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"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?"

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The third night hence will bring thee news of gold."

Then Pelleas lent his horse and all his

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Red after revel, droned her lurdane
knights
Slumbering, and their three squires across
their feet:

In one, their malice on the placid lip
Froz'n by sweet sleep, four of her dam-

sels lay:

And in the third, the circlet of the jousts
Bound on her brow, were Gawain and
Ettarre.

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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.

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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

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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
In summer: thither came the village girls
And linger'd talking, and they come no

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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,

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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,

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“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,

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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."

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