To whom the novice garrulously again,'Yea,one,a bard;of whom my father said,Full many a noble war-song had he sung,Even in the presence of an enemy's fleet,Between the steep cliff and the coming wave;And many a mystic lay of life and death Had chanted on the smoky mountain-tops,When round him bent the spirits of the hills With all their dewy hair blown back like flame:
So said my father--and that night the bard Sang Arthur's glorious wars,and sang the King As wellnigh more than man,and railed at those Who called him the false son of Gorlois:
For there was no man knew from whence he came;But after tempest,when the long wave broke All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos,There came a day as still as heaven,and then They found a naked child upon the sands Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea;And that was Arthur;and they fostered him Till he by miracle was approven King:
And that his grave should be a mystery From all men,like his birth;and could he find A woman in her womanhood as great As he was in his manhood,then,he sang,The twain together well might change the world.
But even in the middle of his song He faltered,and his hand fell from the harp,And pale he turned,and reeled,and would have fallen,But that they stayed him up;nor would he tell His vision;but what doubt that he foresaw This evil work of Lancelot and the Queen?'
Then thought the Queen,'Lo!they have set her on,Our simple-seeming Abbess and her nuns,To play upon me,'and bowed her head nor spake.
Whereat the novice crying,with clasped hands,Shame on her own garrulity garrulously,Said the good nuns would check her gadding tongue Full often,'and,sweet lady,if I seem To vex an ear too sad to listen to me,Unmannerly,with prattling and the tales Which my good father told me,check me too Nor let me shame my father's memory,one Of noblest manners,though himself would say Sir Lancelot had the noblest;and he died,Killed in a tilt,come next,five summers back,And left me;but of others who remain,And of the two first-famed for courtesy--And pray you check me if I ask amiss-
But pray you,which had noblest,while you moved Among them,Lancelot or our lord the King?'
Then the pale Queen looked up and answered her,'Sir Lancelot,as became a noble knight,Was gracious to all ladies,and the same In open battle or the tilting-field Forbore his own advantage,and the King In open battle or the tilting-field Forbore his own advantage,and these two Were the most nobly-mannered men of all;For manners are not idle,but the fruit Of loyal nature,and of noble mind.'
'Yea,'said the maid,'be manners such fair fruit?'
Then Lancelot's needs must be a thousand-fold Less noble,being,as all rumour runs,The most disloyal friend in all the world.'
To which a mournful answer made the Queen:
'O closed about by narrowing nunnery-walls,What knowest thou of the world,and all its lights And shadows,all the wealth and all the woe?
If ever Lancelot,that most noble knight,Were for one hour less noble than himself,Pray for him that he scape the doom of fire,And weep for her that drew him to his doom.'
'Yea,'said the little novice,'I pray for both;But I should all as soon believe that his,Sir Lancelot's,were as noble as the King's,As I could think,sweet lady,yours would be Such as they are,were you the sinful Queen.'
So she,like many another babbler,hurt Whom she would soothe,and harmed where she would heal;For here a sudden flush of wrathful heat Fired all the pale face of the Queen,who cried,'Such as thou art be never maiden more For ever!thou their tool,set on to plague And play upon,and harry me,petty spy And traitress.'When that storm of anger brake From Guinevere,aghast the maiden rose,White as her veil,and stood before the Queen As tremulously as foam upon the beach Stands in a wind,ready to break and fly,And when the Queen had added 'Get thee hence,'
Fled frighted.Then that other left alone Sighed,and began to gather heart again,Saying in herself,'The simple,fearful child Meant nothing,but my own too-fearful guilt,Simpler than any child,betrays itself.
But help me,heaven,for surely I repent.
For what is true repentance but in thought--
Not even in inmost thought to think again The sins that made the past so pleasant to us:
And I have sworn never to see him more,To see him more.'
And even in saying this,Her memory from old habit of the mind Went slipping back upon the golden days In which she saw him first,when Lancelot came,Reputed the best knight and goodliest man,Ambassador,to lead her to his lord Arthur,and led her forth,and far ahead Of his and her retinue moving,they,Rapt in sweet talk or lively,all on love And sport and tilts and pleasure,(for the time Was maytime,and as yet no sin was dreamed,)Rode under groves that looked a paradise Of blossom,over sheets of hyacinth That seemed the heavens upbreaking through the earth,And on from hill to hill,and every day Beheld at noon in some delicious dale The silk pavilions of King Arthur raised For brief repast or afternoon repose By couriers gone before;and on again,Till yet once more ere set of sun they saw The Dragon of the great Pendragonship,That crowned the state pavilion of the King,Blaze by the rushing brook or silent well.
But when the Queen immersed in such a trance,And moving through the past unconsciously,Came to that point where first she saw the King Ride toward her from the city,sighed to find Her journey done,glanced at him,thought him cold,High,self-contained,and passionless,not like him,'Not like my Lancelot'--while she brooded thus And grew half-guilty in her thoughts again,There rode an armed warrior to the doors.
A murmuring whisper through the nunnery ran,Then on a sudden a cry,'The King.'She sat Stiff-stricken,listening;but when armed feet Through the long gallery from the outer doors Rang coming,prone from off her seat she fell,And grovelled with her face against the floor:
There with her milkwhite arms and shadowy hair She made her face a darkness from the King:
