{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_10495/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_10495","id":"gutenberg_10495","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10495","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Historical Novels","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Knights and knighthood -- Poetry"],"text":"Under King Constantine\n\nBy Katrina Trask\n\nThird Edition\n\n1893\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTo My Husband.\n\n\n\n\n_The following tales, which have no legendary warrant, are supposed to\nbelong to the time, lost in obscurity, immediately subsequent to King\nArthur's death; when, says Malory, in the closing chapter of LA MORT\nD'ARTHURE, \"Sir Constantine, which was Sir Cadors son of Cornwaile, was\nchosen king of England; and hee was a full noble knight, and worshipfully\nhee ruled this realme\"_\n\n\n\n\nSANPEUR.\n\n\nThe great King Constantine is at the hunt;\nThe brilliant cavalcade of knights and dames,\nOn palfreys and on chargers trapped in gold\nAnd silver and red purple, ride in mirth\nAlong the winding way, by hill and tarn\nAnd violet-sprinkled dell. Impatient hounds\nSniff the keen morning air, and startled birds\nRustle the foliage redolent with spring.\n\nFrom time to time some courtier reins his steed\nBeside the love-enkindling Gwendolaine,\nWhose wayward moods do vary as the winds,--\nNow wooing with her soft, seductive grace;\nNow fascinating with her stately pride;\nAnon, bewitching by her recklessness\nOf wilful daring in some wild caprice\nWhich no one could anticipate or stay.\nHow fair she is to-day! How beautiful!\nHer hunting-robe is bluer than the sky,--\nMatching one phase of her great, changeful eyes,--\nClasped with twin falcons of unburnished gold,\nThe colour of her brown hair in the sun.\nThe white plumes, drooping from her hunting-cap,\nLeave her alluring lips in tempting sight,\nBut hide the growing shadow in her eyes.\nFor she marks none of all the court to-day\nSave Sir Sanpeur, the passing noble knight\nWhose bearing doth bespeak heroic deeds,\nThere where he rides with the sweet maid Ettonne.\n\nSir Torm, the husband of fair Gwendolaine,\nIs all unconscious of aught else beside\nThe outward seeming, 'tis enough for him\nThat she is gay and beautiful, and smiles.\nHe has a nature small and limited\nBy sight, and sense, and self, and his desires;\nA heart as open as the day to all\nThat touches his quick impulse, when it costs\nHim naught of sacrifice.  The needy poor\nFlock to his castle for the careless gift\nOf falling dole, but his esquire is faint\nFrom his exacting service, night and day\nHis Lady Gwendolaine is satiate\nWith costly gems, palfreys, and samite thick\nWith threads of gold and silver, but the sweet\nHeart subtleties and fair observances\nAre lost in the _of course_ of married life.\nHe sees, too quickly, does she fail to smile,\nBut never sees the shadow in her eyes\nHis hounds are beaten till they scarce draw breath,\nAnd then caressed beyond the worth of hounds.\nHis vassals know not if, from day to day,\nHe will approve, or strike them with a curse.\nHis humours are the byword of the court,\nAnd, were it not for his good-heartedness,\nHis prowess, and undaunted strength at arms,\nMen would speak lightly of him in disdain;\nHe is so often in a stormy rage,\nOr supplicating humour to atone,--\nToo petty to repent in very truth,\nToo light and yielding in repentance, when\nHis temper's force is spent, for dignity\nOf truest knighthood. No one feels his faults\nSo quickly, with such flushing of regret\nAnd shame, as Gwendolaine. But she is wife,\nHis honour is her own, and she would hide\nFrom all the world, and even from herself,\nHis pettiness and narrowness of soul.\nSo she forgets, or doth pretend forget,\nWhere he has failed, save when he passes bounds;\nThen her swift scorn--a piercing force he dreads--\nFlashes upon him like a probing lance,\nTo silence merriment if it be coarse,\nTo hush his wrath when it is violent.\n\nThough powerful to check, she ne'er could change\nThe underflow and current of their life.\nIn the first years, gone by, ere she had grown\nA woman of the world, she had essayed\nTo stem the tide of shallow vanity,\nTo realise her girlhood's high ideal,\nAnd make her home more reverent, and more fine.\nSir Torm had overborne her words with jest\nAnd noisy laughter, vowing she would learn\nRomance and sweet simplicity were well\nFor harper minstrel, singing in the hall,\nBut not for courtiers living in the world.\nOnce, when she faced the thought of motherhood,--\nFor some brief days of sweet expectancy\nNever fulfilled for her,--she was aware\nOf thirst for living water, and a dread\nOf the light, shallow life she led, fell on her;\nShe went to Torm, and spoke, in broken words,\nThe unformed longing of her dawning soul.\nHe lightly laughed, filliped her ear, called her\n\"My Lady Abbess,\" \"pretty saint,\" and then\nSaid, later, jesting, before all the court,\n\"Behold a lady too good for her lord!\"\nThe blood swept up her cheeks to lose itself\nIn her hair's gold, then ebbed again to leave\nHer paler than before. She stood in silent,\nMomentary hate of Torm, all impotent.\nHe saw her pallor and her eyes down-dropt,\nCame quickly, flung his arm around her, saying,\n\"God's faith, my girl, you do not mind a jest!\nWhere are the spirits you are wont to have?\"\n\"My lord, they shall not fail you any more,\"\nShe answered bitterly, and after that\nTorm did not see her soul unveiled again.\nThenceforth she turned her strivings after truth\nTo winning outward charm the more complete,\nAnd hid her inner self more deeply 'neath\nThe sparkling surface of her brilliant life.\n\nTo-day he wearies her with brutal jest\nUpon the hunted boar, and calls her dull\nThat she laughs not as ever.\n\n                             While Sanpeur\nWas far upon a distant quest, all perilous,\nShe thought with secret longing of the hour\nWhen once again together they should ride.\nHe has returned triumphant, having won\nFresh honours.\n\n               Now at last, the hunt has come,\nThe day is golden, and her beauty fair,--\nAnd Sir Sanpeur is riding with Ettonne.\nA sudden conflict wages in her heart\nAs she talks lightly to each courtier gay,\nJealous impatience that the Gwendolaine\nWhom all men flatter, should be thwarted, fights\nA tender yearning to defy all pride\nAnd call him to her for one spoken word.\nThe world seems better when he talks with her,\nNo one has ever lifted her above\nThe empty nothings of a courtly life\nAs Sir Sanpeur, who makes both life and death\nMore grandly solemn, yet more simply clear.\nIn a steep curving of the road, he turns\nTo meet her smile, which deepens as he comes.\nSanpeur, bronzed by the eastern sun, is tall,\nStraight as a javelin, in each noble line\nHis knighthood is revealed. Slighter than Torm,\nWhose strength is in his size, but full as strong,\nSanpeur's unrivalled strength is in his sinew\nHis scarlet garb, deep furred with miniver,\nIs broidered with the cross which leaves untold\nThe fame he won in lands of which it tells\nUpon his breast he wears the silver dove,\nThe sacred Order of the Holy Ghost,\nWhich Gwendolaine once noted with the words,\n\"What famous honours you have won, my lord!\"\nAnd he had answered with all knightly grace,\n\"My Lady Gwendolaine, I seldom think\nOf the high honour, though I greatly prize\nThis recognition, far beyond my worth;\nMy thought is ever what it signifieth.\nIt is my consecration I belong\nTo God the Father, and this is the sign\nOf His most Holy Spirit, sent to us\nBy our ascended Saviour, Jesu Christ,\nBy Whom alone I live from day to day.\"\nHis quiet words, amid the laughing court,\nHad startled her, as if a solemn peal\nOf full cathedral music had rung clear\nAbove the jousting cry of \"Halt and Ho!\"\nThen, as she wondered if he were a man\nLike other men, or priest in knightly garb,\nHe spoke of her rich jewels with delight\nAnd worldly wisdom, telling her the tale\nOf many jewelled mysteries she wore\n\"In the far East, the sapphire stone is held\nTo be the talisman for Love and Truth,\nSo is it fitly placed upon your robe;\nIt is the stone of stones to girdle you\"\n\"A man, indeed,\" she thought, \"but not like men.\"\n\nAs on his foam-flecked charger, Carn-Aflang,\nHe rides to-day towards Lady Gwendolaine,\nShe draws her rein more tightly, arching more\nHer palfrey's head, and all unconsciously\nUplifts her own,--for she has waited long.\n\n\"Good morrow, my fair Lady Gwendolaine.\"\n\n\"Good morrow, Sir Sanpeur, pray do you mark\nMy new gerfalcon, from beyond the sea?\nYour eyes are just the colour of her wings.\"\n\n\"Now, by my troth, I challenge any knight\nTo say precisely what that colour is.\"\n\n\"'Tis there the likeness serves so well, Sanpeur.\"\n\n\"My Lady Gwendoline, your speech is, far\nBeyond your purpose, gracious, for right well\nI mind me that you told me, once, your heart\nOften rebelled against the well-defined,\nAnd I should be content to have my eyes\nThe motley colour of your falcon's plume,\nLest they make you rebel.\"\n\n                           \"Ah, Sir Sanpeur,\nYour memory is far too steadfast!\"\n\n                                   \"Naught\nCan be too steadfast for your grace, fair dame.\"\n\nNow he has come, the wayward Gwendolaine\nIs fain to punish him for his delay.\n\"Methinks,\" she says, in pique, against her will,\n\"The beautiful Ettonne looks for her knight;\nIt scarce seems chivalrous to leave her thus.\"\n\n\"'Tis true, my lady, I came not to stay,\nBut for a greeting, which I now have said.\"\n\nHe left her, the light shadow darker grew\nWithin her eyes, and golden hawking bells\nUpon her jesses clashed with sudden clink,\nAs her fair hand had closed impatiently.\n\nBetimes came Constantine, who looked a man\nOf hard-won conquests, not the least, o'er self.\nBefore his stately presence Gwendolaine\nBowed low with heartfelt loyalty.\n\n                                  \"My King,\nCare rides beside you, banish him, to-day,\nHe will but spoil the sunshine and the hunt.\"\n\n\"Alas! he is the Sovereign of the King,\nAnd stays, defying all command, fair Gwendolaine.\"\nThen, smiling grimly,--\"My great heritage,\nAs heir to fragments of the Table Round,\nBrings me no wealth of ease.