Part 2 (1/2)
”My life for thine, thus bartered lip to lip!
A striving being pulsant, that shall slip Like song and flame in sense from thee to me; Nor held, but quick rebartered thence to thee: So our two loves be as a singles.h.i.+p, Ten thousand loves as one eternally.”
Babbled the woodland like a rocky brook; And as the ecstacy of foliage shook, Hot pieces of bright, sunny heavens glanced Like polished silver thro' pale leaves that danced.
As one hath seen some green-gowned huntress fair, Morn in her cheeks and midnight in her hair, Eyes clear as hollow dews; clean limbs as lithe As limbs swift morning moves; a voice as blithe As high hawk's ringing thro' the falling dews; Pant thro' the bramble-matted avenues,-- Where brier and thorn have gashed her gown's pinched green, About bright b.r.e.a.s.t.s and arms, the milky sheen Of white skin healthy pouting out; her face, Ardent and flushed, fixed on the lordly chase.
III.
The eve now came; and shadows cowled the way Like somber palmers, who have kneeled to pray Beside a wayside shrine, and rosy rolled Up the capacious West a grainy gold, Luxuriant fluid, burned thro' strong, keen skies, Which seemed as towering gates of Paradise Surged dim, far glories on the hungry gaze.
And from that sunset down the roseate ways, To Accolon, who with his idle lute, Reclined in revery against a root Of a great oak, a fragment of that West, A dwarf, in crimson satin tightly dressed, Skipped like a leaf the rather frosts have burned And cozened to a fever red, that turned And withered all its sap. And this one came From Camelot; from his beloved dame, Morgane the Fay. He on his shoulder bore A burning blade wrought strange with wizard lore, Runed mystically; and a scabbard which Glared venomous, with angry jewels rich.
He, louting to the knight, ”Sir knight,” said he, ”Your lady with all sweetest courtesy a.s.sures you--ah, unworthy messenger I of such brightness!--of that love of her.”
Then doffing that great baldric, with the sword To him he gave: ”And this from him, my lord King Arthur; even his Excalibur, The sovereign blade, which Merlin gat of her, The Ladye of the Lake, who Launcelot Fostered from infanthood, as well you wot, In some wierd mere in Briogn's tangled lands Of charms and mist; where filmy fairy bands By lazy moons of Autumn spin their fill Of giddy morrice on the frosty hill.
By goodness of her favor this is sent; Who craved King Arthur boon with this intent: That soon for her a desperate combat one With one of mightier prowess were begun; And with the sword Excalibur right sure Were she against that champion to endure.
The blade flame-trenchant, but more prize the sheath Which stauncheth blood and guardeth from all death.”
He said: and Accolon looked on the sword, A mystic falchion, and, ”It shall wend hard With him thro' thee, unconquerable blade, Whoe'er he be, who on my Queen hath laid Stress of unwors.h.i.+p: and the hours as slow As palsied hours in Purgatory go For those unma.s.sed, till I have slain this foe!
My purse, sweet page; and now--to her who gave, Dispatch! and this:--to all commands--her slave, To death obedient. In love or war Her love to make me all the warrior.
Plead her grace mercy for so long delay From love that dies an hourly death each day Till her white hands kissed he shall kiss her face, By which his life breathes in continual grace.”
Thus he commanded; and incontinent The dwarf departed like a red ray sent From rich down-flowering clouds of suffused light Winged o'er long, purple glooms; and with the night, Whose votaress cypress stoled the dying strife Softly of day, and for whose perished life Gave heaven her golden stars, in dreamy thought Wends Accolon to hazy Chariot.
And it befell him; wandering one dawn, As was his wont, across a dew-drenched lawn, Glad with night freshness and elastic health In sky and earth that lavished worlds of wealth From heady breeze and racy smells, a knight And lofty lady met he; gay bedight, With following of six esquires; and they Held on straight wrists the jess'd gerfalcon gray, And rode a-hawking o'er the leas of Gore From Ontzlake's manor, where he languished; sore Hurt in the lists, a spear thrust in his thigh: Who had besought--for much he feared to die-- This knight and his fair lady, as they rode To hawk near Chariot, the Queen's abode, That they would pray her in all charity Fare post to him,--for in chirurgery Of all that land she was the greatest leach,-- And her to his recovery beseech.
So, Accolon saluted, they drew rein, And spake their message,--for right over fain Were they toward their sport,--that he might bare Pet.i.tion to that lady. But, not there Was Arthur's sister, as they well must wot; But now a se'nnight lay at Camelot, Of Guenevere the guest; and there with her Four other queens of farther Britain were: Isoud of Ireland, she of Cornwall Queen, King Mark's wife; who right rarely then was seen At court for jealousy of Mark, who knew Her to that lance of Lyonesse how true Since mutual quaffing of a philter; while How guilty Guenevere on such could smile: She of Northgales and she of Eastland: and She of the Out Isles Queen. A fairer band For sovereignty and love and loveliness Was not in any realm to grace and bless.
Then quoth the knight, ”Ay? see how fortune turns And varies like an April day, that burns Now welkins blue with calm, now scowls them down, Revengeful, with a black storm's wrinkled frown.
For, look, this Damas, who so long hath lain A hiding vermin, fearful of all pain, Dark in his bandit towers by the deep, Wakes from a five years' torpor and a sleep; So sends dispatch a courier to my lord With, 'Lo! behold! to-morrow with the sword Earl Damas by his knight at point of lance Decides the issue of inheritance, Body to body, or by champion.'
Right hard to find such ere to-morrow dawn.
Though sore bestead lies Ontzlake, and he could, Right fain were he to save his livelihood.
Then mused Sir Accolon: ”The adventure goes Ev'n as my Lady fas.h.i.+oneth; who knows But what her arts develop this and make?”
And thus to those: ”His battle I will take,-- And he be so conditioned, harried of Estate and life,--in knighthood and for love.
Conduct me thither.”
And, gramercied, then Mounted a void horse of that wondering train, And thence departed with two squires. And they Came to a lone, dismantled priory Hard by a castle gray on whose square towers, Machicolated, o'er the forest's bowers, The immemorial morning bloomed and blushed.
A woodland manor olden, dark embushed In wild and woody hills. And then one wound An echoy horn, and with the boundless sound The drawbridge rumbled moatward clanking, and Into a paved court pa.s.sed that little band....
When all the world was morning, gleam and glare Of far deluging glory, and the air Sang with the wood-bird, like a humming lyre Swept bold of minstrel fingers wire on wire; Ere that fixed hour of prime came Arthur armed For battle royally. A black steed warmed A fierce impatience 'neath him cased in mail, Huge, foreign; and accoutered head to tail In costly sendal; rearward wine-dark red, Amber as sunlight to his fretful head.
Firm, heavy armor blue had Arthur on Beneath a robe of honor, like the dawn, Satin and diapered and purflewed deep With lordly golden purple; whence did sweep Two hanging acorn tuftings of fine gold, And at his thigh a falchion, long and bold, Heavy and triple-edged; its scabbard, red Cordovan leather; thence a baldric led Of new cut deer-skin; this laborious wrought, And curiously with slides of gold was fraught, And buckled with a buckle white that shone, Bone of the sea-horse, tongued with jet-black bone.
And, sapphire-set, a burgonet of gold Barbaric, wyvern-crested whose throat rolled A flame-sharp tongue of agate, and whose eyes Glowed venomous great rubies fierce of prize.
And in his hand, a wiry lance of ash, Lattened with finest silver, like a flash Of sunlight in the morning shone a-gash.
Clad was his squire most richly; he whose head Curled with close locks of yellow tinged to red: Of n.o.ble bearing; fair face; hawk eyes keen, And youthful, bearded chin. Right well beseen, Scarfed with blue satin; on his shoulder strong One broad gold brooch chased strangely, thick and long.
His legs in hose of rarest Totness clad, And parti-colored leathern shoes he had Gold-latched; and in his hand a bannered spear Speckled and bronzen sharpened in the air.
So with his following, while lay like scars The blue mist thin along the woodland bars, Thro' dew and fog, thro' shadow and thro' ray Joustward Earl Damas led the forest way.
Then to King Arthur when arrived were these To where the lists shone silken thro' the trees, Bannered and draped, a wimpled damsel came, Secret, upon a palfrey all aflame With sweat and heat of hurry, and, ”From her, Your sister Morgane, your Excalibur, With tender greeting: For ye well have need In this adventure of him. So, G.o.d speed!”
And so departed suddenly: nor knew The king but this his weapon tried and true.
But brittle this and fas.h.i.+oned like thereof, And false of baser metal, in unlove And treason to his life, of her of kin Half sister, Morgane--an unnatural sin.
Then heralded into the lists he rode.
Opposed flashed Accolon, who light bestrode, Exultant, proud in talisman of that sword, A dun horse lofty as a haughty lord, Pure white about each hollow, pasterned hoof.
Equipped shone knight and steed in arms of proof, Dappled with yellow variegated plate Of Spanish laton. And of sovereign state His surcoat robe of honor white and black Of satin, red-silk needled front and back Then blackly bordered. And above his robe That two-edged sword,--a throbbing golden globe Of vicious jewels,--thrust its burning hilt, Its broad belt, tawny and with gold-work gilt, Clasped with the eyelid of a black sea-horse Whose tongue was rosy gold. And stern as Force His visored helmet burned like fire, of rich And bronzen laton hammered; and on which An hundred crystals glittered, thick as on A silver web bright-studding dews of dawn.
The casque's tail crest a taloned griffin ramped, In whose horned brow one virtuous jewel stamped.
An ashen spear round-shafted, overlaid With fine blue silver, whereon colors played, Firm in his iron gauntlet lithely swayed.