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| A YEAR had flown, and o’er the sea away, 1 | |
| In Cornwall, Tristram and queen Iseult lay; 2 | |
| In 3 King Marc’s chapel, in Tyntagel old: 4 | |
| There in a ship they bore those lovers cold. | |
| The young surviving Iseult, one bright day, | 5 |
| Had wander’d forth: her children were at play | |
| In a green circular hollow in the heath | |
| Which borders the sea-shore; a country path | |
| Creeps over it from the till’d fields behind. | |
| The hollow’s grassy banks are soft inclin’d | 10 |
| And to one standing on them, far and near | |
| The lone unbroken view spreads bright and clear | |
| Over the waste:—This cirque 5 of open ground | |
| Is light and green; the heather, which all round | |
| Creeps thickly, grows not here; but the pale grass | 15 |
| Is strewn with rocks, and many a shiver’d mass | |
| Of vein’d white-gleaming quartz, and here and there | |
| Dotted with holly trees and juniper. | |
| In the smooth centre of the opening stood | |
| Three hollies side by side, and made a screen | 20 |
| Warm with the winter sun, of burnish’d green, | |
| With scarlet berries gemm’d, the fell-fare’s food. | |
| Under the glittering hollies Iseult stands | |
| Watching her children play: their little hands | |
| Are busy gathering spars of quartz, and streams | 25 |
| Of stagshorn for their hats: anon, with screams | |
| Of mad delight they drop their spoils, and bound | |
| Among the holly clumps and broken ground, | |
| Racing full speed, and startling in their rush | |
| The fell-fares and the speckled missel-thrush | 30 |
| Out of their glossy coverts: but when now | |
| Their cheeks were flush’d, and over each hot brow | |
| Under the feather’d hats of the sweet pair | |
| In blinding masses shower’d the golden hair— | |
| Then Iseult called them to her, and the three | 35 |
| Cluster’d under the holly screen, and she | |
| Told them an old-world Breton history. | |
| |
| Warm in their mantles wrapt, the three stood there, | |
| Under the hollies, in the clear still air— | |
| Mantles with those rich furs deep glistering | 40 |
| Which Venice ships do from swart Egypt bring. | |
| Long they stayed still—then, pacing at their ease, | |
| Mov’d up and down under the glossy trees; | |
| But still as they pursued their warm dry road | |
| From Iseult’s lips the unbroken story flow’d, | 45 |
| And still the children listen’d, their blue eyes | |
| Fix’d on their mother’s face in wide surprise; | |
| Nor did their looks stray once to the sea-side, | |
| Nor to the brown heaths round them, bright and wide, | |
| Nor to the snow which, though ’twas all away | 50 |
| From the open heath, still by the hedgerows lay, | |
| Nor to the shining sea-fowl that with screams | |
| Bore up from where the bright Atlantic gleams, | |
| Swooping to landward; nor to where, quite clear, | |
| The fell-fares settled on the thickets near. | 55 |
| And they would still have listen’d, till dark night | |
| Came keen and chill down on the heather bright; | |
| But, when the red glow on the sea grew cold, | |
| And the grey turrets of the castle old | |
| Look’d sternly through the frosty evening air,— | 60 |
| Then Iseult took by the hand those children fair, | |
| And brought her tale to an end, and found the path, | |
| And led them home over the darkening heath. | |
| |
| And is she happy? Does she see unmov’d | |
| The days in which she might have liv’d and lov’d | 65 |
| Slip without bringing bliss slowly away, | |
| One after one, to-morrow like to-day? | |
| Joy has not found her yet, nor ever will:— | |
| Is it this thought that makes her mien so still, | |
| Her features so fatigued, her eyes, though sweet, | 70 |
| So sunk, so rarely lifted save to meet | |
| Her children’s? She moves slow: her voice alone | |
| Has yet an infantine and silver tone, | |
| But even that comes languidly: in truth, | |
| She seems one dying in a mask of youth. | 75 |
| And now she will go home, and softly lay | |
| Her laughing children in their beds, and play | |
| Awhile with them before they sleep; and then | |
| She’ll light her silver lamp, which fishermen | |
| Dragging their nets through the rough waves, afar, | 80 |
| Along this iron coast, know like a star, | |
| And take her broidery frame, and there she’ll sit | |
| Hour after hour, her gold curls sweeping it, | |
| Lifting her soft-bent head only to mind | |
| Her children, or to listen to the wind. | 85 |
| And when the clock peals midnight, she will move | |
| Her work away, and let her fingers rove | |
| Across the shaggy brows of Tristram’s hound | |
| Who lies, guarding her feet, along the ground: | |
| Or else she will fall musing, her blue eyes | 90 |
| Fix’d, her slight hands clasp’d on her lap; then rise, | |
| And at her prie-dieu kneel, until she have told | |
| Her rosary beads of ebony tipp’d with gold, | |
| Then to her soft sleep: and to-morrow’ll be | |
| To-day’s exact repeated effigy. | 95 |
| |
| Yes, it is lonely for her in her hall. | |
| The children, and the grey-hair’d seneschal, | |
| Her women, and Sir Tristram’s agèd hound, | |
| Are there the sole companions to be found. | |
| But these she loves; and noisier life than this | 100 |
| She would find ill to bear, weak as she is: | |
| She has her children too, and night and day | |
| Is with them; and the wide heaths where they play, | |
| The hollies, and the cliff, and the sea-shore, | |
| The sand, the sea-birds, and the distant sails, | 105 |
| These are to her dear as to them: the tales | |
| With which this day the children she beguil’d | |
| She glean’d from Breton grandames when a child | |
| In every hut along this sea-coast wild. | |
| She herself loves them still, and, when they are told, | 110 |
