Fool,I came too late,the heathen wars were o'er,The life had flown,we sware but by the shell--I am but a fool to reason with a fool--
Come,thou art crabbed and sour:but lean me down,Sir Dagonet,one of thy long asses'ears,And harken if my music be not true.
'"Free love--free field--we love but while we may:
The woods are hushed,their music is no more:
The leaf is dead,the yearning past away:
New leaf,new life--the days of frost are o'er:
New life,new love,to suit the newer day:
New loves are sweet as those that went before:
Free love--free field--we love but while we may."'Ye might have moved slow-measure to my tune,Not stood stockstill.I made it in the woods,And heard it ring as true as tested gold.'
But Dagonet with one foot poised in his hand,'Friend,did ye mark that fountain yesterday Made to run wine?--but this had run itself All out like a long life to a sour end--And them that round it sat with golden cups To hand the wine to whosoever came--The twelve small damosels white as Innocence,In honour of poor Innocence the babe,Who left the gems which Innocence the Queen Lent to the King,and Innocence the King Gave for a prize--and one of those white slips Handed her cup and piped,the pretty one,"Drink,drink,Sir Fool,"and thereupon I drank,Spat--pish--the cup was gold,the draught was mud.'
And Tristram,'Was it muddier than thy gibes?
Is all the laughter gone dead out of thee?--
Not marking how the knighthood mock thee,fool--"Fear God:honour the King--his one true knight--Sole follower of the vows"--for here be they Who knew thee swine enow before I came,Smuttier than blasted grain:but when the King Had made thee fool,thy vanity so shot up It frighted all free fool from out thy heart;Which left thee less than fool,and less than swine,A naked aught--yet swine I hold thee still,For I have flung thee pearls and find thee swine.'
And little Dagonet mincing with his feet,'Knight,an ye fling those rubies round my neck In lieu of hers,I'll hold thou hast some touch Of music,since I care not for thy pearls.
Swine?I have wallowed,I have washed--the world Is flesh and shadow--I have had my day.
The dirty nurse,Experience,in her kind Hath fouled me--an I wallowed,then I washed--I have had my day and my philosophies--
And thank the Lord I am King Arthur's fool.
Swine,say ye?swine,goats,asses,rams and geese Trooped round a Paynim harper once,who thrummed On such a wire as musically as thou Some such fine song--but never a king's fool.'
And Tristram,'Then were swine,goats,asses,geese The wiser fools,seeing thy Paynim bard Had such a mastery of his mystery That he could harp his wife up out of hell.'
Then Dagonet,turning on the ball of his foot,'And whither harp'st thou thine?down!and thyself Down!and two more:a helpful harper thou,That harpest downward!Dost thou know the star We call the harp of Arthur up in heaven?'
And Tristram,'Ay,Sir Fool,for when our King Was victor wellnigh day by day,the knights,Glorying in each new glory,set his name High on all hills,and in the signs of heaven.'
And Dagonet answered,'Ay,and when the land Was freed,and the Queen false,ye set yourself To babble about him,all to show your wit--And whether he were King by courtesy,Or King by right--and so went harping down The black king's highway,got so far,and grew So witty that ye played at ducks and drakes With Arthur's vows on the great lake of fire.
Tuwhoo!do ye see it?do ye see the star?'
'Nay,fool,'said Tristram,'not in open day.'
And Dagonet,'Nay,nor will:I see it and hear.
It makes a silent music up in heaven,And I,and Arthur and the angels hear,And then we skip.''Lo,fool,'he said,'ye talk Fool's treason:is the King thy brother fool?'
Then little Dagonet clapt his hands and shrilled,'Ay,ay,my brother fool,the king of fools!
Conceits himself as God that he can make Figs out of thistles,silk from bristles,milk From burning spurge,honey from hornet-combs,And men from beasts--Long live the king of fools!'
And down the city Dagonet danced away;
But through the slowly-mellowing avenues And solitary passes of the wood Rode Tristram toward Lyonnesse and the west.
Before him fled the face of Queen Isolt With ruby-circled neck,but evermore Past,as a rustle or twitter in the wood Made dull his inner,keen his outer eye For all that walked,or crept,or perched,or flew.
Anon the face,as,when a gust hath blown,Unruffling waters re-collect the shape Of one that in them sees himself,returned;But at the slot or fewmets of a deer,Or even a fallen feather,vanished again.
So on for all that day from lawn to lawn Through many a league-long bower he rode.At length A lodge of intertwisted beechen-boughs Furze-crammed,and bracken-rooft,the which himself Built for a summer day with Queen Isolt Against a shower,dark in the golden grove Appearing,sent his fancy back to where She lived a moon in that low lodge with him:
Till Mark her lord had past,the Cornish King,With six or seven,when Tristram was away,And snatched her thence;yet dreading worse than shame Her warrior Tristram,spake not any word,But bode his hour,devising wretchedness.
And now that desert lodge to Tristram lookt So sweet,that halting,in he past,and sank Down on a drift of foliage random-blown;But could not rest for musing how to smoothe And sleek his marriage over to the Queen.
Perchance in lone Tintagil far from all The tonguesters of the court she had not heard.
But then what folly had sent him overseas After she left him lonely here?a name?
Was it the name of one in Brittany,Isolt,the daughter of the King?'Isolt Of the white hands'they called her:the sweet name Allured him first,and then the maid herself,Who served him well with those white hands of hers,And loved him well,until himself had thought He loved her also,wedded easily,But left her all as easily,and returned.
The black-blue Irish hair and Irish eyes Had drawn him home--what marvel?then he laid His brows upon the drifted leaf and dreamed.
