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

that eunuch-hearted King
Who fain had clipt free manhood from the world⁠—
The woman-worshipper? Yea, God’s curse, and I!
Slain was the brother of my paramour
By a knight of thine, and I that heard her whine
And snivel, being eunuch-hearted too,
Sware by the scorpion-worm that twists in hell,
And stings itself to everlasting death,
To hang whatever knight of thine I fought
And tumbled. Art thou King?⁠—Look to thy life!”

He ended: Arthur knew the voice; the face
Wellnigh was helmet-hidden, and the name
Went wandering somewhere darkling in his mind.
And Arthur deigned not use of word or sword,
But let the drunkard, as he stretched from horse
To strike him, overbalancing his bulk,
Down from the causeway heavily to the swamp
Fall, as the crest of some slow-arching wave,
Heard in dead night along that table-shore,
Drops flat, and after the great waters break
Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves,
Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud,
From less and less to nothing; thus he fell
Head-heavy; then the knights, who watched him, roared
And shouted and leapt down upon the fallen;
There trampled out his face from being known,
And sank his head in mire, and slimed themselves:
Nor heard the King for their own cries, but sprang
Through open doors, and swording right and left
Men, women, on their sodden faces, hurled
The tables over and the wines, and slew
Till all the rafters rang with woman-yells,
And all the pavement streamed with massacre:
Then, echoing yell with yell, they fired the tower,
Which half that autumn night, like the live North,
Red-pulsing up through Alioth and Alcor,
Made all above it, and a hundred meres
About it, as the water Moab saw
Came round by the East, and out beyond them flushed
The long low dune, and lazy-plunging sea.

So all the ways were safe from shore to shore,
But in the heart of Arthur pain was lord.

Then, out of Tristram waking, the red dream
Fled with a shout, and that low lodge returned,
Mid-forest, and the wind among the boughs.
He whistled his good warhorse left to graze
Among the forest greens, vaulted upon him,
And rode beneath an ever-showering leaf,
Till one lone woman, weeping near a cross,
Stayed him. “Why weep ye?” “Lord,” she said, “my man
Hath left me or is dead;” whereon he thought⁠—
“What, if she hate me now? I would not this.
What, if she love me still? I would not that.
I know not what I would”⁠—but said to her,
“Yet weep not thou, lest, if thy mate return,
He find thy favour changed and love thee not”⁠—
Then pressing day by day through Lyonnesse
Last in a roky hollow, belling, heard
The hounds of Mark, and felt the goodly hounds
Yelp at his heart, but turning, past and gained
Tintagil, half in sea, and high on land,
A crown of towers.

Down in a casement sat,
A low sea-sunset glorying round her hair
And glossy-throated grace, Isolt the Queen.
And when she heard the feet of Tristram grind
The spiring stone that scaled about her tower,
Flushed, started, met him at the doors, and there
Belted his body with her white embrace,
Crying aloud, “Not Mark⁠—not Mark, my soul!
The footstep fluttered me at first: not he:
Catlike through his own castle steals my Mark,
But warrior-wise thou stridest through his halls
Who hates thee, as I him⁠—even to the death.
My soul, I felt my hatred for my Mark
Quicken within me, and knew that thou wert nigh.”
To whom Sir Tristram smiling, “I am here.
Let be thy Mark, seeing he is not thine.”

And drawing somewhat backward she replied,
“Can he be wronged who is not even his own,
But save for dread of thee had beaten me,
Scratched, bitten, blinded, marred me somehow⁠—Mark?
What rights are his that dare not strike for them?
Not lift a hand⁠—not, though he found me thus!
But harken! have ye met him? hence he went
Today for three days’ hunting⁠—as he said⁠—
And so returns belike within an hour.
Mark’s way, my soul!⁠—but eat not thou with Mark,
Because he hates thee even more than fears;
Nor drink: and when thou passest any wood
Close vizor, lest an arrow from the bush
Should leave me all alone with Mark and hell.
My God, the measure of my hate for Mark
Is as the measure of my love for thee.”

So, plucked one way by hate and one by love,
Drained of her force, again she sat, and spake
To Tristram, as he knelt before her, saying,
“O hunter, and O blower of the horn,
Harper, and thou hast been a rover too,
For, ere I mated with my shambling king,
Ye twain had fallen out about the bride
Of one⁠—his name is out of me⁠—the prize,
If prize she were⁠—(what marvel⁠—she could see)⁠—
Thine, friend; and ever since my craven seeks
To wreck thee villainously: but, O Sir Knight,
What dame or damsel have ye kneeled to last?”

And Tristram, “Last to my Queen Paramount,
Here now to my Queen Paramount of love
And loveliness⁠—ay, lovelier than when first
Her light feet fell on our rough Lyonnesse,
Sailing from Ireland.”

Softly laughed Isolt;
“Flatter me not, for hath not our great Queen
My dole of beauty trebled?” and he said,
“Her beauty is her beauty, and thine thine,
And thine is more to me⁠—soft, gracious, kind⁠—
Save when thy Mark is kindled on thy lips
Most gracious; but she, haughty, even to him,
Lancelot; for I have seen him wan enow
To make one doubt if ever the great Queen
Have yielded him her love.”

To whom Isolt,
“Ah then, false hunter and false harper, thou
Who brakest through the scruple of my bond,
Calling me thy white hind, and saying to me
That Guinevere had sinned against the highest,
And I⁠—misyoked with such a want of man⁠—
That I could hardly sin against the lowest.”

He answered, “O my soul, be comforted!
If this be sweet, to sin in leading-strings,
If here be comfort, and if ours be sin,
Crowned warrant had we for the crowning sin
That made us happy: but how ye greet me⁠—fear
And fault and doubt⁠—no word of that fond tale⁠—
Thy deep heart-yearnings, thy sweet memories
Of Tristram in that year he was away.”

And, saddening on the sudden, spake Isolt,
“I had forgotten all in my strong joy
To see thee⁠—yearnings?⁠—ay! for, hour by hour,
Here in the never-ended afternoon,
O sweeter than all memories of thee,
Deeper than any yearnings after thee
Seemed those far-rolling, westward-smiling seas,
Watched from this tower. Isolt of Britain dashed
Before Isolt of Brittany on the strand,
Would that have chilled her bride-kiss? Wedded her?
Fought in her father’s battles?