{"collection":"Northern European Mythology","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/arthur/art067.htm","path":"neu/arthur/art067.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/neu/arthur/art067.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 EVE OF MORTE ARTHUR \n by\n SEBASTIAN EVANS\n \n Beside the dripping copses fleeting low,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The homeless cuckoo jeereth all the day,\n Even as he jeered a thousand years ago.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0May-morn itself is weary of the May.\n In wonted wise, the cheerless nightingale\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Carpeth her carol on the hawthorn spray:\n The daffodil and primrose are as pale,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Dog-violet scentless as in Mays of yore,\n And all the woodland telleth its old tale.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0All deeds are done, and the last quest is o'er;\n For Galahad is gone, and sinless Knight\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Shall seat him in Siege Perilous no more.\n O pure and perfect Champion of the Right,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0O lily-flower of sinful Lancelot's line!\n Wert thou not born to teach us how the might\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of earthly knighthood quails before divine?\n True warrior, harnessed in celestial mail!\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Wert thou not Priest, too, chosen at the shrine,\n When the last glory of the Holy Grail\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Flashed from the altar-stone in Carbonek,\n And psalms of welcome pealed within the veil?\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Not like thine erring sire hast thou made wreck\n Of God's dear grace, and flinched the one last quest;\n In death as life, a soul without a fleck!\n \n Yea, Galahad hath entered into rest,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Fair-tombed in Sarras, his own holy land!\n That knightly Hermit, too, whom he loved best,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Percivall, sleeps in peace at his right hand;\n And at his left, that knight's sweet sister, oared\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0By angel-shipmates to the blissful strand.\n Tristan, than whom since Nembroth 'fore the Lord\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0No mightier hunter rode with horn and hound;\n He, too, hath died the death, not hand on sword\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As best beseems true knight of Table Round,\n But slain by her he wronged: \"Fair dame,\" quoth he,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\"Look forth, for I am faint of my sore wound:\n Be the sails white, my Love comes back to me,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Be the sails black, all my good days are done.\"\n Then went the wife and looked across the sea,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And saw the white sails glisten in the sun,\n And lied to him she loved: \"One sail I spied,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Blacker than treason,--other spied I none.\"\n But he thereon gave a great groan and died.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Then came that other widow to the beach,\n And those two women meeting there dry-eyed\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Across the dead stood staring each on each.\n Then, bending low, that queenly Voyager\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Kissed the white lips: \"Mine own!\"--and in the speech\n Fell forward dead. The first one glared at her\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And spurned her with her foot and slunk away.\n So passed he to the land where none can err;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Sire of Nurture. Let the gaunt wolf bay,\n And the tall-antlered red-deer couch secure,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The broad-winged heron fearless cleave the grey;\n No bowman lives can draw a bolt so sure;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Dumb are his deep-mouthed boar-hounds of Albayne,\n His falcons-royal heedless of the lure!\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And he, too, Merlin, he who wooed in vain\n The grace of that fair Lady of the Lake\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Who nursed Sir Lancelot--cometh not again!\n Snared in the charm he taught her for love's sake,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The hoary Wizard haunts the thorny brere,\n And wastes his marvels on the wild-wood brake.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yet still not seldom may the Hermit hear\n A dolorous hint at dusk in the Waste Land;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And caitiff horseman, felled by angry spear\n Five fathom o'er the croup with unseen hand,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Surmise a dreary chuckle in the breeze\n Among the bare oaks of Brokeliand.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0All are forgotten. Yea, and more than these,\n Fair dame and lord, minstrel and knight and sage,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Who wrought and fought and loved and took their ease,\n Have wended forth on their last pilgrimage.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In shameless drivel of unhallowed eld\n Morgana doteth on a lusty page\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Among the lakes o' the West, where once she held\n High court that vied with Arthur's court of yore:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And, homeless wandering through her woods unspelled,\n The Fair Dame of the Forest Sans-retour\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Hath lost her chess-play and sweet carollings,\n Her greenwood bowers of dalliance all forlore.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0O, for those old May-days, when queens and kings\n Held court of Love amidst the Table Round,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And she whose knight had done the worthiest things\n For her sole sake, though she and Fortune frowned,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Heard all the doughty deeds he did achieve\n And gave the guerdon as he sate there crowned!\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0O days of glory! O that Easter Eve\n In Table Round when Arthur sate in hall,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And all the kings from whom he did receive\n Homage and fee were vested with the pall\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And crown and sceptre, vassals of his throne;\n While lordly heralds told with trumpet call\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The whole fair folk of fifteen realms his own!