Merlin

"Gawaine, Gawaine, what look ye for to see,

So far beyond the faint edge of the world?

D'ye look to see the lady Vivian,

Pursued by divers ominous vile demons

That have another king more fierce than ours?

Or think ye that if ye look far enough

And hard enough into the feathery west

Ye'll have a glimmer of the Grail itself?

And if ye look for neither Grail nor lady,

What look ye for to see, Gawaine, Gawaine?"

So Dagonet, whom Arthur made a knight

Because he loved him as he laughed at him,

Intoned his idle presence on a day

To Gawaine, who had thought himself alone,

Had there been in him thought of anything

Save what was murmured now in Camelot

Of Merlin's hushed and all but unconfirmed

Appearance out of Brittany. It was heard

At first there was a ghost in Arthur's palace,

But soon among the scullions and anon

Among the knights a firmer credit held

All tongues from uttering what all glances told-

Though not for long. Gawaine, this afternoon,

Fearing he might say more to Lancelot

Of Merlin's rumor-laden resurrection

Than Lancelot would have an ear to cherish,

Had sauntered off with his imagination

To Merlin's Rock, where now there was no Merlin

To meditate upon a whispering town

Below him in the silence.-Once he said

To Gawaine: "You are young; and that being so,

Behold the shining city of our dreams

And of our King."-"Long live the King," said Gawaine.-

"Long live the King," said Merlin after him;

"Better for me that I shall not be King;

Wherefore I say again, Long live the King,

And add, God save him, also, and all kings-

All kings and queens. I speak in general.

Kings have I known that were but weary men

With no stout appetite for more than peace

That was not made for them."-"Nor were they made

For kings," Gawaine said, laughing.-"You are young

Gawaine, and you may one day hold the world

Between your fingers, knowing not what it is

That you are holding. Better for you and me,

I think, that we shall not be kings."

Gawaine,

Remembering Merlin's words of long ago,

Frowned as he thought, and having frowned again,

He smiled and threw an acorn at a lizard:

"There's more afoot and in the air to-day

Than what is good for Camelot. Merlin

May or may not know all, but he said well

To say to me that he would not be King.

No more would I be King." Far down he gazed

On Camelot, until he made of it

A phantom town of many stillnesses,

Not reared for men to dwell in, or for kings

To reign in, without omens and obscure

Familiars to bring terror to their days;

For though a knight, and one as hard at arms

As any, save the fate-begotten few

That all acknowledged or in envy loathed,

He felt a foreign sort of creeping up

And down him, as of moist things in the dark,-

When Dagonet, coming on him unawares,

Presuming on his title of Sir Fool,

Addressed him and crooned on till he was done:

"What look ye for to see, Gawaine, Gawaine?"

"Sir Dagonet, you best and wariest

Of all dishonest men, I look through Time,

For sight of what it is that is to be.

I look to see it, though I see it not.

I see a town down there that holds a king,

And over it I see a few small clouds-

Like feathers in the west, as you observe;

And I shall see no more this afternoon

Than what there is around us every day,

Unless you have a skill that I have not

To ferret the invisible for rats."

"If you see what's around us every day,

You need no other showing to go mad.

Remember that and take it home with you;

And say tonight, 'I had it of a fool-

With no immediate obliquity

For this one or for that one, or for me.'"

Gawaine, having risen, eyed the fool curiously:

"I'll not forget I had it of a knight,

Whose only folly is to fool himself;

And as for making other men to laugh,

And so forget their sins and selves a little,

There's no great folly there. So keep it up,

As long as you've a legend or a song,

And have whatever sport of us you like

Till havoc is the word and we fall howling.

For I've a guess there may not be so loud

A sound of laughing here in Camelot

When Merlin goes again to his gay grave

In Brittany. To mention lesser terrors,

Men say his beard is gone."

"Do men say that?"