| Can forget all to hear them, as of old. | |
| |
| Dear saints, it is not sorrow, as I hear, 6 | |
| Not suffering, that shuts up eye and ear | |
| To all which has delighted them before, | |
| And lets us be what we were once no more. | 115 |
| No: we may suffer deeply, yet retain | |
| Power to be mov’d and sooth’d, for all our pain, | |
| By what of old pleas’d us, and will again. | |
| No: ’tis the gradual furnace of the world, | |
| In whose hot air our spirits are upcurl’d | 120 |
| Until they crumble, or else grow like steel— | |
| Which kills in us the bloom, the youth, the spring— | |
| Which leaves the fierce necessity to feel, | |
| But takes away the power—this can avail, | |
| By drying up our joy in everything, | 125 |
| To make our former pleasures all seem stale. | |
| This, or some tyrannous single thought, some fit | |
| Of passion, which subdues our souls to it, | |
| Till for its sake alone we live and move— | |
| Call it ambition, or remorse, or love— | 130 |
| This too can change us wholly, and make seem | |
| All that we did before, shadow and dream. | |
| |
| And yet, I swear, it angers me to see | |
| How this fool passion gulls men potently; | |
| Being, in truth, but a diseas’d unrest, | 135 |
| And an unnatural overheat at best. | |
| How they are full of languor and distress | |
| Not having it; which, when they do possess, | |
| They straightway are burnt up with fume and care, | |
| And spend their lives in posting here and there | 140 |
| Where this plague drives them; and have little ease, | |
| Are fretful with themselves, and hard to please. 7 | |
| Like that bold 8 Caesar, the fam’d Roman wight, | |
| Who wept at reading of a Grecian knight | |
| Who made a name at younger years than he: | 145 |
| Or that renown’d mirror of chivalry, | |
| Prince Alexander, Philip’s peerless son, | |
| Who carried the great war from Macedon | |
| Into the Soudan’s realm, and thundered on | |
| To die at thirty-five in Babylon. | 150 |
| |
| What tale did Iseult to the children say, | |
| Under the hollies, that bright winter’s day? | |
| |
| She told them of the fairy-haunted land | |
| Away the other side of Brittany, | |
| Beyond the heaths, edg’d by the lonely sea; | 155 |
| Of the deep forest-glades of Broce-liande, | |
| Through whose green boughs the golden sunshine creeps, | |
| Where Merlin by the enchanted thorn-tree sleeps. | |
| For here he came with the fay Vivian, | |
| One April, when the warm days first began; | 160 |
| He was on foot, and that false fay, his friend, | |
| On her white palfrey; here he met his end, | |
| In these lone sylvan glades, that April day. | |
| This tale of Merlin and the lovely fay | |
| Was the one Iseult chose, and she brought clear | 165 |
| Before the children’s fancy him and her. | |
| |
| Blowing between the stems the forest air | |
| Had loosen’d the brown curls of Vivian’s hair, | |
| Which play’d on her flush’d cheek, and her blue eyes | |
| Sparkled with mocking glee and exercise. | 170 |
| Her palfrey’s flanks were mired and bath’d in sweat, | |
| For they had travell’d far and not stopp’d, yet. | |
| A brier in that tangled wilderness | |
| Had scor’d her white right hand, which she allows | |
| To rest unglov’d on her green riding-dress; | 175 |
| The other warded off the dropping boughs. | |
| But still she chatted on, with her blue eyes | |
| Fix’d full on Merlin’s face, her stately prize: | |
| Her ’haviour had the morning’s fresh clear grace, | |
| The spirit of the woods was in her face; | 180 |
| She look’d so witching fair, that learnèd wight | |
| Forgot his craft, and his best wits took flight, | |
| And he grew fond, and eager to obey | |
| His mistress, use her empire as she may. | |
| |
| They came to where the brushwood ceas’d, and day | 185 |
| Peer’d ’twixt the stems; and the ground broke away | |
| In a slop’d sward down to a brawling brook, | |
| And up as high as where they stood to look | |
| On the brook’s further side was clear; but then | |
| The underwood and trees began again. | 190 |
| This open glen was studded thick with thorns | |
| Then white with blossom; and you saw the horns, | |
| Through the green fern, of the shy fallow-deer | |
| Which come at noon down to the water here. | |
| You saw the bright-eyed squirrels dart along | 195 |
| Under the thorns on the green sward; and strong | |
| The blackbird whistled from the dingles near, | |
| And the light chipping of the woodpecker | |
| Rang lonelily and sharp: the sky was fair, | |
| And a fresh breath of spring stirr’d everywhere. | 200 |
| Merlin and Vivian stopp’d on the slope’s brow | |
| To gaze on the green sea of leaf and bough | |
| Which glistering lay all round them, lone and mild, | |
| As if to itself the quiet forest smil’d. | |
| Upon the brow-top grew a thorn; and here | 205 |
| The grass was dry and moss’d, and you saw clear | |
| Across the hollow: white anemonies | |
| Starr’d the cool turf, and clumps of primroses | |
| Ran out from the dark underwood behind. | |
| No fairer resting-place a man could find. | 210 |
| ‘Here let us halt,’ said Merlin then; and she | |
| Nodded, and tied her palfrey to a tree. | |
| |
| They sate them down together, and a sleep | |
| Fell upon Merlin, more like death, so deep. | |
| Her finger on her lips, then Vivian rose, | 215 |
| And from her brown-lock’d head the wimple throws, | |
| And takes it in her hand, and waves it over | |
| The blossom’d thorn-tree and her sleeping lover. | |
| Nine times she wav’d the fluttering wimple round, | |
| And made a little plot of magic ground. | 220 |
| And in that daisied circle, as men say, | |
| Is Merlin prisoner till the judgement-day, | |
| But she herself whither she will can rove, | |
| For she was passing weary of his love. | |