\n Aye, and the knights that won them, with loud voice\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Those heralds blazoned, and their full renown,\n Even to the steeds that bare them, and the choice\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of shield and token and enchanted brand,\n Galuth and Morglay, Florent, Marmyadoise,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And the keen glory of the Arthurian hand!\n And when the heralds ceased, the Minstrel's chant\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bound up the flowers of fame from every land.\n \n From Prester John the lily elephant\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bare shells and incense of the imperial East,\n Cathaian ivories, gums of Garamant,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Tall plumes of estrich, fells of spotted beast,\n With stuffs of Baldack and of Babylon\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0All in a golden tower enfortaliced.\n \n And, twixt the seas of Caspian Amazon\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Where Alisaunder wrought the Walls of Weird\n Athwart the gateways of Mount Caucason,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With caitiff howling Magog shrank afeard\n Into his hollows, where on Antichrist\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ever he raveth, rending his red beard.\n \n The Paynim Soudans, leagued in solemn tryst\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0From Nile to Tars, from Tars to Trebisound,\n Dismayed forgat their hoary feuds and kissed,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And at their altars grovelled all discrowned;\n To Belsabuk, Mahound and Apolyn\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Shrieking vain curses on the Table Round!\n \n Then, too, by faery, venturous wight could win\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Beneath the moonled swaying of the waves,\n The crystal marches of the deep within;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And Arthur's name among the twilight caves\n Would scare the Grendel to her coral brake,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And cow the fell sea-unicorns like slaves!\n The Damsels of the Waters for his sake\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bade summon all their gruesome treasurers,\n Orc, Kraken, and immeasurable Snake,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To delve from out their whirl-pit sepulchres\n The peerless hoards of immemorial wreck\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Whelmed o'er with bones of old-world mariners--\n Gem-talismans once gorgeous on the neck\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of queens of Tarshish--Idol's eyes of Ind,\n And moneys minted by Melchizedek.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And, past the deep sea-dungeons of the wind,\n The Pilgrim heard the Hell-stream cataracts boom\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Within the abyss by flames eternal mined\n Through ice eternal to the chasm of doom:--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\"Arthur!\" he cried--one moment Hell was still,\n And \"Arthur!\" echoed through the seething gloom!\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yea, and yet onward through the midnight chill\n Of desolate wastes beyond, where dawn is none,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Erewhile rejoicing to the Holy Hill\n Through God's dear grace unspotted knight hath won,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And all the mystery of the Gates hath seen;\n Where o'er-against the birthstead of the sun\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The bulwarks glow of Paradise Terrene--\n The walls of jasper, sardonyx, and pearl\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With golden mortar molten in between:\n The crystal-carven canopies a-curl\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With emerald sprays of passion-flower and vine,\n And garnet grapes and topaz tendril whorl:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The doors of starry diamond, with a twine\n Of sapphire hinges cusped with chrysoprase\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And ruby studs and knops of almondine:--\n And, all opaque against the liquid blaze,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Central, with sword and balance, helm and greave,\n The Archangel-champion, crowned with awful rays;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Leftward Our Lady, whispering sweet reprieve\n To sinful father Adam, and to right\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Her Son, the Healer, comforting sad Eve.\n Yea, erst such marvel cheered the Pilgrim Knight,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And ever about the Eternal Doors, like doves,\n Or poised or fluttered a celestial flight\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of Angels chanting in the trellised groves\n Of crest and corbel, cope and capital;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Flashing sweet sheen among the fretted coves\n And depths of amethystine interval\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In gabled eaves of niche and pinnacle,\n Or basking in fair alleys on the wall.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And one from forth the blissful citadel\n Would hover toward the Palmer as he prayed,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With gift of water from the Fourfold Well\n Whence flow the streams of Eden, so allayed\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With sovran virtue, that three drops alone\n Make whole all deadliest dint of mortal blade,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And bade him bear to Arthur on his throne\n That living token of immortal grace\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Stopped in a cruse of hieroglyphic stone.\n \n So sang the poet in his pride of place,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And Arthur bade the pages plenish well\n The cups of all the kings with wine of race,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Osaye or Algarde, Rhenish or Rochell,\n Vernage of Venice, Rhodes or Famagust,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sweet Malvoisie or Cretan Muscadel,--\n And pledged them all with outstretched arm august.