A twitch of an impatient weariness

Played for a moment over the lean face

Of Dagonet, who reasoned inwardly:

"The friendly zeal of this inquiring knight

Will overtake his tact and leave it squealing,

One of these days."-Gawaine looked hard at him:

"If I be too familiar with a fool,

I'm on the way to be another fool,"

He mused, and owned a rueful qualm within him:

"Yes, Dagonet," he ventured, with a laugh,

"Men tell me that his beard has vanished wholly,

And that he shines now as the Lord's anointed,

And wears the valiance of an ageless youth

Crowned with a glory of eternal peace."

Dagonet, smiling strangely, shook his head:

"I grant your valiance of a kind of youth

To Merlin, but your crown of peace I question;

For, though I know no more than any churl

Who pinches any chambermaid soever

In the King's palace, I look not to Merlin

For peace, when out of his peculiar tomb

He comes again to Camelot. Time swings

A mighty scythe, and some day all your peace

Goes down before its edge like so much clover.

No, it is not for peace that Merlin comes,

Without a trumpet-and without a beard,

If what you say men say of him be true-

Nor yet for sudden war."

Gawaine, for a moment,

Met then the ambiguous gaze of Dagonet,

And, making nothing of it, looked abroad

As if at something cheerful on all sides,

And back again to the fool's unasking eyes:

"Well, Dagonet, if Merlin would have peace,

Let Merlin stay away from Brittany,"

Said he, with admiration for the man

Whom Folly called a fool: "And we have known him;

We knew him once when he knew everything."

"He knew as much as God would let him know

Until he met the lady Vivian.

I tell you that, for the world knows all that;

Also it knows he told the King one day

That he was to be buried, and alive,

In Brittany; and that the King should see

The face of him no more. Then Merlin sailed

Away to Vivian in Broceliande,

Where now she crowns him and herself with flowers,

And feeds him fruits and wines and many foods

Of many savors, and sweet ortolans.

Wise books of every lore of every land

Are there to fill his days, if he require them,

And there are players of all instruments-

Flutes, hautboys, drums, and viols; and she sings

To Merlin, till he trembles in her arms

And there forgets that any town alive

Had ever such a name as Camelot.

So Vivian holds him with her love, they say,

And he, who has no age, has not grown old.

I swear to nothing, but that's what they say.

That's being buried in Broceliande

For too much wisdom and clairvoyancy.

But you and all who live, Gawaine, have heard

This tale, or many like it, more than once;

And you must know that Love, when Love invites

Philosophy to play, plays high and wins,

Or low and loses. And you say to me,

'If Merlin would have peace, let Merlin stay

Away from Brittany.' Gawaine, you are young,

And Merlin's in his grave."

"Merlin said once

That I was young, and it's a joy for me

That I am here to listen while you say it.

Young or not young, if that be burial,

May I be buried long before I die.

I might be worse than young; I might be old."-

Dagonet answered, and without a smile:

"Somehow I fancy Merlin saying that;

A fancy-a mere fancy." Then he smiled:

"And such a doom as his may be for you,

Gawaine, should your untiring divination

Delve in the veiled eternal mysteries

Too far to be a pleasure for the Lord.

And when you stake your wisdom for a woman,

Compute the woman to be worth a grave,

As Merlin did, and say no more about it.

But Vivian, she played high. Oh, very high!

Flutes, hautboys, drums, and viols,-and her love.

Gawaine, farewell."

"Farewell, Sir Dagonet,

And may the devil take you presently."

He followed with a vexed and envious eye,

And with an arid laugh, Sir Dagonet's

Departure, till his gaunt obscurity

Was cloaked and lost amid the glimmering trees.

"Poor fool!" he murmured. "Or am I the fool?

With all my fast ascendency in arms,

That ominous clown is nearer to the King

Than I am-yet; and God knows what he knows,

And what his wits infer from what he sees

And feels and hears. I wonder what he knows

Of Lancelot, or what I might know now,

Could I have sunk myself to sound a fool

To springe a friend.... No, I like not this day.

There's a cloud coming over Camelot

Larger than any that is in the sky,-

Or Merlin would be still in Brittany,

With Vivian and the viols. It's all too strange."

