Idylls of the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (read book txt) 📕

till she long
To have thee back in lusty life again,
Not to be bound, save by white bonds and warm,
Dearer than freedom. Wherefore now thy horse
And armour: let me go: be comforted:
Give me three days to melt her fancy, and hope
The third night hence will bring thee news of gold.”

Then Pelleas lent his horse and all his arms,
Saving the goodly sword, his prize, and took
Gawain’s, and said, “Betray me not, but help⁠—
Art thou not he whom men call light-of-love?”

“Ay,” said Gawain, “for women be so light.”
Then bounded forward to the castle walls,
And raised a bugle hanging from his neck,
And winded it, and that so musically
That all the old echoes hidden in the wall
Rang out like hollow woods at hunting-tide.

Up ran a score of damsels to the tower;
“Avaunt,” they cried, “our lady loves thee not.”
But Gawain lifting up his vizor said,
“Gawain am I, Gawain of Arthur’s court,
And I have slain this Pelleas whom ye hate:
Behold his horse and armour. Open gates,
And I will make you merry.”

And down they ran,
Her damsels, crying to their lady, “Lo!
Pelleas is dead⁠—he told us⁠—he that hath
His horse and armour: will ye let him in?
He slew him! Gawain, Gawain of the court,
Sir Gawain⁠—there he waits below the wall,
Blowing his bugle as who should say him nay.”

And so, leave given, straight on through open door
Rode Gawain, whom she greeted courteously.
“Dead, is it so?” she asked. “Ay, ay,” said he,
“And oft in dying cried upon your name.”
“Pity on him,” she answered, “a good knight,
But never let me bide one hour at peace.”
“Ay,” thought Gawain, “and you be fair enow:
But I to your dead man have given my troth,
That whom ye loathe, him will I make you love.”

So those three days, aimless about the land,
Lost in a doubt, Pelleas wandering
Waited, until the third night brought a moon
With promise of large light on woods and ways.

Hot was the night and silent; but a sound
Of Gawain ever coming, and this lay⁠—
Which Pelleas had heard sung before the Queen,
And seen her sadden listening⁠—vext his heart,
And marred his rest⁠—“A worm within the rose.”

“A rose, but one, none other rose had I,
A rose, one rose, and this was wondrous fair,
One rose, a rose that gladdened earth and sky,
One rose, my rose, that sweetened all mine air⁠—
I cared not for the thorns; the thorns were there.

“One rose, a rose to gather by and by,
One rose, a rose, to gather and to wear,
No rose but one⁠—what other rose had I?
One rose, my rose; a rose that will not die⁠—
He dies who loves it⁠—if the worm be there.”

This tender rhyme, and evermore the doubt,
“Why lingers Gawain with his golden news?”
So shook him that he could not rest, but rode
Ere midnight to her walls, and bound his horse
Hard by the gates. Wide open were the gates,
And no watch kept; and in through these he past,
And heard but his own steps, and his own heart
Beating, for nothing moved but his own self,
And his own shadow. Then he crost the court,
And spied not any light in hall or bower,
But saw the postern portal also wide
Yawning; and up a slope of garden, all
Of roses white and red, and brambles mixt
And overgrowing them, went on, and found,
Here too, all hushed below the mellow moon,
Save that one rivulet from a tiny cave
Came lightening downward, and so spilt itself
Among the roses, and was lost again.

Then was he ware of three pavilions reared
Above the bushes, gilden-peakt: in one,
Red after revel, droned her lurdane knights
Slumbering, and their three squires across their feet:
In one, their malice on the placid lip
Frozen by sweet sleep, four of her damsels lay:
And in the third, the circlet of the jousts
Bound on her brow, were Gawain and Ettarre.

Back, as a hand that pushes through the leaf
To find a nest and feels a snake, he drew:
Back, as a coward slinks from what he fears
To cope with, or a traitor proven, or hound
Beaten, did Pelleas in an utter shame
Creep with his shadow through the court again,
Fingering at his sword-handle until he stood
There on the castle-bridge once more, and thought,
“I will go back, and slay them where they lie.”

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 turned, and so returned, and groaning laid
The naked sword athwart their naked throats,
There left it, and them sleeping; and she lay,
The circlet of her tourney round her brows,
And the sword of the tourney across her throat.

And forth he past, and mounting on his horse
Stared at her towers that, larger than themselves
In their own darkness, thronged into the moon.
Then crushed the saddle with his thighs, and clenched
His hands, and maddened with himself and moaned:

“Would they have risen against me in their blood
At the last day? I might have answered them
Even before high God. O towers so strong,
Huge, solid, would that even while I gaze
The crack of earthquake shivering to your base
Split you, and Hell burst up your harlot roofs
Bellowing, and charred you through and through within,
Black as the harlot’s heart⁠—hollow as a skull!
Let the fierce east scream through your eyelet-holes,
And whirl the dust of harlots round and round
In dung and nettles! hiss, snake⁠—I saw him there⁠—
Let the fox bark, let the wolf yell. Who yells
Here in the still sweet summer night, but I⁠—
I, the poor Pelleas whom she called her fool?
Fool, beast⁠—he, she, or I? myself most fool;
Beast too, as lacking human wit⁠—disgraced,
Dishonoured all for trial of true love⁠—
Love?⁠—we be all alike: only the King
Hath made us fools and liars. O noble vows!
O great and sane and simple race of brutes
That own no lust because they have no law!
For why should I have loved her to my shame?
I loathe her, as I loved her to my shame.
I never loved her, I but lusted for her⁠—
Away⁠—”

He dashed the rowel into his horse,
And bounded forth and vanished through the night.

Then she, that felt the cold touch on her throat,
Awaking knew the sword,