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Then to the lordly singer of his name,\n Still standing, he bade bear as guerdon just\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A bugle carved in tusk of hippotame,\n And whale's-bone comb in casket of red gold.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So sang the poet, and his songs were fame,\n For fame was truth, and true the tales he told,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For men believed them: All are falsehood now,\n For faith is lost alike in new and old.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yea, even high achievements, such as plough\n Their record deepest in men's memories\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Are true no longer. Lo, as none knows how\n The splendour faileth out of sunset skies,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When on the long capes of the cloudland bay\n Like foam from seas of light the glory lies,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yet ere we mark it gloameth into grey,--\n So Truth hath died in talk at bench and board,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And Preacher's holy lore and Poet's lay.\n \n Yea, men no more durst speak the manly word,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But waste their wit in woman jest and jeer;\n And courtly things that strut and wear a sword\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Whisper to high-born dame, and crouch and leer\n And sneer a double meaning to the tale\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0No loyal knight could tell nor maiden hear.\n Even in council, clad in useless mail,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They gibe and chatter, each in fooling phrase\n Girding at other till their lips are pale\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With such small wrath as in emasculate days\n May vent itself in slander and be safe.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We have forgotten knightly words and ways,\n When gentle Chieftain at a glance would chafe,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And at a hinted slur clap hand to hilt.\n Honour is dead and Courtesy a waif\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0None cares to treasure, now no blood is spilt\n To prove its value. Lie and give the lie,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And the lewd world will laugh away the guilt!\n Nor man nor woman now with stedfast eye\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Shall scathe the craven slanderer for his pains!\n \n Our dames are worthy of our chivalry.--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In their dull eyne a nightshade philtre feigns\n A fire unfelt and fondness not their own:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Wan cheeks are flushed, unvermeiled of the veins,\n And brows disfurnished flaunt a spangled loan\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of saffron tress in pearl-y-fretted caul.--\n Now languid beauty luxeth her green zone\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Starry with ouches on her purfled pall,\n And, whitely shuddering o'er the lees of lust,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Clencheth her teeth and fingers to recall\n How frolic erst she quaffed the foamy must:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yet doth she publish still as sumptuously\n Her lavish bosom blanched with pearly dust:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Still with the smile which love ne'er lived to see,\n Wooeth in vain a withered knight to wait\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And loop a posied loveknot at her knee.\n There is a dreadful secret in the State--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A secret bruited at the Market-cross\n And blased by every lazar at the gate;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Such secret as the gleeman's wit makes gross\n To wipe a tally off the ale-wife's score,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Or earn a pandar's penny by his gloss.\n \n Lo, where she standeth by the Castle-door,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Weaver of the Secret--mid a band\n Of idling courtiers, dame and paramour,--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Our queen, Ginevra; on her dainty hand\n A tercel gentle with a silken jess.--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There in the sun Dame Meliot sees her stand,\n Scans her from head to foot, and falls to guess\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How many marks might buy the violet hood\n Reversed with ermines on her auburn tress.--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sir Dinadan lets loose his fooling mood\n And prates how old-world beauty wont to smile,--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Elayne of Troy and that sweet Moor who wooed\n Heroes and aspics to her breast by Nile,--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Judith and Cressid,--the fair queen who died\n For Duke Eneas, and the dame whose wile\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Saddled and bridled for a summer ride\n The Sage who thought to tame Olympia's son--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Panthasilee and Theseus' warrior-bride,--\n Swears that of all the bevy never a one\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Was half so queenly, half so fair as she!\n \n And one with narrow eyes that durst meet none,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Makes felt the prying which she cannot see,\n Like a chill draught the casement chinks between:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mordred--and chews on treason yet to be.\n He, born of love where love should never have been,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Is Arthur's first-born--why not Arthur's heir?\n Ginevra is Arthur's, why not Mordred's queen?\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0No mother she to Mordred! Wherefore spare,\n When he may smite with one avenging stroke\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0His father's crime, and win a queen so fair?--\n A parricide?--Nay, but the sire first broke\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The laws of kind! Vengeance in kind were meet!\n Is she not Lancelot's love? She could revoke\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Her love for Arthur--were't not doubly sweet\n To reign Sir Lancelot's Lancelot, in her grace?--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Thus the black pulses of the false heart beat.