And later, when descending to the city,

Through unavailing casements he could hear

The roaring of a mighty voice within,

Confirming fervidly his own conviction:

"It's all too strange, and half the world's half crazy!"-

He scowled: "Well, I agree with Lamorak."

He frowned, and passed: "And I like not this day."

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

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

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,

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,"

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,

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:

"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

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

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 mazzard,

Like Father Jove, big with a new Minerva,

We'll say, to pass the time, that I speak well.

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,

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;

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,

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:

"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,

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

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:

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.

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,

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

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:

"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

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,

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!-

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,

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

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.

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

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

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,

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-

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,

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

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

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

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?"

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

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.

"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?

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

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

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,

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."

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

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.

'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."

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;

The man is living, but the King is dead.

The wheel is broken."

"Tut!" said Lamorak;

"There are no dead kings yet in Camelot;

But there is Modred who is hatching ruin,-

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 division in it than I like

In houses; and if Modred's aim be good

For backs like mine, I'm not long for the scene."

King Arthur, as he paced a lonely floor

That rolled a muffled echo, as he fancied,

All through the palace and out through the world,

Might now have wondered hard, could he have heard

Sir Lamorak's apathetic disregard

Of what Fate's knocking made so manifest

And ominous to others near the King-

If any, indeed, were near him at this hour

Save Merlin, once the wisest of all men,

And weary Dagonet, whom he had made

A knight for love of him and his abused

Integrity. He might have wondered hard

And wondered much; and after wondering,

He might have summoned, with as little heart

As he had now for crowns, the fond, lost Merlin,

Whose Nemesis had made of him a slave,

A man of dalliance, and a sybarite.

"Men change in Brittany, Merlin," said the King;

And even his grief had strife to freeze again

A dreary smile for the transmuted seer

Now robed in heavy wealth of purple silk,

With frogs and foreign tassels. On his face,

Too smooth now for a wizard or a sage,

Lay written, for the King's remembering eyes,

A pathos of a lost authority

Long faded, and unconscionably gone;

And on the King's heart lay a sudden cold:

"I might as well have left him in his grave,

As he would say it, saying what was true,-

As death is true. This Merlin is not mine,

But Vivian's. My crown is less than hers,

And I am less than woman to this man."

Then Merlin, as one reading Arthur's words

On viewless tablets in the air before him:

"Now, Arthur, since you are a child of mine-

A foster-child, and that's a kind of child-

Be not from hearsay or despair too eager

To dash your meat with bitter seasoning,

So none that are more famished than yourself

Shall have what you refuse. For you are King,

And if you starve yourself, you starve the state;

And then by sundry looks and silences

Of those you loved, and by the lax regard

Of those you knew for fawning enemies,

You may learn soon that you are King no more,

But a slack, blasted, and sad-fronted man,

Made sadder with a crown. No other friend

Than I could say this to you, and say more;

And if you bid me say no more, so be it."

The King, who sat with folded arms, now bowed

His head and felt, unfought and all aflame

Like immanent hell-fire, the wretchedness

That only those who are to lead may feel-

And only they when they are maimed and worn

Too sore to covet without shuddering

The fixed impending eminence where death

Itself were victory, could they but lead

Unbitten by the serpents they had fed.

Turning, he spoke: "Merlin, you say the truth:

There is no man who could say more to me

Today, or say so much to me, and live.

But you are Merlin still, or part of him;

I did you wrong when I thought otherwise,

And I am sorry now. Say what you will.

We are alone, and I shall be alone

As long as Time shall hide a reason here

For me to stay in this infested world

Where I have sinned and erred and heeded not

Your counsel; and where you yourself-God save us!-

Have gone down smiling to the smaller life

That you and your incongruous laughter called

Your living grave. God save us all, Merlin,

When you, the seer, the founder, and the prophet,

May throw the gold of your immortal treasure

Back to the God that gave it, and then laugh

Because a woman has you in her arms ...

Why do you sting me now with a small hive

Of words that are all poison? I do not ask

Much honey; but why poison me for nothing,

And with a venom that I know already

As I know crowns and wars? Why tell a king-

A poor, foiled, flouted, miserable king-

That if he lets rats eat his fingers off

He'll have no fingers to fight battles with?

