| 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 | 460 |
| 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, | 465 |
| 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 | 470 |
| 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 | 475 |
| 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, | 480 |
| 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,— | 485 |
| 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: | 490 |
| “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 | 495 |
| 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, | 500 |
| 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.” | 505 |
| |
| 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 | 510 |
| 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: | 515 |
| 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. | 520 |
| 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!— | 525 |
| 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 | 530 |
| 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, | 535 |
| 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? | 540 |
| 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. | 545 |
| 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: | 550 |
| “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 | 555 |
| 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, | 560 |
| 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 | 565 |
| 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 | 570 |
| 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. | 575 |
| 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 | 580 |
| 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; | 585 |
| 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 | 590 |
| 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 | 595 |
| 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 | 600 |
| 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 | 605 |
| We love, and mischief’s other name is distance. | |
| Let hat 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.” | 610 |
| |
| 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— | 615 |
| 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, | 620 |
| 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, | 625 |
| 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, | 630 |
| 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 | 635 |
| 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 | 640 |
| 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, | 645 |
| 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 | 650 |
| 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, | 655 |
| 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 | 660 |
| 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: | 665 |
| “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 | 670 |
| 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 | 675 |
| 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.” | 680 |
| |
| “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 | 685 |
| 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.” | 690 |
| |
| 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. | 695 |
| 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.” | 700 |
| 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. | 705 |
| 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 | 710 |
| 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!” | 715 |
| |
| 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 | 720 |
| 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, | 725 |
| 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. | 730 |
| 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 | 735 |
| 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, | 740 |
| 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 | 745 |
| 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, | 750 |
| Than for the King were memories tonight | |
| Of old illusions that were dead for ever. | |
