And mine is living blood: thou dost His will, The Maker's, and not knowest, and I that know, THE HOLY GRAIL. PELLEAS AND ETTARRE. THE LAST TOURNAMENT. GUINEVERE. Heaven yield her for it, but in me put force To weary her ears with one continuous prayer, Until she let me fly discaged to sweep In ever-highering eagle-circles up swoop Down upon all things base, and dash, them dead, A knight of Arthur, working out his will, To cleanse the world. Why, Gawain, when he came With Modred hither in the summer. time, Ask'd me to tilt with him, the proven knight. Modred for want of worthier was the judge. Have strength and wit, in my good Then I so shook him in the saddle, he mother's hall Linger with vacillating obedience, Prison'd, and kept and coax'd and whistled to Since the good mother holds me still a child! Good mother is bad mother unto me! A worse were better; yet no worse would I. Ask'd, “Mother, tho' ye count me still | And handed down the golden treasure the child, to him." And Gareth auswer'd her with kind. ling eyes, "Gold? said I gold? he, or she, ay then, why Or whoso'er it was, or half the world Had ventured-had the thing I spake of been Mere gold- but this was all of that true steel, Whereof they forged the brand Excalibur, And lightnings play'd about it in the storm, And all the little fowl were flurried at it, And there were cries and clashings in the nest, That sent him from his senses: let me go." Then Bellicent bemoan'd herself and said, "Hast thou no pity upon my loneli To whom the mother said, "Sweet son, for there be many who deem him not, Or will not deem him, wholly proven King Albeit in mine own heart I knew him King, When I was frequent with him in my youth, And heard him Kingly speak, and doubted him No more than he, himself; but felt him mine, Of closest kin to me: yet-wilt thou leave Thine easeful biding here, and risk thine all, Life, limbs, for one that is not proven King? Stay, till the cloud that settles round his birth Hath lifted but a little. Stay, sweet son." |