I know as much as that, for I am still

A king-who thought himself a little less

Than God; a king who built him palaces

On sand and mud, and hears them crumbling now,

And sees them tottering, as he knew they must.

You are the man who made me to be King-

Therefore, say anything."

Merlin, stricken deep

With pity that was old, being born of old

Foreshadowings, made answer to the King:

"This coil of Lancelot and Guinevere

Is not for any mortal to undo,

Or to deny, or to make otherwise;

But your most violent years are on their way

To days, and to a sounding of loud hours

That are to strike for war. Let not the time

Between this hour and then be lost in fears,

Or told in obscurations and vain faith

In what has been your long security;

For should your force be slower then than hate,

And your regret be sharper than your sight,

And your remorse fall heavier than your sword,-

Then say farewell to Camelot, and the crown.

But say not you have lost, or failed in aught

Your golden horoscope of imperfection

Has held in starry words that I have read.

I see no farther now than I saw then,

For no man shall be given of everything

Together in one life; yet I may say

The time is imminent when he shall come

For whom I founded the Siege Perilous;

And he shall be too much a living part

Of what he brings, and what he burns away in,

To be for long a vexed inhabitant

Of this mad realm of stains and lower trials.

And here the ways of God again are mixed:

For this new knight who is to find the Grail

For you, and for the least who pray for you

In such lost coombs and hollows of the world

As you have never entered, is to be

The son of him you trusted-Lancelot,

Of all who ever jeopardized a throne

Sure the most evil-fated, saving one,

Your son, begotten, though you knew not then

Your leman was your sister, of Morgause;

For it is Modred now, not Lancelot,

Whose native hate plans your annihilation-

Though he may smile till he be sick, and swear

Allegiance to an unforgiven father

Until at last he shake an empty tongue

Talked out with too much lying-though his lies

Will have a truth to steer them. Trust him not,

For unto you the father, he the son

Is like enough to be the last of terrors-

If in a field of time that looms to you

Far larger than it is you fail to plant

And harvest the old seeds of what I say,

And so be nourished and adept again

For what may come to be. But Lancelot

Will have you first; and you need starve no more

For the Queen's love, the love that never was.

Your Queen is now your Kingdom, and hereafter

Let no man take it from you, or you die.

Let no man take it from you for a day;

For days are long when we are far from what

We love, and mischief's other name is distance.

Let that be all, for I can say no more;

Not even to Blaise the Hermit, were he living,

Could I say more than I have given you now

To hear; and he alone was my confessor."

The King arose and paced the floor again.

"I get gray comfort of dark words," he said;

"But tell me not that you can say no more:

You can, for I can hear you saying it.

Yet I'll not ask for more. I have enough-

Until my new knight comes to prove and find

The promise and the glory of the Grail,

Though I shall see no Grail. For I have built

On sand and mud, and I shall see no Grail."-

"Nor I," said Merlin. "Once I dreamed of it,

But I was buried. I shall see no Grail,

Nor would I have it otherwise. I saw

Too much, and that was never good for man.

The man who goes alone too far goes mad-

In one way or another. God knew best,

And he knows what is coming yet for me.

I do not ask. Like you, I have enough."

That night King Arthur's apprehension found

In Merlin an obscure and restive guest,

Whose only thought was on the hour of dawn,

When he should see the last of Camelot

And ride again for Brittany; and what words

Were said before the King was left alone

Were only darker for reiteration.

They parted, all provision made secure

For Merlin's early convoy to the coast,

And Arthur tramped the past. The loneliness

Of kings, around him like the unseen dead,

Lay everywhere; and he was loath to move,

As if in fear to meet with his cold hand

The touch of something colder. Then a whim,

Begotten of intolerable doubt,

Seized him and stung him until he was asking

If any longer lived among his knights

A man to trust as once he trusted all,

And Lancelot more than all. "And it is he

Who is to have me first," so Merlin says,-

"As if he had me not in hell already.

