whom his axe was falling.” | 1130 |
| “So! Then it was his axe and not his axes. | |
| It was his hell-begotten self that did it, | |
| And it was not his men. Gareth! Gaheris! | |
| You came too soon. There was no place for you | |
| Where there was Lancelot. My folly it was, | 1135 |
| Not yours, to take for true the inhuman glamour | |
| Of his high-shining fame for that which most | |
| Was not the man. The truth we see too late | |
| Hides half its evil in our stupidity; | |
| And we gape while we groan for what we learn. | 1140 |
| An hour ago and I was all but eager | |
| To mourn with Bedivere for grief I had | |
| That I did not say something to this villain— | |
| To this true, gracious, murderous friend of mine— | |
| To comfort him and urge him out of this, | 1145 |
| While I was half a fool and half believed | |
| That he was going. Well, there is this to say: | |
| The world that has him will not have him long. | |
| You see how calm I am, now I have said it? | |
| And you, sir, do you see how calm I am? | 1150 |
| And it was I who told of shipwrecks—whirlpools— | |
| Drowning! I must have been a little mad, | |
| Not having occupation. Now I have one. | |
| And I have now a tongue as many-phrased | |
| As Lucan’s. Gauge it, Lucan, if you will; | 1155 |
| Or take my word. It’s all one thing to me— | |
| All one, all one! There’s only one thing left … | |
| Gareth and Gaheris! Gareth!… Lancelot!” | |
| |
| “Look, Bedivere,” the King said: “look to Gawaine. | |
| Now lead him, you and Lucan, to a chair— | 1160 |
| As you and Gawaine led me to this chair | |
| Where I am sitting. We may all be led, | |
| If there be coming on for Camelot | |
| Another day like this. Now leave me here, | |
| Alone with Gawaine. When a strong man goes | 1165 |
| Like that, it makes him sick to see his friends | |
| Around him. Leave us, and go now. Sometimes | |
| I’ll scarce remember that he’s not my son, | |
| So near he seems. I thank you, gentlemen.” | |
| |
| The King, alone with Gawaine, who said nothing, | 1170 |
| Had yet no heart for news of Lancelot | |
| Or Guinevere. He saw them on their way | |
| To Joyous Gard, where Tristram and Isolt | |
| Had islanded of old their stolen love, | |
| While Mark of Cornwall entertained a vengeance | 1175 |
| Envisaging an ending of all that; | |
| And he could see the two of them together | |
| As Mark had seen Isolt there, and her knight,— | |
| Though not, like Mark, with murder in his eyes. | |
| He saw them as if they were there already, | 1180 |
| And he were a lost thought long out of mind; | |
| He saw them lying in each other’s arms, | |
| Oblivious of the living and the dead | |
| They left in Camelot. Then he saw the dead | |
| That lay so quiet outside the city walls, | 1185 |
| And wept, and left the Queen to Lancelot— | |
| Or would have left her, had the will been his | |
| To leave or take; for now he could acknowledge | |
| An inrush of a desolate thanksgiving | |
| That she, with death around her, had not died. | 1190 |
| The vision of a peace that humbled him, | |
| And yet might save the world that he had won, | |
| Came slowly into view like something soft | |
| And ominous on all-fours, without a spirit | |
| To make it stand upright. “Better be that, | 1195 |
| Even that, than blood,” he sighed, “if that be peace.” | |
| But looking down on Gawaine, who said nothing, | |
| He shook his head: “The King has had his world, | |
| And he shall have no peace. With Modred here, | |
| And Agravaine with Gareth, who is dead | 1200 |
| With Gaheris, Gawaine will have no peace. | |
| Gawaine or Modred—Gawaine with his hate, | |
| Or Modred with his anger for his birth, | |
| And the black malady of his ambition— | |
| Will make of my Round Table, where was drawn | 1205 |
| The circle of a world, a thing of wreck | |
| And yesterday—a furniture forgotten; | |
| And I, who loved the world as Merlin did, | |
| May lose it as he lost it, for a love | |
| That was not peace, and therefore was not love.” | 1210 |
