"Faith of my body," he said, "and art | And armor: let me go: be comforted: Give me three days to melt her fancy. and hope thou not Yea thou art he, whom late our Arthur made Knight of his table; yea and he that won The circlet? wherefore hast thou so defamed Thy brotherhood in me and all the rest, As let these caitiffs on thee work their will?" The third night hence will bring thee news of gold." Then Pelleas lent his horse and all his Red after revel, droned her lurdane In one, their malice on the placid lip sels lay: And in the third, the circlet of the jousts And so went back and seeing them yet in sleep Said, "Ye, that so dishallow the holy sleep, Your sleep is death," and drew the sword, and thought, "What! slay a sleeping knight? the King hath bound And sworn me to this brotherhood"; again, "Alas that ever a knight should be so false." Then turn'd, and so return'd, and groaning laid The naked sword athwart their naked throats, There left it, and them sleeping; and she lay, The circlet of the tourney round her brows, And the sword of the tourney across her throat. At the last day? I might have answer'd them Even before high God. O towers so strong, Huge, solid, would that even while I gaze Back, as a hand that pushes thro' the The crack of earthquake shivering to leaf your base He dash'd the rowel into his horse, And bounded forth and vanish'd thro' the night. Then she, that felt the cold touch on her throat, Awaking knew the sword, and turn'd herself To Gawain: "Liar, for thou hast not slain This Pelleas! here he stood and might have slain Me and thyself." And he that tells the tale Says that her ever-veering fancy turn'd To Pelleas, as the one true knight on earth, And only lover; and thro' her love her life Wasted and pined, desiring him in vain. But he by wild and way, for half the night, And over hard and soft, striking the sod From out the soft, the spark from off the hard, Rode till the star above the wakening sun, Beside that tower where Percivale was cowl'd, Glanced from the rosy forehead of the dawn. For so the words were flash'd into his heart He knew not whence or wherefore: "O sweet star, Pure on the virgin forehead of the dawn." And there he would have wept, but felt his eyes Harder and drier than a fountain bed Of our free-spoken Table hast not heard That Lancelot' - there he check'd himself and paused. Then fared it with Sir Pelleas as with one Who gets a wound in battle, and the sword That made it plunges thro' the wound again, But Pelleas, leaping up, Ran thro' the doors and vaulted on his horse And fled: small pity upon his horse had he, Or on himself, or any, and when he met A cripple, one that held a hand for alms Hunch'd as he was, and like an old dwarf-elm That turns its back on the salt blast, the boy Paused not but overrode him, shouting "False, And false with Gawain !" and so left him bruised And batter'd, and fled on, and hill and wood Went ever streaming by him till the gloom, That follows on the turning of the world, Darken'd the common path: he twitch'd the reins, And made his beast that better knew it, “I have no name," he shouted, "a Scourge am I, To lash the treasons of the Table Round." "Yea, but thy name?" "I have many names," he cried : "I am wrath and shame and hate and evil fame, And like a poisonous wind I pass to blast And blaze the crime of Lancelot and the Queen." "First over me," said Lancelot, "shalt thou pass." "Fight therefore," yell'd the other, and either knight Drew back a space, and when they closed, To Camelot, and Sir Pelleas in brief while Caught his unbroken limbs from the dark field, And follow'd to the city. It chanced that both Brake into hall together, worn and pale. There with her knights and dames was Guinevere. Full wonderingly she gazed on Lancelot So soon return'd, and then on Pelleas, him Who had not greeted her, but cast himself Down on a bench, hard-breathing. "Have ye fought?" She ask'd of Lancelot. "Ay, my Queen," he said. "And thou hast overthrown him?" 'Ay, my Queen." 66 Then she, turning to Pelleas, "O young knight, Hath the great heart of knighthood in thee fail'd Queen So far thou canst not bide, unfrowardly, | Sprang from the door into the dark. The A fall from him?" Then, for he answer'd not, "Or hast thou other griefs? If I, the Queen, May help them, loose thy tongue, and let me know." But Pelleas lifted up an eye so fierce She quail'd; and he, hissing "I have no sword," Look'd hard upon her lover, he on her; And each foresaw the dolorous day to be: And all talk died, as in a grove all song Beneath the shadow of some bird of prey, Then a long silence came upon the hall, And Modred thought, "The time is hard at hand." |