Idylls of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson (best books to read for self development txt) 📕

spanned a dry ravine:

And out of town and valley came a noise

As of a broad brook o’er a shingly bed

Brawling, or like a clamour of the rooks

At distance, ere they settle for the night.

 

And onward to the fortress rode the three,

And entered, and were lost behind the walls.

‘So,’ thought Geraint, ‘I have tracked him to his earth.’

And down the long street riding wearily,

Found every hostel full, and everywhere

Was hammer laid to hoof, and the hot hiss

And bustling whistle of the youth who scoured

His master’s armour; and of such a one

He asked, ‘What means the tumult in the town?’

Who told him, scouring still, ‘The sparrow-hawk!’

Then riding close behind an ancient churl,

Who, smitten by the dusty sloping beam,

Went sweating underneath a sack of corn,

Asked yet once more what meant the hubbub here?

Who answered gruffly, ‘Ugh! the sparrow-hawk.’

Then riding further past an armourer’s,

Who, with back turned, and bowed above his work,

Sat riveting a helmet on his knee,

He put the selfsame query, but the man

Not turning round, nor looking at him, said:

‘Friend, he that labours for the sparrow-hawk

Has little time for idle questioners.’

Whereat Geraint flashed into sudden spleen:

‘A thousand pips eat up your sparrow-hawk!

Tits, wrens, and all winged nothings peck him dead!

Ye think the rustic cackle of your bourg

The murmur of the world! What is it to me?

O wretched set of sparrows, one and all,

Who pipe of nothing but of sparrow-hawks!

Speak, if ye be not like the rest, hawk-mad,

Where can I get me harbourage for the night?

And arms, arms, arms to fight my enemy? Speak!’

Whereat the armourer turning all amazed

And seeing one so gay in purple silks,

Came forward with the helmet yet in hand

And answered, ‘Pardon me, O stranger knight;

We hold a tourney here tomorrow morn,

And there is scantly time for half the work.

Arms? truth! I know not: all are wanted here.

Harbourage? truth, good truth, I know not, save,

It may be, at Earl Yniol’s, o’er the bridge

Yonder.’ He spoke and fell to work again.

 

Then rode Geraint, a little spleenful yet,

Across the bridge that spanned the dry ravine.

There musing sat the hoary-headed Earl,

(His dress a suit of frayed magnificence,

Once fit for feasts of ceremony) and said:

‘Whither, fair son?’ to whom Geraint replied,

‘O friend, I seek a harbourage for the night.’

Then Yniol, ‘Enter therefore and partake

The slender entertainment of a house

Once rich, now poor, but ever open-doored.’

‘Thanks, venerable friend,’ replied Geraint;

‘So that ye do not serve me sparrow-hawks

For supper, I will enter, I will eat

With all the passion of a twelve hours’ fast.’

Then sighed and smiled the hoary-headed Earl,

And answered, ‘Graver cause than yours is mine

To curse this hedgerow thief, the sparrow-hawk:

But in, go in; for save yourself desire it,

We will not touch upon him even in jest.’

 

Then rode Geraint into the castle court,

His charger trampling many a prickly star

Of sprouted thistle on the broken stones.

He looked and saw that all was ruinous.

Here stood a shattered archway plumed with fern;

And here had fallen a great part of a tower,

Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the cliff,

And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers:

And high above a piece of turret stair,

Worn by the feet that now were silent, wound

Bare to the sun, and monstrous ivy-stems

Claspt the gray walls with hairy-fibred arms,

And sucked the joining of the stones, and looked

A knot, beneath, of snakes, aloft, a grove.

 

And while he waited in the castle court,

The voice of Enid, Yniol’s daughter, rang

Clear through the open casement of the hall,

Singing; and as the sweet voice of a bird,

Heard by the lander in a lonely isle,

Moves him to think what kind of bird it is

That sings so delicately clear, and make

Conjecture of the plumage and the form;

So the sweet voice of Enid moved Geraint;

And made him like a man abroad at morn

When first the liquid note beloved of men

Comes flying over many a windy wave

To Britain, and in April suddenly

Breaks from a coppice gemmed with green and red,

And he suspends his converse with a friend,

Or it may be the labour of his hands,

To think or say, ‘There is the nightingale;’

So fared it with Geraint, who thought and said,

‘Here, by God’s grace, is the one voice for me.’

 

It chanced the song that Enid sang was one

Of Fortune and her wheel, and Enid sang:

 

‘Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud;

Turn thy wild wheel through sunshine, storm, and cloud;

Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

 

‘Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown;

With that wild wheel we go not up or down;

Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.

 

‘Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands;

Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands;

For man is man and master of his fate.

 

‘Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd;

Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud;

Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.’

 

‘Hark, by the bird’s song ye may learn the nest,’

Said Yniol; ‘enter quickly.’ Entering then,

Right o’er a mount of newly-fallen stones,

The dusky-raftered many-cobwebbed hall,

He found an ancient dame in dim brocade;

And near her, like a blossom vermeil-white,

That lightly breaks a faded flower-sheath,

Moved the fair Enid, all in faded silk,

Her daughter. In a moment thought Geraint,

‘Here by God’s rood is the one maid for me.’

But none spake word except the hoary Earl:

‘Enid, the good knight’s horse stands in the court;

Take him to stall, and give him corn, and then

Go to the town and buy us flesh and wine;

And we will make us merry as we may.

Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.’

 

He spake: the Prince, as Enid past him, fain

To follow, strode a stride, but Yniol caught

His purple scarf, and held, and said, ‘Forbear!

Rest! the good house, though ruined, O my son,

Endures not that her guest should serve himself.’

And reverencing the custom of the house

Geraint, from utter courtesy, forbore.

 

So Enid took his charger to the stall;

And after went her way across the bridge,

And reached the town, and while the Prince and Earl

Yet spoke together, came again with one,

A youth, that following with a costrel bore

The means of goodly welcome, flesh and wine.

And Enid brought sweet cakes to make them cheer,

And in her veil enfolded, manchet bread.

And then, because their hall must also serve

For kitchen, boiled the flesh, and spread the board,

And stood behind, and waited on the three.

And seeing her so sweet and serviceable,

Geraint had longing in him evermore

To stoop and kiss the tender little thumb,

That crost the trencher as she laid it down:

But after all had eaten, then Geraint,

For now the wine made summer in his veins,

Let his eye rove in following, or rest

On Enid at her lowly handmaid-work,

Now here, now there, about the dusky hall;

Then suddenly addrest the hoary Earl:

 

‘Fair Host and Earl, I pray your courtesy;

This sparrow-hawk, what is he? tell me of him.

His name? but no, good faith, I will not have it:

For if he be the knight whom late I saw

Ride into that new fortress by your town,

White from the mason’s hand, then have I sworn

From his own lips to have it—I am Geraint

Of Devon—for this morning when the Queen

Sent her own maiden to demand the name,

His dwarf, a vicious under-shapen thing,

Struck at her with his whip, and she returned

Indignant to the Queen; and then I swore

That I would track this caitiff to his hold,

And fight and break his pride, and have it of him.

And all unarmed I rode, and thought to find

Arms in your town, where all the men are mad;

They take the rustic murmur of their bourg

For the great wave that echoes round the world;

They would not hear me speak: but if ye know

Where I can light on arms, or if yourself

Should have them, tell me, seeing I have sworn

That I will break his pride and learn his name,

Avenging this great insult done the Queen.’

 

Then cried Earl Yniol, ‘Art thou he indeed,

Geraint, a name far-sounded among men

For noble deeds? and truly I, when first

I saw you moving by me on the bridge,

Felt ye were somewhat, yea, and by your state

And presence might have guessed you one of those

That eat in Arthur’s hall in Camelot.

Nor speak I now from foolish flattery;

For this dear child hath often heard me praise

Your feats of arms, and often when I paused

Hath asked again, and ever loved to hear;

So grateful is the noise of noble deeds

To noble hearts who see but acts of wrong:

O never yet had woman such a pair

Of suitors as this maiden: first Limours,

A creature wholly given to brawls and wine,

Drunk even when he wooed; and be he dead

I know not, but he past to the wild land.

The second was your foe, the sparrow-hawk,

My curse, my nephew—I will not let his name

Slip from my lips if I can help it—he,

When that I knew him fierce and turbulent

Refused her to him, then his pride awoke;

And since the proud man often is the mean,

He sowed a slander in the common ear,

Affirming that his father left him gold,

And in my charge, which was not rendered to him;

Bribed with large promises the men who served

About my person, the more easily

Because my means were somewhat broken into

Through open doors and hospitality;

Raised my own town against me in the night

Before my Enid’s birthday, sacked my house;

From mine own earldom foully ousted me;

Built that new fort to overawe my friends,

For truly there are those who love me yet;

And keeps me in this ruinous castle here,

Where doubtless he would put me soon to death,

But that his pride too much despises me:

And I myself sometimes despise myself;

For I have let men be, and have their way;

Am much too gentle, have not used my power:

Nor know I whether I be very base

Or very manful, whether very wise

Or very foolish; only this I know,

That whatsoever evil happen to me,

I seem to suffer nothing heart or limb,

But can endure it all most patiently.’

 

‘Well said, true heart,’ replied Geraint, ‘but arms,

That if the sparrow-hawk, this nephew, fight

In next day’s tourney I may break his pride.’

 

And Yniol answered, ‘Arms, indeed, but old

And rusty, old and rusty, Prince Geraint,

Are mine, and therefore at thy asking, thine.

But in this tournament can no man tilt,

Except the lady he loves best be there.

Two forks are fixt into the meadow ground,

And over these is placed a silver wand,

And over that a golden sparrow-hawk,

The prize of beauty for the fairest there.

And this, what knight soever be in field

Lays claim to for the lady at his side,

And tilts with my good nephew thereupon,

Who being apt at arms and big of bone

Has ever won it for the lady with him,

And toppling over all antagonism

Has earned himself the name of sparrow-hawk.’

But thou, that hast no lady,