Lancelot! Lancelot!" He cursed the tears

That cooled his misery, and then he asked

Himself again if he had one to trust

Among his knights, till even Bedivere,

Tor, Bors, and Percival, rough Lamorak,

Griflet, and Gareth, and gay Gawaine, all

Were dubious knaves,-or they were like to be,

For cause to make them so; and he had made

Himself to be the cause. "God set me right,

Before this folly carry me on farther,"

He murmured; and he smiled unhappily,

Though fondly, as he thought: "Yes, there is one

Whom I may trust with even my soul's last shred;

And Dagonet will sing for me tonight

An old song, not too merry or too sad."

When Dagonet, having entered, stood before

The King as one affrighted, the King smiled:

"You think because I call for you so late

That I am angry, Dagonet? Why so?

Have you been saying what I say to you,

And telling men that you brought Merlin here?

No? So I fancied; and if you report

No syllable of anything I speak,

You will have no regrets, and I no anger.

What word of Merlin was abroad today?"

"Today have I heard no man save Gawaine,

And to him I said only what all men

Are saying to their neighbors. They believe

That you have Merlin here, and that his coming

Denotes no good. Gawaine was curious,

But ever mindful of your majesty.

He pressed me not, and we made light of it."

"Gawaine, I fear, makes light of everything,"

The King said, looking down. "Sometimes I wish

I had a full Round Table of Gawaines.

But that's a freak of midnight,-never mind it.

Sing me a song-one of those endless things

That Merlin liked of old, when men were younger

And there were more stars twinkling in the sky.

I see no stars that are alive tonight,

And I am not the king of sleep. So then,

Sing me an old song."

Dagonet's quick eye

Caught sorrow in the King's; and he knew more,

In a fool's way, than even the King himself

Of what was hovering over Camelot.

"O King," he said, "I cannot sing tonight.

If you command me I shall try to sing,

But I shall fail; for there are no songs now

In my old throat, or even in these poor strings

That I can hardly follow with my fingers.

Forgive me-kill me-but I cannot sing."

Dagonet fell down then on both his knees

And shook there while he clutched the King's cold hand

And wept for what he knew.

"There, Dagonet;

I shall not kill my knight, or make him sing.

No more; get up, and get you off to bed.

There'll be another time for you to sing,

So get you to your covers and sleep well."

Alone again, the King said, bitterly:

"Yes, I have one friend left, and they who know

As much of him as of themselves believe

That he's a fool. Poor Dagonet's a fool.

And if he be a fool, what else am I

Than one fool more to make the world complete?

'The love that never was!' ... Fool, fool, fool, fool!"

The King was long awake. No covenant

With peace was his tonight; and he knew sleep

As he knew the cold eyes of Guinevere

That yesterday had stabbed him, having first

On Lancelot's name struck fire, and left him then

As now they left him-with a wounded heart,

A wounded pride, and a sickening pang worse yet

Of lost possession. He thought wearily

Of watchers by the dead, late wayfarers,

Rough-handed mariners on ships at sea,

Lone-yawning sentries, wastrels, and all others

Who might be saying somewhere to themselves,

"The King is now asleep in Camelot;

God save the King."-"God save the King, indeed,

If there be now a king to save," he said.

Then he saw giants rising in the dark,

Born horribly of memories and new fears

That in the gray-lit irony of dawn

Were partly to fade out and be forgotten;

And then there might be sleep, and for a time

There might again be peace. His head was hot

And throbbing; but the rest of him was cold,

As he lay staring hard where nothing stood,

And hearing what was not, even while he saw

And heard, like dust and thunder far away,

The coming confirmation of the words

Of him who saw so much and feared so little

Of all that was to be. No spoken doom

That ever chilled the last night of a felon

Prepared a dragging anguish more profound

And absolute than Arthur, in these hours,

Made out of darkness and of Merlin's words;

No tide that ever crashed on Lyonnesse

Drove echoes inland that were lonelier

For widowed ears among the fisher-folk,

Than for the King were memories tonight

Of old illusions that were dead for ever.