\n \n But other twain who gaze upon her face\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Are sick with other fancies. Lancelot one--\n That other, Arthur--each a little space\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Baring his sorrow to the May-day sun.\n O, but the look within Sir Lancelot's eyes!--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He who of old hath diced with Death, and won\n The life he freely staked on his emprize,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ever thereafter beareth in his look\n The mark of one who hath read mysteries:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But here beside that sign as in a book\n Is writ the tragedy of love--such love\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As weaveth its own shame, yet cannot brook\n The eternal doom, to wear the weft it wove!\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yea, and yet more! Look on his cheek again:--\n Along the furrows which his madness drove\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So deeply there, have tears not flowed in vain?\n Tears to which those of widows o'er the dead\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ere nine days' bridal are as summer rain?\n But now those eyelids have no tears to shed!--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He looks upon the Dame who is his fate,\n Yet hath no worship for the white and red,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Love-lustrous eyne and queenly grace of gait,\n And lips the world were once well lost to win.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He never knew such passion as may sate\n Its yearnings and forget that it hath bin--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0His was the love that, daring all things, dares\n Interminable sequences of sin--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And dying, leaves its office to its heirs,\n Remorse and ruth and duty. Love, erewhile,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Was lavish in observances and cares,\n And none are stinted.--Love, to earn a smile,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Would spend its heart's blood on a hopeless quest:\n And, though the guerdon can no more beguile,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He still woos death as freely to his breast,\n With every due devoir of champion knight.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yea, not the smallest point of love's behest\n In hall and bower but is fulfilled aright.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Temple is as stately as before:\n There is no change, no lacking to the sight--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Only behind the Veil, where once of yore\n Within the Holy of Holies, in the Ark,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0By wings of Cherubs warded evermore,\n Love's own Shekinah dwelt, now burns a spark\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of liquid hell-fire! All else is the same--\n Even the light--but that which lights the dark\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0No longer is the glory of The Name!\n \n There is no madness in the grief that ploughs\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The front of Arthur, but the searing flame\n Followed no less the share athwart his brows.--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0True king from crown to spur, within his eye\n Where royally 'mid high ambitions, house\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The sage's lore and the knight's chivalry,\n Lurk adders of inevitable sting.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0'Tis nothing that his time draws near to die:\n 'Tis long since death hath seemed a dreadful thing,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And he who did forebode it, told no less\n Of days when Arthur should again be king.--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Death simply were an end of weariness,\n Were't not he knoweth that it comes as doom\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of sin unspeakable in youth's excess.\n Not yet he knoweth how nor when shall bloom\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That deadly seed he sowed within his life,\n Whose ripeness is the fruitage of the tomb;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yet even now the shadows of the strife\n Fall on him from its leaves--and there be moods\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In which he knows he hath no friend nor wife;\n And hinting doubts and treacherous likelihoods\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Like night-mared children wake and cry aloud.\n Yet speaks he not the grief o'er which he broods:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He will believe not. \"Nay, she is too proud,\n Too pure, too loving! Never have I seen\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In her true eyes the trouble and the cloud--\n No shame--no wish unworthy such a queen!\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And he, Sir Lancelot--shall my weakness wrong\n Mine own knight peerless? Why, the time hath been\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When, had he been less loyal-souled than strong,\n He might have won her when myself lay low,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And all the realm made glad his bridal song!\n Yea, had he been less true, it hath been so\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A thousand times.--Yet, not as wronging them,\n But testing mine own conscience--say, I know\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The twain are guilty--how shall I condemn?\n I, by the side of whose transcendent crime\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Theirs were a mud-smirch on a kirtle-hem?\n Nay! I do wrong them! These my fancies chime\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Too truly with that frenzy of mine youth!\n 'Tis I, whose soul hath wallowed in the slime,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Whose thoughts pollute the cleanness of their truth!\"\n Thus museth he--too sad, too pure to own\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Even to himself he knows the secret sooth!\n And Thou, fair Curse of Empire on his throne!\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Hath that proud nostril known no penitence?\n O subtly double nature! each alone\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As true as truest music to the sense--\n Together both in discord intervals\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Jangling a double falsehood and offence!\n Yea, false to Arthur and Lancelot false,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Thou'rt true to Lancelot and to Arthur true!