\"\n\n                              In converse light\nThey rode together. When the hunt was done,\nThe King, all courteous, said, \"My gracious dame,\nWell have you learned of nature her great laws;\nThe sun, that warms with its intensity\nThe earth to fruitage, is the same that throws\nStray sportive gleams to beautify alone;\nAnd you, who meet my purposes of state\nWith a responsive thought and sympathy,\nAs no dame of the court,--and scarcely knight,--\nHas ever done, are first in making me\nForget their weight. Gramercy for your grace!\nIt has revived me as a summer shower\nRevives the parched and under-trodden grass;\nIt is but seldom I have time to seek\nRefreshment, save of labour changed.\"\n\n                                      \"My King,\"--\nShe passed from gay to grave,--\"my own heart aches\nWith life's vexed questions, and its stern demands,\nFull often even in my sheltered state;\nAnd you, my liege, must be well-nigh o'ercome\nWith the vast load of duties you fulfil\nSo nobly, to the glory of the realm.\nWould I could serve you, as you well deserve;\nBut I am only woman, so I smile\nIn lieu of fighting for you, as I would\nUnto the death, if I were but a knight.\"\nAnd this same dame who spoke so earnestly\nTo Constantine, said when she next had speech\nWith Sir Sanpeur, \"Life is a merry play\nTo me, naught else, I seldom think beyond\nThe fashion of the robe I wear!\"\n\n                                 Sanpeur,\nAlone of all the men who came within\nHer circle, varied not at smiles or frowns,\nAnd when he would not humour passing mood,\nAnd when she felt within her wayward heart\nThe silent protest of his calm reserve,--\nAlthough a longing she had never known\nAwoke in her,--her pride, in arms, cried truce\nTo striving spirit, and she laughed the more.\nAnd oftentimes the stirring of new life,\nWithout its recognition, made her quick\nTo war against the wall that Sir Sanpeur\nConfronted to some phases of her charm;\nMade her assume a wilful shallowness,\nTo hide the soul she was afraid to face.\n\nOne day, at court, her restless spirits rose\nTo a defiant mood of recklessness,\nAnd half because she wanted to be true,\nAnd half because she could not act the false\nExcept to overdo it, her clear laugh\nRang out at witty words her heart disdained;\nSome knights, ignoble, hating noble men,\nWere loud decrying virtue, Gwendolaine\nWith laugh-begetting words made quick assent\nTo the unworthy wit\n\n                    She scarce had spoken,\nEre Sanpeur raised his penetrating eyes,--\nThe only ones, in all that laughing group,\nWhich were not bright with an approving smile,--\nTo meet her own, with silent gravity,\nA swift arrest within their shining depths\nTo one more word unworthy of herself.\nAnd Gwendolaine, the peerless queen of dames,\nCast down her eyes, for once, before Sanpeur.\n\nLater, he stood beside her, as she passed,\n\"My Lady Gwendolaine,--incomparable,--\n'Tis not your wont to be so cowardly.\"\n\n\"No? Sanpeur,\" answered Gwendolaine, \"nor yours,\nIt seems, to be well mannered; may I ask\nWhere I have failed in bravery, forsooth?\"\n\n\"You were a coward to your better self\nIn your light answer to the empty words\nYour nature disavowed.\"\n\n                        \"Alack, my lord!\nThat is my armour; warriors ever wear\nA cuirass of strong steel before their breasts;\nA woman carries but a little shield\nOf scorn and badinage, to break the force\nOn her weak woman-heart, of javelins hurled.\"\n\n\"That is well said, my Lady Gwendolaine,\nBut it is not the same, by your fair grace;\nOur armour is our armour, nothing more;\nYour shield of scorn is lasting lance of harm,\nFor every word a noble woman says,\nAnd every act and influence from her,\nLive on forever, to the end of time;\nYour true soul is too true to be belied.\"\n\n\"Who told you, Sir Sanpeur?\"\n\n                             \"My heart,\" he said.\nShe raised her eyes in a triumphant thrill\nOf sudden rapture, and of gratitude,\nAnd saw herself enwrapped by a long look\nThat came from deeper depths than she had known,\nAnd reached a depth in her as yet unstirred.\nShe stood enspelled by his long silent gaze\nOf subtle power. His unswerving eyes\nQuelled her by steadfast calm, yet kindled her\nBy lavish love and light.\n\n                          Although no word\nWas said between them, as they moved apart,\nShe knew he loved her, and he wist she knew.\n\nAnd with the revelation there was born\nA wider knowledge of life's mystery.\nSir Torm had never satisfied her soul;\nBut though in outward seeming she was proud,\nHigh-spirited, and passing courtly dame,\nAt heart the Lady Gwendolaine was still\nA hungry child who craved love's nourishing,\nUnconscious of her hunger; so she had clung,--\nIn spite of shocks, repeated time on time,--\nClose to the thought of Torm, remembering all\nHe was to her in wooing her; rehearsed--\nAs children count their pennies one by one\nDay after day to prove their wealth--each good\nAnd sign of promise in his nature generous,\nUntil her buoyant heart, quick to react,\nHad warmed itself, and kept itself alive,\nBy its own warmth and fire of earnest zeal.\nAnd as men, lost in a morass, feed fast\nOn berries, lest they starve, and call it food,\nThus, with shut eyes, had Gwendolaine, till now,\nFed on affection and chance tenderness,\nAnd called it by the great and awful name\nOf Love, not knowing what love meant. But swift\nAs light floods darkened chamber, when one flings\nThe window wide, so her unconscious soul\nWas flooded with the strange incoming thought--\nIn that eternal moment--of true love,\nLove as a vital force within the soul,\nA strength, a power, an illuming light.\nAnd Sanpeur loved her! O immortal crown.\nShe was not conscious of her love for him,\nHer love for his love was enough for her.\n\nThen she awoke to joy; all things became\nPregnant with deep significance. The sky\nFlushed with the coming of the rosy dawn;\nThe mountains reaching heavenward; the sun\nThat warmed the flowers, and drank their dew; the birds\nThat built their nests well hid in leafy shade;\nThe grass that bent in homage to the wind,--\nAll touched her heart anew with subtle thoughts;\nAnd joy brought rich unfolding in her life.\n\nShe had more pity for the men she scorned,\nMore quick forgiveness for the envious dames,\nAnd when the little children crossed her path,\nShe stooped, and kissed them, as was not her wont.\n\nAlas! too often, this new harmony\nOf life was clashed by discord. Sir Torm flung\nUpon the homage Sanpeur rendered her\nUnworthy jest and spiteful words, for well\nHe hated him with grudge despiteous.\nFull oft his wrath was roused to such a point\nHe could not hold his peace; even to the King\nHe jeered one day at visionary knights.\nThe keen-eyed King, with intuition, knew\nThe motive of his speech,--\"Our knight, Sanpeur,\nBut contradicts your verdict, Torm, and proves\nThat which the great King Arthur taught,--the man\nIs strongest who can claim a strength divine\nFrom whence to draw his own.\" Sir Torm had grown\nMore wrathful in his heart at this, and kept\nSanpeur long while from word with Gwendolaine.\nThen, when Torm's anger did not baffle her,\nSometimes a doubt would come, and doubt hides joy.\nSir Sanpeur honoured her before the court\nWith chivalrous and frankest loyalty.\nAt the great tournament of Christmas-tide,\nHe cried, \"Such peerless presence in our midst\nAs the unrivalled Lady Gwendolaine\nStrengthens the arm to prove her without peer!\nLet him who will dispute it!\" Those who did,\nBut proved it by their fall, for worshipfully\nHe overthrew them with so simple ease\nHis cause seemed justice rather than love's boast.\nThen when they met for converse face to face,\nHe spoke from his unsullied, fearless soul\nStraight to her own, without reserve or fear.\nYet he was wrapped in a calm self-control;\nNo word, no whisper of his love for her\nHad ever passed his lips to tell, in truth,\nThe love that she was sure of in her heart.\nAnd when he lingered by some maiden fair,\nWith that true-hearted careful courtesy\nHe never for a moment's space forgot\nTo any woman, queen or serving-maid;\nAnd when the maiden's eyes gave bright response\nTo his fair words of thought-betaking grace,\nThe heart of Gwendolaine would faster beat,\nAnd all her waywardness would quick return;\nThen, if Sanpeur approached her, she would mock\nAt life, and love, and fling the gauntlet down\nAs challenge for a tournament of speech.\n\n\"And pray, Sanpeur,\" she said one eve to him,\nWhen they were at a feast at Camelot,\n\"Why is your life so lone and incomplete,\nWhen any lovely maiden of the court\nWould follow you most gladly at your call?\"\n\n\"You know full well, my Lady Gwendolaine.\"\n\n\"By your kind grace, I cannot guess,\" she said,\nRepenting as she said it, instantly.\n\n\"Because I love you only, evermore;\nYou long have felt it, known it; and I thought\nCared not to hear me say it with my voice;\nBut, as you wish it, I have said it now,\nMy Lady Gwendolaine.\"\n\n                      They stood among\nThe knights and ladies, therefore he spoke low,\nIn quiet dignity, as he might say\n\"How well the colour of your robe beseems\nYour beauty\";--not a trace of passionate\nIntensity, save in his lucent eyes.\nNo passion nor embrace could so have moved her,\nAs this calm telling her in quiet words\nThe secret of all secrets in God's world,\nAs though it were a part of daily life;\nThis power to hold a passion in his hand,--\nWhich his true eyes declared was measureless,--\nAs though he were its master, utterly.\nTrue women are like Nature, their great mother,\nStirred on the surface by each passing wind,\nBut ruled by silent forces at the heart.\nShe caught her breath a moment in surprise,--\nFor naught has to the mind more of surprise\nThan the sweet long-expected, if it come\nWhen one expects it not,--and paused a space,\nWith downcast eyes; and then her woman-soul\nWent out in sudden impulse, graciously,\nIn boundless thought for him who gave her all.\n\"O Sanpeur, love one worthier than I,\nAnd where your love will not be guerdonless!\"\n\n\"To love you is a guerdon of itself,\nYou are so well worth loving, Gwendolaine.\"\n\nHe passed with knightly bow, and joined the court,\nAnd left her with a glory in her eyes.\nNever was Gwendolaine so radiant\nAs on that evening; courtiers one by one\nDrew near, and marvelled at her loveliness.\nWhen the great feast was ended, she was well\nContent to leave the court for Tormalot;\nFor, in the quiet of her chamber, when\nSir Torm had slept, she lived in thought again\nThe sure triumphant moment when she knew,\nBeyond all peradventure, of a love\nThat her heart told her was above all love\nOf other men in strength and purity.\nAnd on the morrow, when she woke, her joy\nWoke with her, and encompassed her soul.\n\nIn strides Sir Torm, equipped for tournament.\nThe Lady Gwendolaine goes not to-day,\nFor it will be a savage tournament,\n\"Unfit for ladies,\" Torm had said to her,\n\"Unworthy men,\" she thought, but did not say.\n\n\"Come, Gwendolaine, my beauty, ere I go,\nI wait to have you buckle on my sword.\"\n\nSmiling, she does his bidding.\n\n                               \"Ah! my Torm,\nHow heavy, and how mighty is your sword;\nI revel in the glory of your strength,\nAnd in your prowess. Well I mind me, dear,\nWhen first I saw you, on your charger black,\nRiding in knightly state to my old home.\n'By our King Arthur's soul,' my father said,\n'There is a knight of valour and of strength!'\nAnd then you wooed me to become your bride,\nMe, scarce a maiden, naught but wilful child\nSo prone, alas to mischief and mistake,\nOf humble fortune, with but whims for dower\nYou were so kind, so generous, you flashed\nMy low estate with splendour. I recall\nHow my heart laughed with girlish pride and glee\nAt the surpassing bounty of your gifts.\"\n\n\"Ha! Gwendolaine, by the great Holy Grail\nI caught an eagle when I caught that dove,\nFor now you are the queen of all the dames,\nEven King Constantine, who seldom marks\nA lady of the court, comes to your side\nAnd flatters you with royal courtesies,\nWhich you receive with far too proud a grace;\nFor, wit ye well, I would not let it slip,\nThis honour of his preference for you.\"\n\n\"My lord, save that I reverence him as man,\nI do not care for favour of the King.\"\n\n\"I care, that is enough for you,\" said Torm.\n\"No knight has charger like my Roanault,\nNo knight has castle like my Tormalot,\nAnd none has mistress like my Gwendolaine--\nI choose that none approach her but the King.\"\n\nHe laughed a loud and taunting laugh, and turned\nAnd kissed her with a loud resounding kiss.\n\n\"I think the King is safe for you, and well\nFor me in my advancement. Other knights\nMay serve you at a distance, but had best\nNot seek your side too often.\"\n\n                               Her sweet head\nLay like a lily on his mailed breast,\nWhile she toyed lightly with the yellow scarf\nThat floated from his helmet.\n\n                              \"Goes Sanpeur\nTo the great tournament to-day?\" he asked.\n\n\"I think not, Torm; it never is his wont\nTo tilt in tourneys like to-day's.\"\n\n                                    \"Think not!\nI want an honest answer. Do you know?\"\n\n\"No more than I have told you, my Sir Torm;\nIt scarce becomes his chivalry to fight\nIn these new tourneys of such savage guise.\"\n\n\"His chivalry! Now God defend! Methinks\nYou are too daring. What of mine, forsooth?\"\n\n\"I long have told you that I thought your strength\nWas worthy finer service. You well know\nI like not tournaments that waste the land\nBy useless bloodshed; but, my Torm, you are\nYour own adviser, so I say no more.\nBend down and kiss me, Torm, before you go;\nPray be not wroth with Gwendolaine, my lord.\"\n\n\"Kiss you I will, if you can tell me true\nYou will not see that coward knight to-day.\"\n\nBack drew she from his breast, and said in scorn,\n\"I know not whom you mean, my lord Sir Torm.\"\n\n\"Tell me no lies,\" said Torm; \"I mean Sanpeur.\"\n\n\"Sanpeur, the fearless knight, a coward!--_he_?\nWhat, think you, would your great King Constantine\nSay to your daring slander? Sir Sanpeur\nIs the unquestioned Launcelot at court;\nThe King rests on him with unfailing trust\nIn every valiant deed and feat of arms.\"\nShe drew her beauty to its fullest height,\nAnd swept him with her eyes. \"Fear not for me,\nSir Torm. Sanpeur, alas! is too engrossed\nWith duties for his Master, Jesu Christ,\nAnd for his lord, the King, to loiter here\nWith any woman, howe'er fair she be.\"\n\nTorm laughed a quick and scornful laugh, that made\nThe heart of Gwendolaine beat fast and fierce\nAgainst its sound in spirit of revolt.\n\n\"Pray who was coward when Sanpeur refused\nIn open court to joust with Dinadan?\"\n\n\"You know, my, lord, the reason that he gave.\"\n\n\"Ha, ha! some empty boast of holy day,\nAnd prayers, and fasting, and such foolery.\"\n\n\"And who, my lord,\" she said in sudden scorn,\n\"Unhorsed once, years ago, the brave Sir Torm,\nWho never was unhorsed by knight before?\"\n\nThe hot blood flushed his heavy-bearded face;\nHis loud voice vibrated with rising wrath.\n\n\"So your fine, fearless knight of chivalry\nHas won his way to your most wifely heart\nBy boasting of his prowess! By my sword!\nThat is a knightly virtue in all truth.\"\n\n\"It did not need, Sir Torm, that he should tell\nThe story that was waiting for your bride\nIn every prattling mouth about the court.\nHad it been so, she never would have heard;\nIt lies with petty souls alone to boast,\nNot with the royal soul of Sir Sanpeur.\"\n\n\"Now, by the blessed Mother of our Lord!\nMethinks you love this valiant knight, Sanpeur.\"\n\n\"And if I did,\" she cried, her soul aglow\nWith exultation of defense of him,\n\"It well might be my glory; for there lives\nNo knight so stainless and so pure as he.\"\n\n\"Peace, wanton!\" said Sir Torm. \"It is your shame!\"\n\nAnd lifting his strong heavy mailed hand,\nHe struck the lovely face of Gwendolaine,\nAnd went out cursing.\n\n                      Motionless she leaned\nAgainst the window mullion, where she reeled,\nWhite as the pearls she wore; and love for Torm--\nThe thing that she had nourished and called love--\nFell dead within her, murdered by his blow.\nAnd in her heart true love arose at last\nfor Sir Sanpeur, proclaiming need of him;--\nA love, for many days hushed and suppressed\nBy wifely loyalty, now well awake,\nWith conscious sense of immortality.\n\nHalf dazed, she swiftly to her chamber went,\nStopped not to wipe the blood from her pale cheek;\nDropped off, in haste, her brilliant robe, and donned\nA russet gown she kept for merry plays,\nAnd, wrapping o'er her head a wimple, dark\nAs her dark gown, crept down the castle steps.\nThe vassals looked at her askance; she drew\nHer wimple closer, and deceived their gaze,\nUntil the gate of Tormalot was passed,\nAnd she was out upon the lonely moor.\nOnward she went, too wrenched with pain and wrath\nTo fear, or wonder at her fearlessness.\n\nThe knight Sanpeur was on his battlements,\nSilvered with light from the full summer moon,\nAnd heard his seneschal with loud replies\nDenying entrance, as his orders were;\nHe would be left alone and undisturbed\nWith memory and thought of Gwendolaine.\n\"What sweetness infinite beneath the ebb\nAnd flow of moods,\" he said, half audibly;\n\"What truth beneath her laughter and her mirth!\nI ask but that her nature be fulfilled,\nThat is enough for me; it matters not\nIf I may only see her from afar.\nMy love was sent to vivify her life,\nNot to imperil, and to make no claim\nOf her but her unfolding; to remind\nHer soul of its immortal heritage,\nAnd teach her joy,--she knew but merriment.\nAnd this, meseems, it hath done, Christ be praised.\nHer soul asserts itself through her gay life,\nAnd joy pervades her,--she is radiant.\nHow wonderful she looked, last night, at Camelot!\nShe moved in glowing beauty like a star.\"\n\nAnd with the vision of her in his heart,\nIn all the splendour of her state and pride,\nIn golden-threaded samite strewn with pearls,\nHe turned, in the quick pacing of his walk,\nAnd faced her in her simple russet gown,\nHer hair unbound, and blowing in the wind,\nHer cheeks as colourless as white May flowers,\nSave on the one a deep and crimson stain.\n\"My God!\" he cried, and caught her as she fell.\n\nShe told the story of her bitter wrong\nIn poignant words of passionate disdain.\n\"And I have come straightway to you, Sanpeur,--\nHaving more faith in your true love for me\nThan any woman ever had before\nIn love of man, or chivalry of knight,--\nTo tell you that I love you more than life.\nLong have I loved you, well I know it now,\nAlthough I knew it not, until this blow\nStamped it in blood upon my mind and soul.\nI rose this morn resolved to be more true\nTo your high thought of womanhood, and wife,\nTo bear with Torm more patiently, and strive\nTo make my life more worthy of your love;\nAnd then,--God help me,--my resolve was crushed\nBy Torm's fierce hand, and love for you set free.\nYea, now my heart is sure,--beyond all doubt,\nBeyond all question and all fear of men,--\nThat I, for ever, love you utterly.\nTake me, beloved, I am yours, I want,\nI need, I pant, I tremble for your care.\nO meet me not so coldly! I shall die\nIf you repulse me; I have come so far\nAnd fast, without a fear,--I loved you so,--\nTo seek the blessed shelter of your arms.\nMy brain is dizzy, and my senses fail;\nFor God's sake tell me you are glad I came\nTo you--and only you--in my despair.\"\n\nHe took her hands, full tenderly, and said,--\nHis eyes alone embracing her the while,--\n\"Beloved Gwendolaine, loved far above\nAll women on the earth, loved with a love\nThat words would but conceal, were they essayed,\nSoul of my soul, and spirit of myself,\nIf I am cold, you know it is in truth\nA cold that burns more deeply than all fire.\nDeep-stirred am I that you could trust me so,\nAnd you will trust me yet, dear, when I say\nYou must go back to your brave lord, Sir Torm.\"\n\n\"Back to Sir Torm!\" she said, in a half dream.\n\"O Blessed Virgin, Mother of the Christ!\nSave me and keep me from the bitter shame\nOf such humiliation to my soul.\"\n\n\"No deed done for the right, my Gwendolaine,\nCan bring humiliation to a soul.\nSir Torm has loved you long and loyally--\"\n\n\"He knows not how to love,\" she said in scorn.\n\n\"He knows his way, and in it loves you well;\nYour wit and beauty are his chiefest pride;\nHe would refuse you nothing you could ask\nTo gratify your pleasure and desire.\nHe brought you from a narrow, hidden lot,\nTo share with you his honours at the court.\nYou will not let all that be wiped away\nBy one swift deed of anger, which Sir Torm\nHas bitterly repented and bewailed\nFull long ere this; of that you are right sure,\nBecause you know his loving heart's rebound.\"\n\n\"To live with him, Sanpeur, would now be death.\"\n\n\"Naught can bring death to immortality\nBut sin,--and life with me, my Gwendolaine,\nWould be the death of all we hold most high.\"\n\n\"Jesu have mercy! Sanpeur casts me off;\nHe does not love me! I have dreamed it all.\"\n\nSanpeur said almost sternly, \"Gwendolaine,\nUnsay that; it is false! You know full well\nHow far I love you above thought of self;\nIf I half loved you, I would fold you close.\"\n\n\"It is unsaid, Sanpeur; but woe is me\nThat I should fall so far from my estate\nTo plead in vain with any man, howe'er\nHe love; where is my pride, my boasted pride?\"\n\n\"'Tis in my heart, if anywhere, my love.\"\n\n\"I can not go, Sanpeur. Torm forfeited\nHis right to loyalty by cruelty.\"\n\n\"The debt of loyalty is due to self,\nAnd we must well fulfil it, Gwendolaine,\nNo matter how another may have failed.\"\n\nA sudden horror crossed her thought,--\"Sanpeur;\nYou do not love me less that I have come?\"\n\n\"Ah! my beloved woman-child, I know\nYour many-sided nature far too well\nTo judge you or condemn you by one act,\nBorn of a frenzied moment of despair;\nWhen the true Gwendolaine has time to think,\nNaught I could urge would keep her, though she came.\"\n\n\"But Torm would kill me if I did return\"--\n\n\"Leave that to me; but if he should, my love,\nYour soul would then be free,--what ask you more?\nNow you are weary, very weary, sweet;\nGo in the castle, let me call my dames\nTo tend and serve you until morning light;\nAnd on the morrow you will choose to go\nWith me, I am full sure, and make your peace\nWith Torm, as worthy of your better self.\"\n\n\"With you? O God! Sanpeur, if I return,\nI go alone as I have come! Think you\nThat I would take you with me to your death?\"\n\n\"My life is yours,--how use it better, dear,\nThan winning peace and happiness for you?\"\n\n\"But it would be keen misery for life\"--\n\n\"It leadeth unto happiness and peace\nIn the far future, if we fail not now.\nThis life is but the filling of a trust,\nTo prove us worthy of the life beyond,\nAnd happiness is never to be sought.\nIf it comes,--well; if not, we shall know why.\nWhen we are happy in the sight of God.\"\n\nThen there was silence on the battlements;\nNo sound was heard but the slow measured clang\nOf feet that paced the stony path below;--\nGwendolaine pushed aside the wind-blown hair\nFrom her wild eyes, and gazed into Sanpeur's.\nAs the slow minutes passed the frenzied mood\nFaded away from her like fevered dream;\nWith hands clasped in a passion of devout,\nComplete surrender, falling at his feet\nShe whispered, brokenly, between her sobs;\n\n\"Sanpeur, I will go back to Torm,--for you,--\nGo back and live my life as best I may,\nIf he forgive me;--and if not, receive\nThe condemnation of my fault as meet.\nYour love has done what love should ever do,--\nIllumined duty's path, and its far goal,\nHid for a moment by a dark despair.\nI thought I loved you perfectly before,\nBut my soul tells me, deep below the pain,\nI love you more than if you bade me stay.\"\n\nHe took her hands and kissed them tenderly\nWith quiet kisses, long and calm, which held\nSure promise of the strength he fain would give;\nThen, bending o'er her yearningly, he said\nIn tones that stilled her spirit into rest,\n\"God guard you, my beloved, evermore.\"\nA new force flowed into her soul from his.\n\nShe rose and left him.\n\n                       He gave orders strict\nFor her best comfort; then walked out alone,\nTo meet and wrestle with his passion, held\nSo long in leash by honour, free at last\nWith overmastering and giant strength.\nThe subtle fragrance of her hands pervades\nHis senses; in his veins he feels the flow\nOf her warm breath, which entered into them\nThat moment he had caught her as she fell;\nHer words of love sweep like a surging tide\nAcross the quiet of his self-control.\nWhen she was there, his love for her had kept\nHis passion from uprising, though against\nHis pleading heart, so long her pleading seemed.\nNow she is gone, all calm and thought are lost\nIn the impassioned wish for her, the thirst\nTo drink the sweetness of her deep, rich soul,\nWithout a thought of Torm, or all the world.\nSanpeur's well-rounded nature is triune,\nAnd flesh and sense as much a part of him\nAs his clear brain and spirit consecrate.\nPassion for once asserts itself; he starts,\nAnd towards the castle strides with rapid steps;\n\"She is my own, Fate sent her here to me;\nI cannot war against it any more;\nI will go in and fold her to myself.\"\n\nHe clasps his empty arms upon his breast,\nIn the abandonment of wild desire,\nAnd feels, beneath the pressure of his hands,\nThe sacred Order of the Holy Ghost.\n\"Good Lord, deliver me from sin,\" he cries,\nAnd bows his knightly head in silent prayer.\n\nNo earnest soul can ask and not receive:\nBefore the warden's deep-toned voice calls out\nAnother watch, Sanpeur has overcome.\n\nHe passed his night beneath the silent stars,\nBelow the resting-room of Gwendolaine,\nWho lay within his castle, loving him,\nWhile he kept watch, to guard her from himself.\n\nJust ere the morning light, there was a cry\nFrom his most faithful seneschal to rouse\nThe vassals to defend the brave Sanpeur,\nLoved loyally; and from the battlements\nHe saw Sir Torm, waging a savage fight\nTo win an entrance through his castle gate.\nWith hurried steps he reached the gate, and with\nThe cry,--drowned by the din of clashing arms,--\n\"Withhold! it is a friend,\" he threw himself\nBefore Sir Torm, and took the mortal wound\nThat had been aimed by his own seneschal.\n\n\"Let fighting cease; hurt not Sir Torm!\" he cried,\nAnd fell into the arms of grim old Ule,\nWho pierced his own soul when he wounded him.\n\nA sudden sound of wailing rent the court;\nThe dames flocked from the castle in dismay,\nAnd with them came the Lady Gwendolaine,\nA pace or two, and then stood motionless;\nHer limbs, that brought her quickly to confront\nThe evil she had wrought, grew powerless;\nHer wide, tense gaze was as of one who walks\nIn sleep unseeing; her dishevelled hair\nVeiled the abandon of her dress, her cheeks\nWere colourless as marble, but for the stain\nOf crimson. Paralysed and dumb she stood,\nToo far to reach him, but full near to hear,\nAs Sanpeur, having lifted hand to hush\nThe wailing, broke the silence rapidly,\nLike one who feels his time for speech is short.\n\n\"In Christ's dear name, who alway doth forgive,\nI pray you, hear me speak one word, Sir Torm.\"\n\nThere was a force within Sir Sanpeur's eyes\nSir Torm dared not resist \"Speak on,\" he said.\n\n\"Your wife, my lord, is here, and in my care,\nShe came to me scarce knowing what she did,--\nWounded, and driven to a wild despair\nBy your quick anger, which has stamped its seal\nUpon the perfect beauty of her face.\nThe cause of that fierce blow she told me not;\nBe what it may, I know full well, my lord,\nIt could not merit such a harsh retort\nTo wife whose loyalty and troth to you\nHave been the marvel of the court; whose name,\nHer beauty notwithstanding, has been held\nAs high from stain as she has e'er held yours.\nShe has not failed to you until this hour,\nWhen she was not herself for one brief space,\nMad with the fever in her heated brain\nYou long have known I loved her,--none could well\nWithhold the tribute of his life from her,--\nAnd you must know, my lord, beyond all doubt,\nI loved her with a love that honoured you\nIn thought, in word, in purpose, and in deed.\nShe came to me because her trust in me\nWas absolute as knowledge that my love\nWas measureless  I would not plead, Sir Torm,\nExcuse for sin; alas! I know her act\nWas most unworthy of her truer self.\nBut this I say--he should not blame her most\nWho drove her to this deed against herself.\nAnd I will tell you,--should it chance you fail\nTo know from your own knowledge of your wife,\nWithout the need of confirmation sure,--\nThat when her passionate, poor, wounded heart\nHad time and strength to reassert itself,\nHer memory, and truth to you as wife,\nEnwrapt her once again, and she withdrew\nE'en from the love that, trusting, she had sought.\nShe lay within my castle with my dames,\nResting, and waiting for the dawn of day,\nWhen she had bade me lead her back to you,\nThat she might ask forgiveness for her fault.\nNow, by my knighthood and the sign I wear,\nI speak the truth, Sir Torm!--With my last breath\nI pray you grant her pardon, for my sake,\nWho die, to save you, of wounds meant for you.\"\n\nHis breath came slower. None beholding him\nCould doubt him, for within his steadfast eyes,\nThough growing dim with coming death, was that\nThe Order on his bosom symbolised.\nTorm bowed before him, silent, with a sense\nOf hallowed presence from beyond this earth.\nConvinced of Sanpeur's truth, there flashed on him\nThe revelation of a better life\nThan self-indulgence and the pride of arms;\nAnd here, at last, before the passing soul,\nStrong in its purity and in its peace,\nHe felt a new-born and a deep desire\nFor truer life than he had ever known.\n\nAfter the whisper, \"God shield Gwendolaine,\"\nThe slow breath ceased.\n\n                        With shrill and piercing cry\nGwendolaine broke the strange, benumbing trance\nThat had withheld her; rushing from the dames\nAnd falling prone upon the silent form\nThat gave her heart no answering throb, she cried,\nWith voice grief-pierced and sorrow-broken, \"Wait\nFor Gwendolaine, O Sanpeur! Wait for Gwendolaine,\nAnd take her with you unto death!\"\n\n                                   She lay\nIn silent desolation on his breast,\nSo still, awhile, they thought her spirit gone;\nThen rose majestic in the dignity\nOf her incomparable grief.\n\n                           \"Sir Torm,\"\nShe said in tense, surcharged tones, \"Sanpeur\nHas told but half the story; he forgot\nTo tell, as noble souls are wont to do,\nThe measure of his own nobility.\nI came to stay, my lord, to be his wife,\nHis serving-maid, his mistress,--what he would;\nI told him that I loved him beyond men;\nI pleaded and entreated him, in vain,\nTo keep and hold me evermore. No word\nCould move him, no allurement charm; he bade\nMe wait the dawn and then return to you,\nTo beg you with humility for grace,\nAnd pardon for my utter want of truth,\nComplete forgetfulness of womanhood,\nAnd wifely loyalty. My lord, Sir Torm,\nI promised him! and by his silent corse,--\nAnd with a broken heart,--I pray that you\nWill grant me pardon, though you cast me off.\"\n\n\"My Gwendolaine,\" Torm answered quickly, moved\nBy an uplifting impulse in his soul,--\n\"For you are mine, whomever you may love,--\nI know that Sir Sanpeur did speak the truth;\nYou have not sinned in deed; and though you sinned\nIn purpose, it was more my fault than yours;\nI drove you to it, and would fain atone.\nReturn with me, and help me overcome,\nAnd with my temper I will tilt, until\nI die or kill it. By the Blood of Christ,\nI swear to you that you shall love me yet;\nFor I will be,--God help me,--worthier.\"\n\nBack to their home she went with Torm, and strove\nWith gracious sweetness to make him forget;\nTo banish his keen memory of her love\nFor Sir Sanpeur, not by disproving it,\nBut by new proving of new love for him.\nThe greater made her rich to give the less;\nShe, being more, had still the more to give.\nThe apocalyptic vision granted her\nOf Love immortal, vital and supreme,--\nKept by the grace of God all undefiled,--\nHad dowered her with largess; what she gave,\nAlbeit not the utmost, was more worth\nThan best had been from her starved soul before.\n\nSir Torm was helped in his self-given task--\nTo struggle with ill humours and with pride--\nFar more by her new gentleness and grace\nThan he had been by waywardness and scorn\nAnd fitful fascination, as of old.\nTo help Torm was her life's new quest, and well\nDid she essay to gain it.\n\n                          When the tide\nOf sorrow for Sanpeur would over-sweep\nHer heart; and when, sometimes, Sir Torm would lapse\nInto forgetfulness of his resolve,\nConfronting her o'ercome with wine or wrath,\nLow to herself she whispered Sanpeur's words,\n\"Life is the filling of a trust,\" and straight\nHer soul grew strong again.\n\n                            From year to year,\nBeneath her planting and her fostering,\nTorm's nature blossomed, and his manhood grew\nMore fine, more fruitful. Men, at last, could mark\nIn his whole bearing greater dignity;\nAnd Constantine once gave him, for some feat,\nA brilliant Order, with the meaning words,\n\"The greatest conquest is to conquer self.\"\n\nBut there was one deep shadow in his life:\nUpon the lovely face of Gwendolaine\nWere two long, narrow, seam\u00e8d scars. One day\nHe touched them tenderly, and said, \"God's faith,\nI would give all but knighthood to efface\nThose hellish scars that mar your peerless cheek.\"\n\nShe turned her head quick to his hand's embrace,\nBuried her cheek within its palm, and said,\n\"Those scars, my Torm, I would not now resign\nFor any dower that the world could give;\nThey are the Order of my higher life,\nThe birthmarks of your new nobility.\"\n\n\n\n\nKATHANAL.\n\n\nThe sky was one unbroken pall of gray,\nCasting a gloom upon the restless sea,\nDulling her sapphire splendour to a dark\nAnd minor beauty. All the rock-bound shore\nWas silent, save a widowed song-bird sang\nFar off at intervals a mournful note,\nAnd on the broken crags of dark gray rock\nThe waves dashed ceaselessly. Sir Kathanal\nStood with uncovered head and folded arms,\nHis soul as restless as the surging sea\nLashed into passion by the coming storm.\nHis helmet lay upon the sand; its crest,\nA floating plume of deep-hued violet,\nWas tossed and torn in fury by the wind\nUntil it seemed a thing of life. He stood\nAnd watched it, only half aware at first\nThat it was there, then scarce aware of aught\nBesides the plume. As in the room of death\nSome iterated sound or motion holds\nAttent the stricken mind, benumbed, and keeps\nThe horror of its grief awhile at bay\nAs by a spell, so now, though Kathanal\nHad sought the sea-shore to be free of men\nBecause of his sore agony of heart,\nAnd all the passion of his daring soul\nWas tossing like the sea in fierce revolt,\nHis thoughts and gaze were centred on his crest.\nBefore the gray of sea and sky he saw\nNaught but the waving, waving of the plume;\nBefore the vision of his love, Leorre,\nHer tender eyes aglow with changeless light,\nThe golden splendour of her sunny hair,\nHer winning smiles of grace and sweetness blent,\nThere came the waving, waving of the plume;\nBetween his sorrow and his weary soul,\nBetween his trouble and his clear-eyed self,\nThere came the waving, waving of the plume;\nUntil he felt, in some half-conscious way,\nIt was his heart, and he a stranger there\nThat looked down, from a height, indifferent\nUpon it at the mercy of the wind.\n\nSudden, with that long lingering trace of youth\nThat gave to him the fascinating charm\nWhich other men were fain to emulate,\nHe quickly stooped, and tore it from his helm,\nAnd cast it far out on the tossing sea.\nIt lighted on the waves a purple bird,\nFloating with swan-like grace before the wind.\nThe action quenched impatience. Kathanal,\nImpulsive, passionate and sensitive,\nIn moods was ever ready with response\nTo omen and to change of circumstance.\nHe stood a moment, and then forward sprang\nTo catch it ere it vanished out of reach.\nIt was too late--the outward-flowing tide\nBore it from wave to wave beyond his sight.\n\n\"Ah, God!\" he cried aloud, \"what have I done?\nIt is the omen of a curse to me;\nMy crest is gone, my knightly symbol lost,\nMy helm dishonoured through an act of mine.\"\n\nThen came the memory of early youth,\nThe recollection of a high resolve\nTo keep his manhood free from touch of stain,\nTo be a knight like Galahad, pure and true.\nSo few short years had passed since that resolve,\nAnd yet he had forgotten loyalty\nAnd truth and honour for the fair Leorre,\nThe wife of Reginault, his patron knight,--\nThe brave old man who treated him as son.\nLong had he loved her with a knightly love,\nAnd fought for her, and chosen her the queen\nOf many a tournament. She still was young,\nFairer than morning in the early spring.\nWhen she had come, a gladsome bride, to grace\nThe castle of old Reginault, and warm\nHis grand old spirit into youth again,\nSir Kathanal had bowed before her, saying,\n\"My gracious lady, take me as your knight\";\nAnd she had answered, with her winning smile,\n\"You are Sir Reginault's, and therefore mine.\"\n\nWell had he loved her from that very hour,\nGiving her honour as his old friend's bride,\nMaking the castle ring with merriment\nTo do her service, and fulfil the best\nOf Reginault, who bade him use his grace\nTo make her life a round of holidays.\nBut day by day his selfish love had grown\nFrom friendly service to a lover's claim,\nUntil he had forgotten Reginault\nIn her fair eyes, and all things else but her,\nWho granted him no boon, no smallest act\nOf love or tenderness.\n\n                       At last the strife\nBetween deep yearning for some touch of love,\nAnd brave endeavour for self-mastery,\nHad driven him to madness and despair.\nTo the lone sea he brought his agony\nTo face it boldly, and his spirit, quick\nTo wear new moods, caught a despondent gloom\nFrom the dark omen that oppressed his soul.\n\n\"Love is divine,\" he said, \"and it is well\nTo love Leorre, wife though she be, for love\nIs free to noble natures; but at last,\nWhen in her shining eyes I see response,\nAlbeit unconscious, to my longing pain,\nI cannot rest content with boonless love,\nAlthough divine. I fear me, if I stay\nWithin the circle of her tempting charm,\nI shall, through some wild impulse, wantonly\nFling my unsullied knighthood to the winds,\nAs now I flung the plume from out my helm.\"\n\nHe went at even-song time to Leorre,\nAnd told her of his struggle by the sea,\nOf his determined purpose and resolve.\n\"Leorre, I love you with a love unsung\nBy poets, and unknown by other men,\nUndreamed by women; I must leave you, dear;\nI cannot see you fair for Reginault,\nI cannot watch your sweetness not for me.\nI will go far upon some distant quest\nUntil this frenzy ceases, and the quest\nShall be for you, my love, for you alone.\n\n\"Dear, sunny head that lights my darkened way\nWith its bright, golden glory, let me seek\nA crown that well befits it for my quest.\nFair waist that curves beneath the heart I love,\nI shall engirdle you with priceless gems\nWon by my prowess for your perfect grace.\nO wondrous neck! great lustrous, flawless pearls,\nThat shall be royal in their worth, to match\nThe white enchantment of your beauty fair,\nShall be my quest for you.\n\n                           \"I will not come\nBack to the court of Constantine, Leorre,\nUntil I bring that which shall honour you,\nAnd winning which, I shall have cooled my pain.\"\n\nShe came and knelt beside him, took his hand,\nLooked deep into his ardent eyes,--her own\nLike stars that shone into his inmost soul.\n\n\"Will you, indeed, go forth,\" she answered low,\n\"Across the world upon a quest for me?\nAnd will you falter not, nor swerve, nor fail,\nNor turn aside from seeking, night nor day,\nUntil you conquer with your prowess rare\nThe prize for me? And may I choose the quest\nI most desire?\"\n\n                \"Ah! surely, what you will,\"\nSaid Kathanal, as echo to his eyes,\nWhich answered ere the words could form themselves.\n\nShe waited, silently; the room was still;\nSir Kathanal was faint from drinking deep,\nWith thirsty eyes, the beauty of her face.\n\nAt last she spoke, almost inaudibly,\nBut evermore the thought of her low speech\nMade melody within his memory.\n\n\"Go forth, my knight of love, o'er land and sea,\nAnd purify your spirit and your life,\nAnd seek until you find the Holy Grail,\nKeeping the vision ever in your thought,\nThe inspiration ever in your soul.\nLet Tristram yield his loyalty and honour\nFor fair Isoud, and die inglorious,--\nLet Launcelot in Guenever's embrace\nForget the consecrated vows he swore,\nAnd bring dark desolation on the land,--\nMy knight must grow the greater through his love,\nThe better for my favour, the more pure!\nMore than all gifts, or wealth of royal dower,\nI want, I crave, I claim this boon of thee.\"\n\nBetween the bronze-brown of his eyes and her,\nThere sudden came a faint and misty veil;\nThrough the wide-open window a sun's beam\nFlashed on it, making o'er her bowed head\nA halo from his own unfallen tears.\nHe rose and lifted her, loosed her sweet hands,\nAnd fell upon his knees low at her feet.\n\"Leorre, my love, my queen, my woman-saint,\nI am not worthy, but I take your quest;\nI will not falter and I will not swerve\nUntil I see the Grail, or pass to where\nI see the glory it but symbols here,\nIn Paradise. Beloved, all the world\nIs better for your living, all the air\nIs sweeter for your breathing, and all love\nIs holier, purer, that you may be loved.\"\n\n\"Rise, Kathanal, stand still and let me gaze\nUpon you with that purpose in your face!\nSo brave, so resolute! I love you, Kathanal!\nNay! do not touch me, listen to my words!\nSurely it cannot be a sin to speak,\nPerchance it is a debt I owe my knight\nFor his life's consecration, once to say\nTo him, as I have said to my own heart,\nJust how I love him.\n\n                     \"I would follow you\nAcross the world, if it might be, a slave,\nTo serve you at your bidding night and day;\nOr I would rouse me to my highest pride\nThat I might be your queen, and lead you on\nTo glory. I am strong to do and bear\nThe uttermost my mind can think, for you,\nTo cheer you, help you, strengthen you; and yet--\nI am a woman, and my senses thrill\nIf you but touch the border of my robe,\nAnd if you take my hand, before the court,\nAnd raise it to your lips, I faint, I die,\nWith the vast tide of my unconquered love.\"\n\n\"Great Christ! how can I hear you and depart?\nI did not know you loved me. O my sweet,\nHere by your side I stay; my quest shall be\nThe love-light dawning in your shining eyes.\"\n\n\"Is this your answer, Kathanal,\" she sighed,\n\"To the unveiling of my heart of hearts?\nNo! now, if ever, you will surely go\nOn the sole quest that makes that action right.\"\n\n\"Leorre, come once to me!\" he said with arms\nOutstretched to her. Quickly she backward drew\nWith one swift whispered \"Kathanal!\"\n\n                                     \"Leorre,\nYou cannot love and be so calm and still;\nMy soul would sacrifice both earth and heaven\nFor one full, rapturous kiss from those sweet lips\nThat lure me on to madness by their spell.\"\n\n\"It is my love that keeps me calm,\" she said;\n\"Love makes us strong for what is bitterest;\nWere we faint-hearted through imperfect love\nWe could not part; but loving perfectly\nWe are full strong for that, and all things else.\n\n\"Farewell, my Kathanal, take as you go\nThis spotless scarf, the girdle from my robe,\nAnd put it where the purple plume has been,\nAnd wear it as my favour in your helm.\nIf that lost plume was darksome omen ill,\nLet this defy it with an omen fair,\nA prophecy to spur you on your quest.\nMy heart says it is better as it is;\nI joy me that you flung into the sea\nThat purple plume my loving, longing gaze\nHas often followed in the tournament.\nRemember, purple doth betoken pain,\nAnd white betokens conquest, purity;\nLook, Kathanal, beloved, in my eyes!\nI _know_ that you will find the Holy Grail.\"\n\nShe stood immaculate, and from those eyes\nThat oft had kindled passionate desire\nHe drew an inspiration high and pure,\nA prescient sense of victory and peace,\nAnd falling on his knees once more, he bowed,\nKissed her white robe, and left her standing there.\n\nThen followed days of struggle and dark gloom.\nFar from the court he found a lonely cell,\nWhere morn and night he prayed, and, praying, wrought\nA score of earnest, unrecorded deeds\nTo purify and cleanse himself from sin.\n\nOft the old passion would arise and sweep\nHis spirit bare of every conquest  Once\nThe longing and the yearning were so great,\nSo strong beyond all thought of holiness,\nHe sprang up from his bed at dead of night\nAnd stopped not, night nor day, until he reached\nHis old home by the sea, and saw Leorre.\nHer hair had its untarnished golden glow,\nHer beauty was unchanged, but her sweet mouth\nHad caught a touch of pathos in its smile;\nShe wore a purple robe, and stood in state\nBeside Sir Reginault,--who greeted him\nWith tender, grave, and kind solicitude,--\nAnd lifted eyes that smote upon his heart\nWith a long gaze of passionate appeal\nThat held a pain at bay deep in their depths.\n\n\"So weak,\" he whispered to his heart, \"for self,\nI will be strong for her, she needs my strength.\"\n\nAgain he hurried from her sight, half glad\nFor the remembered pain within her eyes;\nAshamed of his own soul that it was glad.\n\nFor years he struggled, prayed, and fought his fight;\nAnd sometimes when his soul was desolate\nAnd he was weary from his eager quest,\nWhen such a sense of deep humility\nWould fall upon his praying, watching heart\nThat he would fain forego all in despair,\nA marvellous ray of light, mysterious,\nWould slant athwart the darkness of his cell,\nThen he would rouse him to his quest once more\nAnd say, \"Perchance the Holy Grail is near!\"\n\nOne night at midnight came the ray again,\nAnd with it came a strange expectancy\nOf spirit as the light waxed radiant.\nThe cell was filled with spicy odours sweet,\nAnd on the midnight stillness song was borne\nAs sweet as heaven's harmony--the words,--\nThe same Sir Launcelot had heard of old,--\n\"Honour and joy be to the Father of Heaven.\"\nWith wide eyes searching his lone cell for cause\nHe waited: as the ray became more clear\nAnd more effulgent than the mid-day sun,\nHe trembled with that chill of mortal flesh\nBeholding spiritual things. At last--\nNow vaguely as though veiled by light, and then\nWith shining clearness, perfectly--he saw\n_The sight unspeakable, transcending words_.\n\nForth from his barren cell came Kathanal,\nStrong and inspired, born anew for deeds.\nStraightway he grew to be the bravest knight\nUnder King Constantine, since Sir Sanpeur;\nThe boldest in the battles for the right;\nThe kindest in his judgment of the wrong.\nHis eyes that held the vision of the Grail\nWere ever clear to see and know the truth;\nHis lips that had been touched by holy chrism\nWere strong to utter holy living words;\nHe sang of life in life, and life in death,\nAnd taught the lesson that his heart had learned--\nAll love should be a glory, not a doom;\nLove for love's sake, albeit bliss-denied.\n\nTo his old home beside the sapphire sea\nFloated his songs and his far-reaching fame;\nFor in the land no name was loved so well\nAs Kathanal the peerless Minstrel Knight.\n\nLone in her chamber sat Leorre, and heard\nThe songs of Kathanal by courtiers sung--\nArousing words, like a clear clarion call\nTo truth and virtue, purity and faith.\nShe clasped her hands and bent her head, and wept\nIn silent passion pent-up tears, for joy;\nFor now she knew--far off, beyond her sight--\nHer love had seen the sacred Holy Grail.\nAnd, as she listened, inspiration came,\nIrradiating all her spirit, lifting it\nBeyond her sorrow and her daily want\nOf Kathanal. Soft through her soul there crept\nThe echo of a benedicite,\nEnwrapping her in calm, triumphant peace.\n\nThen she arose, put on her whitest robe,\nAnd went out radiant, strong, and full of joy.\n\n\n\nNote to text beginning \"A marvellous ray of light, mysterious,...\"\n[Transcriber's Note: \"Note to Page 88\" in the original text]\n\n\"_In the midst of the blast entred a sunne beame more clear by seaven\ntimes then ever they saw day, and all they were alighted of the grace of\nthe holy Ghost_\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"_Then there entred into the hall the holy grale covered with white\nsamite, but there was none that might see it, nor who beare it, and there\nwas all the hall fulfilled with good odours_.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"_Then he listned, and heard a voice which sung so sweetly, that it\nseemed none earthly thing, and him thought that the voice said, 'Joy and\nhonour be to the Father of heaven._'\"\n\nSIR THOMAS MALORY, \"_La Mort d'Arthure_\"\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTALAN.\n\n\nThe yellow sunlight, coming from the east,\nThrough the great Minster windows, arched and high,\nThat tell the story of our blessed Lord\nIn colours royal with significance,\nTakes many hues, and falls upon the head\nOf a fair boy before the altar-rail.\nIt is the son of the brave knight No\u00ebl,\nCut off, alas! too early in his prime,\nNow lying dead beneath yon sculptured stone,\nBut living in the hearts of the small group\nIn the old Minster on this sunny morn.\nThe proud young head is bowed in reverence\nBefore the holy priest of God, whose face\nIs glowing with paternal love that shines\nThrough dignity of the official calm.\nWho loves not Christalan for his blithe grace?--\nFor his dear eyes, so true, so fathomless,\nSo full of tenderness, his mother thought\nThey were the reflex of the steadfast love\nShe bore her lord No\u00ebl? Who loves him not\nFor his bright joyance and his laughter sweet?\n\nBut now he stands, all merry laughter stilled\nBy awe that groweth slowly in his eyes,\nIn silent quietude, a knightly lad,\nClad in a doublet of unspotted white,\nEmbroidered at the breast with these two words,\nWrought by his mother's hand, _Valiant and True_.\nHe hears at last the stirring words that move\nHis soul as it has never yet been moved;\nWords that have haunted his imagining\nFor days and nights, making his young heart yearn\nWith restless longing for this present hour;\nWords that presage the glory of his life,\nThe consecrated purpose of his youth\nIn its fulfilment and accomplishment;\nThe holy, sacred, solemn, early vow\nOf future knighthood for the noble lad.\nAnd now his father's sword is shown to him;\nHis daring spirit, of a knightly race,\nLeaps out to grasp it, though his hand may not\nUntil he grows to manhood. O the years\nThat he must wait, and serve, and work for that!\nWhy is it not to-morrow? He is strong,\nAnd, never having seen the great, wide world,\nWith boyish confidence, that is the germ\nAll undeveloped of man's later strength,\nHe feels he is its master. For a space\nThe altar and the holy man of God\nAre veiled before his earnest, searching gaze,\nBy sudden picture which his fancy paints:\nHe sees a tournament, himself a knight--\n\n\"God's peace be with thee, valiant boy and true;\nIn the name of God the Father, and of the Son\nAnd of the Holy Ghost. Amen.\"\n\n                              No tilt\nNor tournament before his vision now,--\nSwift in his boyish heart, so full of dreams\nOf fame, there springs a new, intense resolve\nOf consecration, an unconscious prayer\nFor God's peace, though he knows not what it means.\n\nThe Lady Agathar stands, robed in black,\nBehind the buoyant boy she loves so well.\nShe still has youth, and beauty, and desire;\nBut each full throb of her true, wifely heart\nBeats for her lord, though he be gone,--all else\nIn life is naught to her but Christalan,\nAnd Greane, the winsome maiden by her side.\n\nSweet Greane's heart thrills with pride of Christalan,\nAnd with the spirit of the solemn scene;\nBut, also, with a fierce rebellious pang,\nThat she is but a useless, silly girl.\nShe wishes she too had been born a lad,\nTo take the knightly vow, and leave the home,\nAnd go forth to the world and its delight.\n\nNow Christalan turns from the altar-rail\nTo see the love upon his mother's face.\nBack to the castle, in a goodly train,\nThey take their way, in joyous merriment\nAnd festal cheer.\n\n                  A banquet for the lad\nIs given in the hall, where gather soon\nThe No\u00ebl-garde retainers, come to greet\nThe noble boy, and say a long farewell.\n\nThe Lady Agathar still smiles, and fills\nThe moment with all pleasure and delight,\nNo shadow of her sorrow or her pain\nShall fall upon her Christalan to-day,\nBut deep within her heart she maketh moan,\n\"My Christalan goes forth to-morrow morn.\"\n\nAmid the revel Greane and Christalan\nAre missing for a time from the gay feast,\nAnd Agathar's quick eyes have followed them\nTo where they sit apart, the two young heads,\nOf golden beauty and of softest brown,\nForming a picture that for evermore\nHer memory will hold to solace grief,\nOr make it greater, as her mood may be.\n\n\"O Christalan how can I let you go?\"\nSays sweet Greane, weeping \"Who will climb with me\nThe rocks to find the bird's nest? who will play\nAt arms, forgetting that I am a girl,\nAnd helping me forget it?\"\n\n                           Christalan,\nLifting the nut-brown curl to find her ear,\nLow whispers tenderly, \"I love you, Greane,\nA hundred times more than were you a boy,\nAnd always have, e'en when I laughed at you.\"\n\nGreane nestles to him, lays her pretty head\nUpon his breast, her slender shapely hand,\nSun-browned and thorn scratched, wanders lovingly\nOver his face and hair,--then to the words\nUpon his doublet, tracing thoughtfully\nTheir broidered curving with her forefinger,\n\n\"_Valiant and True_\" she says: \"My Christalan,\nWhen you are great and famous in the world,\nWhich would you be, could you be only one?\"\n\n\"Why, Greane, they go together, like the light\nAnd morning: no knight could be really true\nAnd not be valiant to the death; and yet,\nNo valiant knight could live and not be true.\"\n\n\"But if you _could_ be only one?\" says Greane,\nWith child's persistency.\n\n                          Quickly he starts,\nThrows back his head impatiently, replies,\n\"I would be valiant, could I be but one.\"\n\n\"O Christalan, _I_ would be true,\" says Greane.\n\n\"Well, Greane, you teased me into saying it,\nSo do not look so scornful! I should die\nIf I could not exalt my father's name\nIn valiant deeds of knighthood and of war.\nYou have to choose, for you are but a girl;\nI need not choose, thank God! I will be both.\"\n\nWhen the gray morning dawned at No\u00ebl-garde,\nThe Lady Agathar went to her son;\nIt was the last good-morrow they would say\nFor many years to come. At the sun's rise\nHe was to leave his home, to take his way\nTo the brave knight Sir Kathanal, to whom\nSir No\u00ebl, dying, had bade Agathar\nSend the young Christalan, in time, to learn\nThe code of chivalry and knighthood. Back\nShe drew the curtains of his bed, and watched\nHim sleeping, bent and kissed him:\n\n                                   \"Christalan,\nAwake!\" she said, \"the day is breaking! Soon\nYou leave your home where now you rule as lord,\nBoy though you are, and go as servitor;\nYou must fulfil my heart's desire, my son,\nAnd, by God's help, bring answer to my prayers;\nYou must be true and valiant, Christalan.\"\n\n\"Why, mother mine, is it not wrought in gold\nUpon my doublet?\"\n\n                  \"Ah, my son,\" she said,\n\"It must be wrought upon your heart as well\nAs on your doublet.\"\n\n                     Quick he answered her,\n\"How can I help be valiant and most true,\nWith such a father and your peerless self\nMy mother? No, I will not fail, be sure.\nSome day I shall come riding home to you\nWith honour, prizes, fame, and dignity,\nThat shall befit my father's noble name,\nAnd all the court as I pass by will cry,\n'Sir Christalan, the Valiant and the True!'\"\n\n\"But, Christalan, first comes a time when you\nMust serve, and work, and cheer for other knights;\nNo knight is fully worthy to command\nUntil he knows the lesson to obey;\nNo ruler can be great unless he learns\nWith dignity to be a servitor.\nThe least shall be the greatest, the most true\nIn all things, howe'er small, shall be at last\nMost valiant. Will you serve as well, my son,\nAs now you hope to conquer?\"\n\n                             \"Mother mine,\nNothing will be too hard for me, I know,\nWith knighthood at the end.  If that should fail,\nI could not bear it! It will come at last!\nWhen I shall hear the cry, that in our play\nSweet Greane is ever calling through the wood,\nFrom all the court, and even from the King,\n'Sir Christalan, the Valiant and the True!'\"\n\nEight years had passed. The Lady Agathar,\nUnaged, unchanged, in her plain robe of black,\nSat in her tower, watching for her son.\nFair Greane was with her, tall, and full of grace,\nRight glad at last that she was born a maid.\n\nThey talked together of that day, gone by,\nWhen Christalan first left them  They had heard\nHow nobly, to the pride of No\u00ebl-garde,\nHe bore his days of service, how, as squire,\nHe was the favoured of Sir Kathanal,\nHow keen and living his ambition was\nTo prove the motto of his boyish choice\nAnd it was near, the mother's heart was glad\nThat, ere the week was ended, Christalan\nWould be the knight his heart had longed to be.\nHis maiden shield, waiting his valour's right\nTo grave it as his doublet had been wrought,\nAnd his bright armour were in readiness\nFor the long vigil by his arms, alone\nBefore the altar in that sacred place,\nThe holy Minster, where his father slept\nFirst he would come, that she might bless her son.\nWell did she comprehend the happiness\nIn his brave heart to day, the early vow\nThat stirred the boy so deeply, long ago,\nWas near its confirmation! His intense\nAnd solemn longing for the watch at night,\nHis ardent joy in knighthood, won at last,--\nShe shared before she saw him, with that sense\nOf subtle sympathy a mother, only, knows.\nShe spoke her thoughts aloud in pride-thrilled tones--\n\n\"Almost a knight, my Greane, is Christalan;\nHow valiant, faithful, noble he has been,\nAnd will be ever, my true-hearted son!\"\n\n\"Greane! Greane! they come!  I see a dusty cloud\nThat hides and heralds the approach of men.\nLook, is it Christalan? They come more near,\nNearer and nearer! God in Heaven! Greane,\nWhat is it that they bring? Not Christalan?\nO no; that silent form they bear so slow\nCan not, and must not, be my Christalan!\nCome, Greane, and contradict my eyes for me.\"\n\nGreane's answer was a swift, confirming swoon.\nUp through the gates they bore her Christalan,\nDressed in the garments of the neophyte,\nThat erst were spotless white, but then were soiled,\nBedraggled and dust-stained. His golden hair\nA matted mass, of sunny curls unkempt,--\nAnd yet how beautiful he was withal!\nInto the hall they brought and laid him down,\nWhile Agathar gave thanks, from her despair,\nThat death had not yet conquered him. He lived,\nAlthough he spoke not, moved not, scarcely breathed.\n\nThey told her, in few words, of his brave deed.\nIn some lone mountain way, far from the court,\nHe saw a knight almost unhorsed by fraud,\nAnd springing quickly to the knight's relief,\nUnarmed, unready, without thought of self,\nHe had been trampled by the maddened horse,\nWhose master he had saved unfair defeat.\nThe leech had tended him with greatest care,\nPromised him life, but never more, alas!\nThe power to wield his sword, or wear his arms,\nThe strength to walk, or run, or live the life\nOf manhood as men prize it. Some deep hurt,\nBeyond the sight, would ever foil his strength,\nAnd make bold effort perilous to life.\nThey told her how he whiter grew, at this,\nAnd, with the one word, \"No\u00ebl-garde,\" had passed\nInto the trance, like death, that held him thus\nThrough all the journey they had carried him.\n\"My valiant boy,\" said Lady Agathar;\nAnd hushed her heart, to minister to him.\n\nSlowly, at last, the lovely eyes unclosed\nThe speaking beauty of their dark-blue depths,\nTo meet his mother's with beseeching gaze.\n\"I can be true, but never valiant now,\"\nHe said in faltering accents. \"Mother mine,\nThere is no knight for you and my sweet Greane.\nGod help me!\" and he turned him to the wall.\n\n\"O Christalan! my son,\" she answered him,\n\"Knighthood is in the spirit and the soul;\nThe deeds that show the knighthood to the world\nAre but the chance and circumstance of fate;\nAnd no knight could be truer than you proved\nYourself in self-forgetting, nor more brave\nThan in foregoing knighthood for a knight.\nYou will be far more valiant, if you bear\nThis sorrow without murmur or complaint,\nThan you could prove in any battle won.\nThe meanest varlet often wins by chance.\nIt needeth valour like our blessed Lord's\nTo forfeit glory, and to suffer pain\nUnhonoured and unknown--ah, Christalan,\nTrue knight within my heart I hold you, dear.\"\n\n\"Yea, mother mine, but now my father's name\nRemains without fresh glory; his last prayer\nAnd dying wishes must be unfulfilled.\"\n\n\"Sweet Christalan, when you were scarce a lad,\nYou saw the King and thought his shining crown\nHis royalty, which now you know is naught\nBut symbol of it. Thus your father, dear,\nIn larger life of knowledge of the truth,\nKnows that the boon he prayed was but the sign.\n'Tis yours, now, to fulfil the higher prayer;\n'Tis yours to gain the inward grace, and leave\nThe outward sign, great in its way, but less.\"\n\n\"Your words are like the first flush of the dawn\nIn the dark night, my mother, bringing light\nTo show more plain the lingering dark. O God,\nIt is so dark and bitter! How can you,\nYea, even you, begin to understand?\nYou never were a man--almost a knight.\"\n\n\"But I have been a mother,\" she replied\nIn tones so strange he roused to look at her,\nAnd saw his sorrow's kinship in her eyes.\nHe drew her arm beneath his head, and slept.\n\nThey noursled him to outward show of strength,\nWith care and love, the best of medicines.\nA brighter day now dawned for No\u00ebl-garde\nWith his home-coming, notwithstanding grief.\nWhat tales there were to tell of the great court,\nOf his long service with Sir Kathanal,\nTo which Greane listened with quick, bated breath,\nSharing each feat and play with Christalan\nAs he relived it for her.\n\n                          \"List ye, Greane,\"\nHe said one day with ardour of brave youth\nAglow for bravery; \"I met a man\nWho once had seen the great Sir Launcelot,\nAnd told me of him. How he prayed and prayed\nWithin the cloister; all his deeds of war,\nOf prowess, and renown, were naught to him,\nThough men bowed low in goodly reverence\nAs he walked by; and some, 'the foolish ones,'\nThe man said, yet they seem not so to me,\nStooped down and kissed the footprints that he left.\nAlthough he wore but simple gown of serge,\nWith girdle at the waist, like any monk,\nOne felt, with passing glance, he had a power\nUnconquerable in reserve, to swift\nO'ercome whate'er approached him, if he would.\nAnd, Greane, bend down and let me speak to you:\nI saw at Camelot the great white tomb\nOf sweet Elaine, and not in all the court\nSaw I a maiden half so fair as she.\nShe lies there carved in marble, pure and white;\nAnd, by our blessed Lord, my heart is sure\nThat, were she living, I should love her well.\"\n\n\"O Christalan! you would not love a maid\nThat lost her maiden pride and dignity,\nGiving her love unasked?\" said Greane, in scorn.\n\n\"Alas, Greane! have you, hidden from the world,\nLearned the world's jargon and false estimates?\nDo you not know that love is more than pride,\nAnd beating heart more than cold dignity?\nMen die for glory, and you all applaud.\nElaine's love was her glory; honour her\nThat she did die for it. That she could tell\nHer story fearlessly to all the court\nBut proves her high, unconscious purity.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said fair Greane, with laughter in her eyes,\n\"I straight will die for the next noble knight\nWho comes to No\u00ebl-garde to rest awhile,\nAnd you shall put me on a gilded barge,--\nI will not have a solemn bed of black!--\nAnd our old servitor shall deck--\"\n\n                                   \"Peace, Greane!\"\nSaid Christalan, in tones that frightened her,\nWho knew no sound from him but tenderness.\n\"Dare not to jest about that holy maid,\nToo pure to fear, too true to hide her heart.\"\n\nThen there were tales to tell of the great King\nWho passed in such a wondrous mystery\nFrom out the realm; and of King Constantine,\n\"Who may not be like great King Arthur, Greane,\nBut who deservedly has right to wear\nThe crown he wore; for he is brave and strong,\nMighty in battle, bountiful in peace,\nTo each brave knight a friend, and to the weak\nAs I, who never knew a father, think\nA father might be.\n\n                   \"When I saw him first,\nHe asked, 'Are you Sir No\u00ebl's son--the knight\nWho, with the mighty King (peace to his soul!),\nLanded at Dover, and there fought so well?'\nAbashed I answered, 'Yea, my liege'; but he\nLaid his great hand, that has a jagged scar\nHalf-way across it, on my arm and said,\n'Be not afraid; I was your father's friend,\nAnd will be yours, if you are worthy him.'\n\n\"Often thereafter would he speak to me\nSo graciously, I for a time forgot\nHe was a king, and answered him as free\nFrom fear or shyness as I answer you,\nTold him my thirst for knighthood and for fame,\nTo which he listened with that strange grim smile,\nSo like a sunbeam in a rocky place\nThen, straightway, as I watched him, in his eyes\nThere came the look that made me want to kneel,\nRemembering he was a king indeed.\nI love him, Greane, I--\"\n\n                         Christalan turned quick\nHis face away, and strove to hide the pain\nThat held him in its sharp and sudden grasp,\nPain of the flesh, that was but less than pain\nOf heart, that it should keep him from his King,\nAnd knightly service worthy of his name\nGreane spoke not, but she understood, and crept\nClose to his side, finding his cold white hand,--\nThe laughter turned to tears within her eyes.\n\nGreat was his love for Greane, but greater far\nHis love for Agathar  Born of his pain,\nA strange dependence tinged pathetically\nThe proud possession of his trust as guard\nOf her reft life and lonely widowhood.\nHe waited for her coming in the morn\nWith flowers he had gathered ere she woke;\nAt night he led her to her chamber door,\nWith boyish homage touched with stately grace,\nAnd Agathar said to her widowed heart,\n\"How like his father in his courtesy'\"\nOften she kissed him, whispering the while,\n\"Beloved Christalan, my more than knight,\nYou bear your bitter lot so patiently.\nThank God you are so valiant and so true'\"\n\nSlowly the shadow on his way grew less\nEclipsing, the brave spirit that was ripe\nFor doing deeds came to fulfil itself\nIn the far harder task of doing naught,\nThe courage ready for activity\nBut changed its course, as he forebore and smiled\nAnd yet he oft would hasten from the sight\nOf Greane and Agathar, and seek the wood,\nWhere he was hidden from the tender eyes\nSo quick to see his struggle. Lying prone\nUpon the grass, he stretched his fragile form\nIts fullest length to cheat himself with thought\nThat he was stalwart, then he closed his eyes\nTo generous summer's lavish golden glow\nOf shimmering sunshine playing everywhere,\nAnd the fair world of beauty, flowering;\nShut from his hearing caroling of bird,\nThe liquid rhythm of rivulet, the song\nOf wind amid the tree-tops, all the notes\nOf nature's melody; and heard alone,\nWith inward ear, the clanging clash of arms\nAnd shouts of victory  Through the long hours\nHe lay and fought his fight imaginary,\nTo rise, more wan, to wage his war with pain.\n\nOne morning, when the sun rose, he was far\nFrom No\u00ebl-garde. He had gone out to seek\nThe wayside lilies, fresh with early dew.\nFrom the deep shadow of the wood he heard\nA troop of mailed horsemen cry a halt\nJust in the path before him. In low tones\nThey talked of a dark plot to kill the King.\n\nThe heart of Christalan, that beat so faint,\nAnd oft so wearily, beat fast and strong\nIn anxious listening. It was a band\nOf outlawed robbers, rebels to the King,\nWho planned to lay at the great undern hunt\nA trap for the brave, unsuspecting King,\nSpring on him unawares, and take his life,\nAnd have revenge for justice done to them.\n\nHis King! they spoke about his noble King,\nThen in the old court castle near his home,\nFor a brief resting on his journey north.\n\nHe leaned against a gnarled and twisted oak,\nHis soul a listening intensity,\nAnd all his strength, seemed leaving him; he drew\nA quick and stifled breath of sharpest pain,\nAs they rode on, and thought of Agathar,\nWatching and waiting for his coming home.\n\n\"Yes, I can save him; God be thanked for that.\nI now may do one valiant deed and die.\"\n\nIt was a long way to the court, through dense\nUnbroken forest, with a single path\nTrodden between the trees; he had no horse,\nNo strength, and little time before the deed--\nThe dreadful deed--be done. Not since his hurt\nHad he walked fast, or far, without great pain;\nNow it will follow every step he takes--\nBut what is that, he goes to save his King!\n\nPrepared to brave the pain, all stealthily\nHe started from the shadow of the trees;\nWhen suddenly two of the bandit band\nCame riding back again, ere he could hide--\nThe one had dropped his javelin and returned\nTo seek it. Heavy coats of mail incased\nThe stalwart frames scarce needing a defense,\nSo strong they were.\n\n                     Silent stood Christalan\nAnd faced their coming, not a trace of fear\nOr tremor in his bearing, slight and frail\nIn his white doublet, holding in his hand\nThe wayside lilies he forgot to drop,\nWhich to the Lady Agathar shall come,\nAlas! without his greeting or his kiss.\n\n\"Ho!\" cried the bandits. \"Eavesdropping? By hell\nAnd all the devils! we will slash his tongue\nToo fine to tell our secrets, if he heard!\nSpeak, man, or die!  Heard you our converse now?\"\n\n\"Strike, ye base cowards,\" answered Christalan.\n\"I am unarmed, alone, and weaponless:\nI cannot wield the sword, nor wear my helm,\nBut God is with me to defend me now,\nSo strike against His power, if you dare!\"\n\nThe sunlight, slanting westward through the trees,\nFell first upon his lifted, golden head,\nMaking a shining helmet of his curls,\nAnd then upon the lilies in his hand;\nHis eyes had a defiant, fearless glow;\nAgainst the sombre background of the wood,\nHe looked scarce human.\n\n                        \"Mother of our Lord!\"\nIn frightened breath, the bandit rebels cried.\n\"It is a spirit; no mere mortal man\nWould stand and face us boldly so, unarmed.\nLook at the Virgin's lilies in his hand!\nGreat God, preserve us, save us from our doom!\"\n\nAnd turning in a panic of swift fear,\nThey vanished quickly through the shadowed wood,\nWhile Christalan sped on to save his King.\n\nHe sees the castle, and he hears the horn\nThat calls the court together for the hunt;\nHis strength is failing, and his heart grows faint.\nQuick, ere it cease to beat! Faster, more fast!\nO but to save his noble lord! One swift,\nLast run, and he has reached them; breathlessly\nHe stands before the charger of the King,\nWith arms uplifted and imploring eyes,\nUntil words come, between sharp gasps of pain.\n\"Go not, my liege, upon the hunt to-day,\nI pray you, for the glory of the realm.\"\n\nWith cheeks that paled and flushed, and panting breath,\nHe told his story in disjointed words,\nAnd, with unconscious frank simplicity,\nThe tale of his high courage on the way,\nTo prove, what it had proved to his own heart,\nThe care of God to shield his lord the King.\nThen he fell prostrate at the great King's feet,\nAnd tired life ebbed fast to leave him rest.\n\nHe lies amid the hushed and silent court,\nThe faded lilies still within his hand;\nAnd with his weary, dying eyes he sees\nThe sword of Constantine above his head,\nGiving, at last, the royal accolade,\nWhile the King's face is full of yearning love;\nAnd with his dying ears he hears the words,\nThat he has bravely striven to resign,\n\"Sir Christalan, my True and Valiant knight,\"\n\nAnd then the murmur from the assembled court,\n\"Sir Christalan, the Valiant and the True;\nGod speed the soul of our beloved knight,\nSir Christalan, the Valiant and the True.\"","title":"Under King Constantine","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":14542}