34

THE LAST TOURNAMENT.

DAGONET, the fool, whom Gawain in his mood Had made mock-knight of Arthur's Table Round, At Camelot, high above the yellowing woods, Danced like a wither'd leaf before the hall.

And toward him from the hall, with harp in hand, And from the crown thereof a carcanet

Of ruby swaying to and fro, the prize

Of Tristram in the jousts of yesterday,

Came Tristram, saying, 'Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?'

For Arthur and Sir Lancelot riding once Far down beneath a winding wall of rock Heard a child wail. A stump of oak half-dead, From roots like some black coil of carven snakes, Clutch'd at the crag, and started thro' mid air Bearing an eagle's nest and thro' the tree

Rush'd ever a rainy wind, and thro' the wind

Pierced ever a child's cry: and crag and tree
Scaling, Sir Lancelot from the perilous nest,
This ruby necklace thrice around her neck,
And all unscarr'd from beak or talon, brought
A maiden babe; which Arthur pitying took,
Then gave it to his Queen to rear: the Queen
But coldly acquiescing, in her white arms
Received, and after loved it tenderly,
And named it Nestling; so forgot herself
A moment, and her cares; till that
young life
Being smitten in mid heaven with mortal cold
Past from her; and in time the carcanet
Vext her with plaintive memories of the child:
So she, delivering it to Arthur, said,

"Take thou the jewels of this dead innocence,
And make them, an thou wilt, a tourney-prize.'

To whom the King, 'Peace to thine eagle-borne Dead nestling, and this honour after death, Following thy will! but, O my Queen, I muse Why ye not wear on arm, or neck, or zone Those diamonds that I rescued from the tarn, And Lancelot won, methought, for thee to wear.'

'Would rather you had let them fall,' she cried, 'Plunge and be lost-ill-fated as they were, A bitterness to me !-ye look amazed,

Not knowing they were lost as soon as given

Slid from my hands, when I was leaning out
Above the river-that unhappy child

Past in her barge: but rosier luck will go
With these rich jewels, seeing that they came
Not from the skeleton of a brother-slayer,
But the sweet body of a maiden babe.
Perchance-who knows?—the purest of thy knights
May win them for the purest of my maids.'

She ended, and the cry of a great jousts
With trumpet-blowings ran on all the ways
From Camelot in among the faded fields
To furthest towers; and everywhere the knights
Arm'd for a day of glory before the King.

But on the hither side of that loud morn Into the hall stagger'd, his visaged ribb'd From ear to ear with dogwhip-weals, his nose Bridge-broken, one eye out, and one hand off And one with shatter'd fingers dangling lame, A churl, to whom indignantly the King,

'My churl, for whom Christ died, what evil beast Hath drawn his claws athwart thy face? or fiend? Man was it who marr'd heaven's image in thee thus?'

Then, sputtering thro' the hedge of splinter'd teeth, Yet strangers to the tongue, and with blunt stump

Pitch-blacken'd sawing the air, said the maim'd churl,

'He took them and he drave them to his towerSome hold he was a table-knight of thineA hundred goodly ones-the Red Knight, heLord, I was tending swine, and the Red Knight Brake in upon me and drave them to his tower; And when I call'd upon thy name as one

That doest right by gentle and by churl,

Maim'd me and maul'd, and would outright have

slain,

Save that he sware me to a message, saying,
"Tell thou the King and all his liars, that I
Have founded my Round Table in the North,
And whatsoever his own knights have sworn
My knights have sworn the counter to it—and say
My tower is full of harlots, like his court,
But mine are worthier, seeing they profess
To be none other than themselves—and say
My knights are all adulterers like his own,
But mine are truer, seeing they profess
To be none other; and say his hour is come,
The heathen are upon him, his long lance
Broken, and his Excalibur a straw."

Then Arthur turn'd to Kay the seneschal, Take thou my churl, and tend him curiously Like a king's heir, till all his hurts be whole.

The heathen-but that ever-climbing wave,
Hurl'd back again so often in empty foam,
Hath lain for years at rest-and renegades,
Thieves, bandits, leavings of confusion, whom
The wholesome realm is purged of otherwhere,
Friends, thro' your manhood and your fealty,-now
Make their last head like Satan in the North.

My younger knights, new-made, in whom your flower
Waits to be solid fruit of golden deeds,

Move with me toward their quelling, which achieved,
The loneliest ways are safe from shore to shore.
But thou, Sir Lancelot, sitting in my place
Enchair'd to-morrow, arbitrate the field;

For wherefore shouldst thou care to mingle with it,
Only to yield my Queen her own again?
Speak, Lancelot, thou art silent: is it well?'

Thereto Sir Lancelot answer'd, 'It is well:
Yet better if the King abide, and leave
The leading of his younger knights to me.
Else, for the King has will'd it, it is well.'

Then Arthur rose and Lancelot follow'd him, And while they stood without the doors, the King Turn'd to him saying, 'Is it then so well?

Or mine the blame that oft I seem as he

Of whom was written, "A sound is in his ears"?
The foot that loiters, bidden go, the glance