\n Queen never queenlier stept in Camelot's halls,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Leman more loving Joyous-Gard ne'er knew!\n Red as the life-blood, as the snowdrift white,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The twin loves each from other wrests his due;\n And even as now the king's most royal right\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At knighthood's feet the imperious pulses fling,\n That empire's daughter, mated with the knight,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Had treasured her last fondness for the king!\n Thine is the star of even and of morn!\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A childless Eve, thy loves for children bring\n Two offerings at two altars--blood and corn:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Cain's garden-ransom of primeval sin\n And Abel's firstling of the flocks unshorn!\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yea, even thus did Death at first begin,\n And thus begins our own! Nay, Death for her\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Already hath made desolate all within,\n Yet left her beauty for its sepulchre.--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Dream ye she knows not how she hath grown old,\n Or that the Mays in fleeting can confer\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The peaceful pulses of a heart grown cold?\n Nay, the late summer of her years reveals\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Secrets of passion which the spring ne'er told!\n Burns her with threefold thirst, yet, mocking, seals\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The springs of joy and leaves the witchcraft stale\n Could once have freed them! Think you not she feels\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That little spout of hell-fire through the veil\n Within the temple of Sir Lancelot's love?\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Think you her eyes are seared not with the bale\n Of cloven flames her own twin arks above?\n \n Yea, Arthur's court is Arthur's court no more,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And none have heart to strive as once they strove.\n All high emprize is crushed and crusted o'er\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With ruin wrought by false and feeble wills,\n And the whole realm is smitten at the core\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With restless boding of supremer ills.\n \n So have we heard Sicilian palmer tell\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of quaking homesteads in the cloven hills,--\n Of muttered warnings in the Demon Dell\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And dreary levin flickering on the snow\n That crests the hollow heights of Mongibell.--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0While o'er the sulphurous cauldron gathering slow\n The swart reek waxeth like a cedar tree\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0O'ershadowing half the welkin; and below\n The whole isle groaneth--woodland, waste, and lea.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Till on a starless night, with rending flash\n Of fury flaring into skies and sea,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Far through the clouds the fiery fountains crash\n Of chaos spouted from abysmal wells:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And in the mountain-crucible a gash\n Of blinding brightness gapeth on the dells,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Whence forth in thundery ruin o'er the verge,\n Bursting the shattered gateways of the fells,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Far through the pinewood swoops the smolten surge.\n The belted oaks a league before its tread\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Shudder and writhe like slaves beneath the scourge,\n Ere long to die the death!--A ghastly red\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Looms through the reek among their smouldering leaves,\n And, clogged with craggy dross, the fires of dread\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Flood round the blazing trunks. The woodland heaves,\n And all the staggering mountain-side aflame\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Slides to the plain among the ungarnered sheaves,\n Vineyard and thorp and city of old name.--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Vainly inviolate all a summer's day\n The wall Cyclopian holds its ancient fame!\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Round scarp and bulwark, tower and buttress-stay\n Fathom on fathom, fiercelier swells and beats\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The weltering fireflood with its stony spray!\n One rending yawn, and through the desert streets\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The white walls float upon the deadly wave\n That whelms for aye those old imperial seats!--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Thence, five-fold cloven, scarce with might to pave\n With fire the fig-tree shades and groves of palm,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The grim flood loiters to its ocean-grave,\n And the old world resumeth its old calm:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Though far o'er-sea, the Maltese anchorite\n Mid hail of ashes, stints his morning psalm\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And Northward peers into the mist till night\n For the next sign of Judgment to begin.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So fares our kingdom now, for Arthur's might\n Quakes to the base, fire-sapped by kingly sin:--\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A footfall jarring scarce enough to shake\n One withered blossom from the jessamin\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0More than enough beneath our feet to wake\n The doom we wait for from its slumberings,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And loose the fountains of the burning lake.\n \n The world is old--and still the mavis sings.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We wait the doom--yet on the hawthorn-spray\n The nightingale remembers the old springs.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0May-morn itself is weary of the May,\n Yet, careless of the wreck of realms and kings,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The homeless cuckoo jeereth all the day.\n \n \n \n Next: The New King Arthur: An Opera Without Music, by Edgar Fawcett [1885]","title":"Arthurian Miscellany: The Eve of Morte Arthur, by Sebastian Evans [1875]","type":"page"}