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

a sudden need;

Then dozed awhile herself, but overtoiled

By that day’s grief and travel, evermore

Seemed catching at a rootless thorn, and then

Went slipping down horrible precipices,

And strongly striking out her limbs awoke;

Then thought she heard the wild Earl at the door,

With all his rout of random followers,

Sound on a dreadful trumpet, summoning her;

Which was the red cock shouting to the light,

As the gray dawn stole o’er the dewy world,

And glimmered on his armour in the room.

And once again she rose to look at it,

But touched it unawares: jangling, the casque

Fell, and he started up and stared at her.

Then breaking his command of silence given,

She told him all that Earl Limours had said,

Except the passage that he loved her not;

Nor left untold the craft herself had used;

But ended with apology so sweet,

Low-spoken, and of so few words, and seemed

So justified by that necessity,

That though he thought ‘was it for him she wept

In Devon?’ he but gave a wrathful groan,

Saying, ‘Your sweet faces make good fellows fools

And traitors. Call the host and bid him bring

Charger and palfrey.’ So she glided out

Among the heavy breathings of the house,

And like a household Spirit at the walls

Beat, till she woke the sleepers, and returned:

Then tending her rough lord, though all unasked,

In silence, did him service as a squire;

Till issuing armed he found the host and cried,

‘Thy reckoning, friend?’ and ere he learnt it, ‘Take

Five horses and their armours;’ and the host

Suddenly honest, answered in amaze,

‘My lord, I scarce have spent the worth of one!’

‘Ye will be all the wealthier,’ said the Prince,

And then to Enid, ‘Forward! and today

I charge you, Enid, more especially,

What thing soever ye may hear, or see,

Or fancy (though I count it of small use

To charge you) that ye speak not but obey.’

 

And Enid answered, ‘Yea, my lord, I know

Your wish, and would obey; but riding first,

I hear the violent threats you do not hear,

I see the danger which you cannot see:

Then not to give you warning, that seems hard;

Almost beyond me: yet I would obey.’

 

‘Yea so,’ said he, ‘do it: be not too wise;

Seeing that ye are wedded to a man,

Not all mismated with a yawning clown,

But one with arms to guard his head and yours,

With eyes to find you out however far,

And ears to hear you even in his dreams.’

 

With that he turned and looked as keenly at her

As careful robins eye the delver’s toil;

And that within her, which a wanton fool,

Or hasty judger would have called her guilt,

Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall.

And Geraint looked and was not satisfied.

 

Then forward by a way which, beaten broad,

Led from the territory of false Limours

To the waste earldom of another earl,

Doorm, whom his shaking vassals called the Bull,

Went Enid with her sullen follower on.

Once she looked back, and when she saw him ride

More near by many a rood than yestermorn,

It wellnigh made her cheerful; till Geraint

Waving an angry hand as who should say

‘Ye watch me,’ saddened all her heart again.

But while the sun yet beat a dewy blade,

The sound of many a heavily-galloping hoof

Smote on her ear, and turning round she saw

Dust, and the points of lances bicker in it.

Then not to disobey her lord’s behest,

And yet to give him warning, for he rode

As if he heard not, moving back she held

Her finger up, and pointed to the dust.

At which the warrior in his obstinacy,

Because she kept the letter of his word,

Was in a manner pleased, and turning, stood.

And in the moment after, wild Limours,

Borne on a black horse, like a thunder-cloud

Whose skirts are loosened by the breaking storm,

Half ridden off with by the thing he rode,

And all in passion uttering a dry shriek,

Dashed down on Geraint, who closed with him, and bore

Down by the length of lance and arm beyond

The crupper, and so left him stunned or dead,

And overthrew the next that followed him,

And blindly rushed on all the rout behind.

But at the flash and motion of the man

They vanished panic-stricken, like a shoal

Of darting fish, that on a summer morn

Adown the crystal dykes at Camelot

Come slipping o’er their shadows on the sand,

But if a man who stands upon the brink

But lift a shining hand against the sun,

There is not left the twinkle of a fin

Betwixt the cressy islets white in flower;

So, scared but at the motion of the man,

Fled all the boon companions of the Earl,

And left him lying in the public way;

So vanish friendships only made in wine.

 

Then like a stormy sunlight smiled Geraint,

Who saw the chargers of the two that fell

Start from their fallen lords, and wildly fly,

Mixt with the flyers. ‘Horse and man,’ he said,

‘All of one mind and all right-honest friends!

Not a hoof left: and I methinks till now

Was honest—paid with horses and with arms;

I cannot steal or plunder, no nor beg:

And so what say ye, shall we strip him there

Your lover? has your palfrey heart enough

To bear his armour? shall we fast, or dine?

No?—then do thou, being right honest, pray

That we may meet the horsemen of Earl Doorm,

I too would still be honest.’ Thus he said:

And sadly gazing on her bridle-reins,

And answering not one word, she led the way.

