{"collection":"Northern European Mythology","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/arthur/art058.htm","path":"neu/arthur/art058.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/neu/arthur/art058.htm","text":"Sacred Texts\u00a0\n Legends/Sagas\u00a0\n England\u00a0\n Index\u00a0\n Previous\u00a0\n Next\u00a0\n \n \n An Arthurian Miscellany\n THE LAST BALLAD\n by\n JOHN DAVIDSON\n \n \n By coasts where scalding deserts reek,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The apanages of despair;\n In outland wilds, by firth and creek,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0O'er icy bournes of silver air;\n \n In storm or calm delaying not,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To every noble task addressed,\n Year after year, Sir Lancelot\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Fulfilled King Arthur's high behest.\n \n He helped the helpless ones; withstood\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Tyrants and sanctioners of vice;\n He rooted out the dragon brood,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And overthrew false deities.\n \n Alone with his own soul, alone\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With life and death, with day and night,\n His thought and strength grew great and shone\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A tongue of flame, a sword of light.\n \n And yet not all alone. On high,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When midnight set the spaces free,\n And brimming stars hung from the sky\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Low down, and spilt their jewellery,\n \n Behind the nightly squandered fire,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Through a dark lattice only seen\n By love, a look of rapt desire\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Fell from a vision of the Queen.\n \n From heaven she bent when twilight knit\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The dusky air and earth in one;\n He saw her like a goddess sit\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Enthroned upon the noonday sun.\n \n In passages of gulfs and sounds,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When wild winds dug the sailor's grave,\n When clouds and billows merged their bounds,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And the keel climbed the slippery wave,\n \n A sweet sigh laced the tempest; nay,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Low at his ear he heard her speak;\n Among the hurtling sheaves of spray\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Her loosened tresses swept his cheek.\n \n And in the revelry of death,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If human greed of slaughter cast\n Remorse aside, a violet breath,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The incense of her being passed\n \n Across his soul, and deeply swayed\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The fount of pity; o'er the strife\n He curbed the lightning of his blade,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And gave the foe his forfeit life.\n \n Low on the heath, or on the deck,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In bloody mail or wet with brine,\n Asleep he saw about her neck\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The wreath of gold and rubies shine;\n \n He saw her brows, her lovelit face,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And on her cheek one passionate tear;\n He felt in dreams the rich embrace,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The beating heart of Guinevere.\n \n \"Visions that haunt my couch, my path,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Although the waste, unfathomed sea\n Should rise against me white with wrath\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I must behold her verily,\n \n \"Once ere I die,\" he said, and turned\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Westward his faded silken sails\n From isles where cloudy mountains burned,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And north to Severn-watered Wales.\n \n Beside the Usk King Arthur kept\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0His Easter court, a glittering rout.\n But Lancelot, because there swept\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A passion of despair throughout\n \n His being, when he saw once more\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The sky that canopied, the tide\n That girdled Guinevere, forebore\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0His soul's desire, and wandered wide\n \n In unknown seas companionless,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Eating his heart, until by chance\n He drifted into Lyonesse,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The wave-worn kingdom of romance.\n \n He leapt ashore and watched his barque\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Unmastered stagger to its doom;\n Then doffed his arms and fled baresark\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Into the forest's beckoning gloom.\n \n The exceeding anguish of his mind\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Had broken him. \"King Arthur's trust,\"\n He cried; \"ignoble, fateful, blind!\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Her love and my love, noxious lust!\n \n \"Dupes of our senses! Let us eat\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In caverns fathoms underground,\n Alone, ashamed! To sit at meat\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In jocund throngs?--the most profound\n \n \"Device of life the mountebank,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Vendor of gilded ashes! Steal\n From every sight to use the rank\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And loathsome needs that men conceal;\n \n \"And crush and drain in curtained beds\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The clusters called of love; but feed\n With garlanded uplifted heads;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Invite the powers that sanction greed\n \n \"To countenance the revel; boast\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of hunger, thirst; be drunken; claim\n Indulgence to the uttermost,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Replenishing the founts of shame!\"\n \n He gathered berries, efts, and snails,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sorrel, and new-burst hawthorn leaves;\n Uprooted with his savage nails\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Earth-nuts; and under rocky eaves\n \n Shamefast devoured them, out of sight\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In darkness, lest the eye of beast,\n Or bird, or star, or thing of night\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Uncouth, unknown, should watch him feast.\n \n At noon in twilight depths of pine\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He heard the word Amaimon spoke;\n He saw the pallid, evil sign\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The wred-eld lit upon the oak.\n \n The viper loitered in his way;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The minx looked up with bloodshot leer;\n Ill-meaning fauns and lamiae\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With icy laughter flitted near.\n \n But if he came upon a ring\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of sinless elves, and crept unseen\n Beneath the brake to hear them sing,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And watch them dancing on the green,\n \n They touched earth with their finger-tips;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They ceased their roundelay; they laid\n A seal upon their elfin lips\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And vanished in the purple shade.\n \n At times he rent the dappled flank\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of some fair creature of the chase,\n Mumbled its flesh, or growling drank\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0From the still-beating heart, his face\n \n And jowl ruddled, and in his hair\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And beard, blood-painted straws and burs,\n While eagles barked screening the air,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And wolves that were his pensioners.\n \n Sometimes at night his mournful cry\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Troubled all waking things; the mole\n Dived to his deepest gallery;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The vixen from the moonlit knoll\n \n Passed like a shadow underground,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And the mad satyr in his lair\n Whined bodeful at the world-old sound\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of inarticulate despair.\n \n Sir Lancelot, beloved of men!\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The ancient earth gat hold of him;\n A year was blotted from his ken\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the enchanted forest dim.\n \n At Easter when the thorn beset\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The bronzing wood with silver sprays,\n And hyacinth and violet\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Empurpled all the russet ways;\n \n When buttercup and daffodil\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A stainless treasure-trove unrolled,\n And cowslips had begun to fill\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Their chalices with sweeter gold,\n \n He heard a sound of summer rush\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0By swarthy grove and kindled lawn;\n He heard, he sighed to hear the thrush\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Singing alone before the dawn.\n \n Forward he stalked with eyes on fire\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Like one who keeps in sound and sight\n An angel with celestial lyre\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Descanting rapturous delight.\n \n He left behind the spell-bound wood;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He saw the branchless air unfurled;\n He climbed a hill and trembling stood\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Above the prospect of the world.\n \n With lustre in its bosom pent\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0From many a shining summer day\n And harvest moon, the wan sea leant\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Against a heaven of iron-grey.\n \n Inland on the horizon beat\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And flickered, drooping heavily,\n A fervid haze, a vaporous heat,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The dusky eyelid of the sky.\n \n White ways, white gables, russet thatch\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Fretted the green and purple plain;\n The herd undid his woven latch;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The bleating flock went forth again;\n \n The skylarks uttered lauds and prime;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The sheep-bells rang from hill to hill;\n The cuckoo pealed his mellow chime;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The orient bore a burden shrill.\n \n His memory struggled half awake;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Dimly he groped within to see\n What star, what sun, what light should break\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And set his darkened spirit free.\n \n But from without deliverance came:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Afar he saw a horseman speed,\n A knight, a spirit clad in flame\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Riding upon a milkwhite steed.\n \n For now the sun had quenched outright\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The clouds and all their working charms,\n Marshalled his legionary light,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And fired the rider's golden arms.\n \n Softly the silver billows flowed;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Beneath the hill the emerald vale\n Dipped seaward; on the burnished road\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The milkwhite steed, the dazzling mail\n \n Advanced and flamed against the wind;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And Lancelot, his body rent\n With the fierce trial of his mind\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To know, reeled down the steep descent.\n \n Remembrances of battle plied\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0His soul with ruddy beams of day.\n \"A horse! a lance! to arms!\" he cried,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And stood there weeping in the way.\n \n \"Speak!\" said the knight. \"What man are you?\"\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\"I know not yet. Surely of old\n I rode in arms, and fought and slew\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In jousts and battles manifold.\"\n \n Oh, wistfully he drew anear,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Fingered the reins, the jewelled sheath;\n With rigid hand he grasped the spear,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And shuddering whispered, \"Life and death,\n \n \"Love, lofty deeds, renown--did these\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Attend me once in days unknown?\"\n With courtesy, with comely ease,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And brows that like his armour shone,\n \n The golden knight dismounting took\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sir Lancelot by the hand and said,\n \"Your voice of woe, your lonely look\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As of a dead man whom the dead\n \n \"Themselves cast out--whence are they, friend?\"\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sir Lancelot a moment hung\n In doubt, then knelt and made an end\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of all his madness, tensely strung\n \n In one last effort to be free\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of evil things that wait for men\n In secret, strangle memory,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And shut the soul up in their den.\n \n \"Spirit,\" he said, \"I know your eyes:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They bridge with light the heavy drift\n Of years. . . . A woman said, 'Arise;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And if you love the Queen, be swift!'\n \n \"The token was an emerald chased\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In gold, once mine. Wherefore I rode\n At dead of night in proudest haste\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To Payarne where the Queen abode.\n \n \"A crafty witch gave me to drink:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Almost till undern of the morn\n Silent, in darkness. . . . When I think\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It was not Guinevere, self-scorn\n \n \"Cuts to the marrow of my bones,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A blade of fire. Can wisdom yield\n No mood, no counsel, that atones\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For wasted love! . . . Heaven had revealed\n \n \"That she should bear a child to me\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My bed-mate said. . . . Yet am I mad?\n The offspring of that treachery!\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The maiden kngiht! You--Galahad,\n \n \"My son, who make my trespass dear!\"\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0His look released his father's thought--\n The darkling orbs of Guinevere;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For so had Lancelot's passion wrought.\n \n With tenderer tears than women shed\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sir Galahad held his father fast.\n \"Now I shall be your squire,\" he said.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But Lancelot fought him long. At last\n \n The maiden gently overpowered\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The man. Upon his milkwhite steed\n He brought him where a castle towered\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Midmost a green enamelled mead;\n \n And clothed his body, clothed his heart\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In human garniture once more.\n \"My father, bid me now depart.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I hear beside the clanging shore,\n \n \"Above the storm, or in the wind,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Outland, or on the old Roman street,\n A chord of music intertwined\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0From wandering tones deep-hued and sweet.\n \n \"Afar or near, at noon, at night,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The braided sound attends and fills\n My soul with peace, as heaven with light\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0O'erflows when morning crowns the hills.\n \n \"And with the music, seen or hid,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A blood-rose on the palace lawn,\n A fount of crimson, dark amid\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The stains and glories of the dawn;\n \n \"Above the city's earthly hell\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A token ominous of doom,\n A cup on fire and terrible\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With thunders in its ruddy womb;\n \n \"But o'er the hamlet's fragrant smoke,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The dance and song at eventide,\n A beating heart, the gentle yoke\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of life the bridegroom gives the bride;\n \n \"A ruby shadow on the snow;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A flower, a lamp--through every veil\n And mutable device I know,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And follow still the Holy Grail\n \n \"Until God gives me my new name\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Empyreal, and the quest be done.\"\n Then like a spirit clad in flame,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He kissed his father and was gone.\n \n Long gazed Sir Lancelot on the ground\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Tormented till benign repose\n Enveloped him in depths profound\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of sweet oblivion. When he rose\n \n The bitterest was past. \"And I\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Shall follow now the Holy Grail,\n Seen, or unseen, until I die:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My very purpose shall avail\n \n \"My soul,\" he said. By day, by night,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He rode abroad, his vizor up;\n With sun and moon his vehement sight\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Fought for a vision of the cup--\n \n In vain. For evermore on high\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When darkness set the spaces free,\n And brimming stars hung from the sky\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Low down, and spilt their jewellery,\n \n Behind the nightly squandered fire,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Through a dim lattice only seen\n By love, a look of rapt desire\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Fell from a vision of the Queen.\n \n From heaven she bent when twilight knit\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The dusky air and earth in one;\n He saw her like a goddess sit\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Enthroned upon the noonday sun.\n \n Wherefore he girt himself again:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In lawless towns and savage lands,\n He overthrew unrighteous men,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Accomplishing the King's commands.\n \n In passages of gulfs and sounds\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When wild winds dug the sailor's grave,\n When clouds and billows merged their bounds,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And the keel climbed the slippery wave,\n \n A sweet sigh laced the tempest; nay,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Low at his ear he heard her speak;\n Among the hurtling sheaves of spray\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Her loosened tresses swept his cheek.\n \n And in the revelry of death,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If human greed of slaughter cast\n Remorse aside, a violet breath,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The incense of her being passed\n \n Across his soul, and deeply swayed\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The fount of pity; o'er the strife\n He curbed the lightning of his blade,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And gave the foe his forfeit life.\n \n His love, in utter woe annealed,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Escaped the furnace, sweet and clear--\n His love that on the world had sealed\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The look, the soul of Guinevere.\n \n \n \n \n Next: Palomydes, by Austin Dobson [1885]","title":"Arthurian Miscellany: The Last Ballad, by John Davidson [1899]","type":"page"}