 

But as a man to whom a dreadful loss

Falls in a far land and he knows it not,

But coming back he learns it, and the loss

So pains him that he sickens nigh to death;

So fared it with Geraint, who being pricked

In combat with the follower of Limours,

Bled underneath his armour secretly,

And so rode on, nor told his gentle wife

What ailed him, hardly knowing it himself,

Till his eye darkened and his helmet wagged;

And at a sudden swerving of the road,

Though happily down on a bank of grass,

The Prince, without a word, from his horse fell.

 

And Enid heard the clashing of his fall,

Suddenly came, and at his side all pale

Dismounting, loosed the fastenings of his arms,

Nor let her true hand falter, nor blue eye

Moisten, till she had lighted on his wound,

And tearing off her veil of faded silk

Had bared her forehead to the blistering sun,

And swathed the hurt that drained her dear lord’s life.

Then after all was done that hand could do,

She rested, and her desolation came

Upon her, and she wept beside the way.

 

And many past, but none regarded her,

For in that realm of lawless turbulence,

A woman weeping for her murdered mate

Was cared as much for as a summer shower:

One took him for a victim of Earl Doorm,

Nor dared to waste a perilous pity on him:

Another hurrying past, a man-at-arms,

Rode on a mission to the bandit Earl;

Half whistling and half singing a coarse song,

He drove the dust against her veilless eyes:

Another, flying from the wrath of Doorm

Before an ever-fancied arrow, made

The long way smoke beneath him in his fear;

At which her palfrey whinnying lifted heel,

And scoured into the coppices and was lost,

While the great charger stood, grieved like a man.

 

But at the point of noon the huge Earl Doorm,

Broad-faced with under-fringe of russet beard,

Bound on a foray, rolling eyes of prey,

Came riding with a hundred lances up;

But ere he came, like one that hails a ship,

Cried out with a big voice, ‘What, is he dead?’

‘No, no, not dead!’ she answered in all haste.

‘Would some of your people take him up,

And bear him hence out of this cruel sun?

Most sure am I, quite sure, he is not dead.’

 

Then said Earl Doorm: ‘Well, if he be not dead,

Why wail ye for him thus? ye seem a child.

And be he dead, I count you for a fool;

Your wailing will not quicken him: dead or not,

Ye mar a comely face with idiot tears.

Yet, since the face is comely—some of you,

Here, take him up, and bear him to our hall:

An if he live, we will have him of our band;

And if he die, why earth has earth enough

To hide him. See ye take the charger too,

A noble one.’

He spake, and past away,

But left two brawny spearmen, who advanced,

Each growling like a dog, when his good bone

Seems to be plucked at by the village boys

Who love to vex him eating, and he fears

To lose his bone, and lays his foot upon it,

Gnawing and growling: so the ruffians growled,

Fearing to lose, and all for a dead man,

Their chance of booty from the morning’s raid,

Yet raised and laid him on a litter-bier,

Such as they brought upon their forays out

For those that might be wounded; laid him on it

All in the hollow of his shield, and took

And bore him to the naked hall of Doorm,

(His gentle charger following him unled)

And cast him and the bier in which he lay

Down on an oaken settle in the hall,

And then departed, hot in haste to join

Their luckier mates, but growling as before,

And cursing their lost time, and the dead man,

And their own Earl, and their own souls, and her.

They might as well have blest her: she was deaf

To blessing or to cursing save from one.

 

So for long hours sat Enid by her lord,

There in the naked hall, propping his head,

And chafing his pale hands, and calling to him.

Till at the last he wakened from his swoon,

And found his own dear bride propping his head,

And chafing his faint hands, and calling to him;

And felt the warm tears falling on his face;

And said to his own heart, ‘She weeps for me:’

And yet lay still, and feigned himself as dead,

That he might prove her to the uttermost,

And say to his own heart, ‘She weeps for me.’

 

But in the falling afternoon returned

The huge Earl Doorm with plunder to the hall.

His lusty spearmen followed him with noise:

Each hurling down a heap of things that rang

Against his pavement, cast his lance aside,

And doffed his helm: and then there fluttered in,

Half-bold, half-frighted, with dilated eyes,

A tribe of women, dressed in many hues,

And mingled with the spearmen: and Earl Doorm

Struck with a knife’s haft hard against the board,

And called for flesh and wine to feed his spears.

And men brought in whole hogs and quarter beeves,

And all the hall was dim with steam of flesh:

And none spake word, but all sat down at once,

And ate with tumult in the naked hall,

Feeding like horses when you hear them feed;

Till Enid shrank far back into herself,

To shun the wild ways of the lawless tribe.

But when Earl Doorm had eaten all he would,

He rolled his eyes about the hall, and found

A damsel drooping in a corner of it.

Then he remembered her, and how she wept;

And out of her there came a power upon him;

And rising on the sudden he said, ‘Eat!

I never yet beheld a thing so pale.

God’s curse, it makes me mad to see you weep.

Eat! Look yourself. Good luck had your good man,

For were I