{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_14410/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_14410","id":"gutenberg_14410","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14410","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy","Gawain (Legendary character) -- Poetry"],"text":"GAWAYNE AND\nTHE GREEN KNIGHT\n\nA Fairy Tale\n\nBY\n\nCHARLTON MINER LEWIS\n\nNEW HAVEN\n\nYALE UNIVERSITY PRESS\n\nMDCCCCXVI\n\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1903, BY CHARLTON MINER LEWIS\nALL RIGHTS RESERVED\n\n_Published October, 1903_\n\n_To_\n_G.R.L._\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nPREFACE                        1\nCANTO I--THE GREEN KNIGHT      5\nCANTO II--ELFINHART           35\nCANTO III--GAWAYNE            61\nCANTO IV--CONCLUSION          93\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nArms and the man I sing,--not as of old\nThe Mantuan bard his mighty verse unrolled,\nBut in such humbler strains as may beseem\nLight changes rung on a fantastic theme.\nMy tale is ancient, but the sense is new,--\nReplete with monstrous fictions, yet half true;--\nAnd, if you'll follow till the story's done,\nI promise much instruction, and some fun.\n\n\n\n\nCANTO I\n\nTHE GREEN KNIGHT\n\n\n\n\n\nCANTO I\n\nTHE GREEN KNIGHT\n\n\nKing Arthur and his court were blithe and gay\nIn high-towered Camelot, on Christmas day,\nFor all the Table Round were back again,\nAt peace with God and with their fellow-men.\nTheir shields hung idly on the pictured wall;\nTheir blood-stained banners decked the festal hall\nLight footsteps, rustling on the rush-strewn floors,\nAnd laughter, rippling down long corridors,\nAttested minds at ease and hearts at play,--\nRude Mars unharnessed for love's holiday.\nIn the great hall the Christmas feast was done.\nThe level sunbeams from the setting sun\nStretched through the mullioned casements to the wall,\nAnd wove fantastic shadows over all.\nThe revelry was hushed. In tranquil ease\nThe warriors grouped themselves by twos and threes\nAbout the dames and damsels of the court,\nAnd chattered careless words of small import;\nBut in an alcove, unobserved, apart,\nYoung Gawayne sat with Lady Elfinhart,\nIn Arthur's court no goodlier knight than he\nWore shirt of mail, or Cupid's panoply;\nAnd Elfinhart, to Gawayne's eager eyes.\nOf all heaven's treasures seemed the goodliest prize.\nNow daylight faded, and the twilight gloom\nDeepened the stillness in the vaulted room,\nSave where upon the hearth a fitful glow\nBlushed from the embers as the fire burned low.\nThere is a certain subtle twilight mood,\nWhen two hearts meet in a dim solitude,\nThat thrills the soul e'en to the finger-tips,\nAnd brings the heart's dear secrets to the lips.\nIn Gawayne's corner, as the shades grew thicker,\nFour eyes waxed brighter, and two pulses quicker;\nTen minutes more of quiet talk unbroken,\nAnd heaven alone can tell what might be spoken!\nBut it was not to be, for fates unequal\nCompelled--but this anticipates the sequel.\nJust in the nick of time, King Arthur rose\nFrom his sedate post-prandial repose,\nAnd called for lights. Along the shadowy aisles\nHis pages' footsteps pattered o'er the tiles,\nSpeeding to do his errand, and at once\nFour tapers flickered from each silver sconce.\nThe scene was changed, the dreamer's dream dispelled,\nAnd what might else have been his fate withheld\nFrom Gawayne's grasp. So may one touch of chance\nShatter the fragile fabric of romance,\nAnd all the heart's desire,--the joy, the trouble,--\nFlash to oblivion with the bursting bubble!\n\nBut Arthur, on his kingly dais-seat,\nFelt nothing of the passion and the heat\nThat fire young blood. He raised his warlike head\nAnd glancing moodily around him, said:\n\"So have ye feasted well, my knights, this day,\nAnd filled your hearts with revel and with play.\nBut to my mind that day is basely spent\nWhich passes by without accomplishment\nOf some bright deed of arms or chivalry.\nWe rust in indolence. As well not be,\nAs be the minions of an idle court\nWhere all is gallantry and girlish sport!\nSome bold adventure let our thoughts devise,\nTo stir our courage and to cheer our eyes.\"\nAnd lo! while yet he spoke, from far away\nIn the thick shroud of the departed day,\nUpon the frosty air of evening borne,\nCame the faint challenge of a fairy horn!\n\nKing Arthur started up in mild surprise,\nWhile knights and dames looked round with questioning eyes,\nAnd each to other spoke some hurried word,\nAs, \"Did you hear it?\"--\"What was that I heard?\"\nBut well they knew; for you must understand\nThat Camelot lay close to Fairyland,\nAnd the wild blast of fairy horns, once known,\nIs straightway recognized as soon as blown,\nBeing a sound unique, unearthly, shrill,--\nBetween a screech-owl and a whip-poor-will.\nThe mischief is, that no one e'er can tell\nWhether such heralding bodes ill or well!\n\nThe ladies of the palace looked faint fear,\nDreading some perilous adventure near;\nFor peril can the bravest spirits move,\nWhen threatening not ourselves, but those we love;\nBut Lady Elfinhart clapped hands in glee,--\nIn sooth, no sentimentalist seemed she,--\nAnd cried: \"Now, brave Sir Gawayne,--O what fun!\nSuccor us, save us, else we are undone;\nShow us the prowess of your arm this night;\nI never saw a tilt by candle-light!\"\nGaily she spoke, and seemed all unconcerned;\nAnd yet a curious watcher might have learned\nFrom a slight quaver in her laughter free\nTo doubt the frankness of her flippancy.\nGawayne, bewildered, looked the other way,\nAnd wondered what she meant; for in that day\nThe ready wit of man was under muzzle,\nAnd woman's heart was still an unsolved puzzle;\nAnd Gawayne, though in valor next to none,\nWished that _her_ heart had been a tenderer one.\nHis sword was out for any foe on earth,\nAnd yet to face death for a lady's mirth\nSeemed scarce worth while. What honor bade, he'ld do,\nBut would have liked to see a tear or two.\n\nWhile thus he pondered, came a sudden burst\nOf high-pitched fairy horn-calls, like the first,\nBut nearer, clearer, deadlier than before,\nBlown seemingly from just outside the door.\nThe casements shook, the taper lights all trembled;\nThe bravest knight's dismay was ill-dissembled;\nAnd as all sprang with one accord to win\nTheir swords and shields, stern combat to begin,\nThe great doors shot their bolts, and opened slowly in.\n\nAnd now my laboring muse is hard beset,\nFor something followed such as never yet\nWas writ or sung, by human voice or hand,\nSave those that tell old tales from Fairyland.\n\"Miracles _do_ not happen:\"--'t is plain sense,\nIf you italicize the present tense;\nBut in those days, as rare old Chaucer tells,\nAll Britain was fulfilled of miracles.\nSo, as I said, the great doors opened wide.\nIn rushed a blast of winter from outside,\nAnd with it, galloping on the empty air,\nA great green giant on a great green mare\nPlunged like a tempest-cleaving thunderbolt,\nAnd struck four-footed, with an earthquake's jolt,\nPlump on the hearthstone. There the uncouth wight\nSat greenly laughing at the strange affright\nThat paled all cheeks and opened wide all eyes;\nTill after the first shock of quick surprise\nThe people circled round him, still in awe,\nAnd circling stared; and this is what they saw:\nCassock and hood and hose, of plushy sheen\nLike close-cut grass upon a bowling-green,\nCovered his stature, from his verdant toes\nTo the green brows that topped his emerald nose.\nHis beard was glossy, like unripened corn;\nHis eyes shot sparklets like the polar morn.\nBut like in hue unto that deep-sea green\nWherewith must shine those gems of ray serene\nThe dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear.\nGreen was his raiment, green his monstrous mare.\nHe rode unarmed, uncorsleted, unshielded,\nExcept that in his huge right hand he wielded\nA frightful battle-axe, with blade as green\nAs coppery rust;--but the long edge shone keen.\n\nSuch was the stranger, and he turned his head\nFrom one side to the other, and then said,\nWith gentle voice, most like a summer breeze\nThat rustles through the leaves of the green trees:\n\"So this is Arthur's court! My noble lord,\nYou said just now you felt a trifle bored,\nAnd wished, instead of dancing, feasting, flirting,\nYour gallant warriors might be exerting\nTheir puissance upon some worthier thing.\nThe wish, my lord, was worthy of a king!\nIt pleased me; here I am; and I intend\nTo serve your fancy as a faithful friend.\nI bring adventure,--no hard, tedious quest,\nBut merely what I call a merry jest.\nLet some good knight, the doughtiest of you all,\nSwing this my battle-axe, and let it fall\nOn whatsoever part of me he will;\nI will abide the blow, and hold me still;\nBut let him, just a twelvemonth from this day,\nCome to me, if by any means he may,\nAnd let me, if I live, pay back my best,\nAs he pays me. What think you of the jest?\"\nHe said; and made a courteous bow,--the while\nLighting his features with a bright green smile;\nAs when June breezes, after rain-clouds pass,\nRipple in sunlight o'er the unmown grass.\n\nThe jest seemed fair indeed; but none the less\nNo knight showed any undue forwardness\nTo seize the offer. Some with laughter free\nDaffed it aside; while others carelessly\nStrolled to the farthest corners of the hall\nAs if they had not heard his words at all,\nAnd whistled with an air of idle ease,\nOr studied figures in the tapestries.\nNot so Sir Gawayne. Vexed in mind he stood\nWith downcast eyes, and knew not what he would.\nTrained in the school of chivalry to prize\nHis honor as the light of his dear eyes,\nHe held his life, his fortunes, everything,\nIn sacred trust for knighthood and his king,\nAnd in the battle-field or tilting-yard\nHe met his foe full-fronted, and struck hard.\nBut now it seemed a foolish thing to throw\nOne's whole life to the fortune of a blow.\nTrue valor breathes not in the braggart vaunt;\nTrue honor takes no shame from idle taunt;\nSo let this wizard, if he wants to, scoff;\nWhy should our hero have his head cut off?\n\nWhile thus Sir Gawayne, wrapped in thought intense,\nDebated honor versus common sense,\nThe stranger knight was casting his green glance\nAround the circling throng,--until by chance\nHe met the eyes of Lady Elfinhart,\nAnd--did she flush?--and did the Green Knight start?\nSurely a quiver twinkled in each eye;\nBut what of that? It need not signify:\nBeneath his glance a brave man well might flush;\nWhat wonder then that a fair maid should blush?\nAnd as for him, no man that ever loved\nCould look upon her loveliness unmoved.\n\nCould I but picture her--ah, you would deem\nMy tale the figment of a poet's dream;\nAnd if you saw her, (could such bliss be given),\nYou'ld think _yourself_ in dreamland--or in heaven.\nNot the red rapture of new-wakened roses,\nWhen morning dew their soul of love uncloses,\n(Roses that must be wooed,--nor may be won\nSave by the prince of lovers, the warm sun),\nNot the fair lily, nor the violet shy,\nWhose heart's love lurks deep in her still blue eye,\nNor any flower, the loveliest and the best,\nCan image to you half the charm compressed\nIn those dear eyes, those lips,--nay, every part\nThat made that sum of witcheries--Elfinhart.\n\nHer face was a dim dream of shadowy light,\nLike misty moonbeams on the fields of night,\nAnd in her voice sweet nature's sweetest tunes\nSang the glad song of twenty cloudless Junes.\nHer raiment,--nay; go, reader, if you please,\nTo some sage Treatise on Antiquities,\nWhence writers of historical romances\nCull old embroideries for their new-spun fancies;\nI care not for the trivial, nor the fleeting.\nBeneath her dress a woman's heart was beating\nThe rhythm of love's eternal eloquence,\nAnd I confess to you, in confidence,\nThough flowers have grown a thousand years above her,\nUnseen, unknown, with all my soul I love her.\n\nFrom these digressions upon love and glory,\n'Tis time we were returning to our story.\nI only meant, in a few words, to tell you\n(For fear my heroine's conduct should repel you)\nThat if she jests, for instance, out of season,\nPerhaps there is a good substantial reason.\nSir Gawayne, had he seen the stranger wink\nAnd seen the lady blushing, you may think\nMight have been spared a most unhappy lot.\nPerhaps you're right;--but peradventure not.\nI give you but a hint, for half the art\nOf narrative is holding back a part,\nAnd if without reserve I gave my best\nIn the first canto, who would read the rest?\n\nBut now Sir Gawayne, with a troubled eye,\nLooked up, and saw his lady standing by.\nQuoth he: \"And if this conjurer unblest\nWin no acceptance of his bitter jest,\nHow then in after days shall Arthur's court\nConfront the calumny and foul report\nOf idle tongues?\" The wrath in Gawayne's eyes\nHashed for an instant; then in humbler wise\nHe spoke on: \"Yet God grant I be not blind\nWhere honor lights the way; for to my mind\nTrue honor bids us shun the devil's den,\nTo fight God's battles in the world of men.\nWho takes this challenge up, I doubt will rue it.\"\nQuoth Elfinhart: \"I'ld like to see you do it!\"\nShe laughed a gay laugh, but by hard constraint:\nThen turned and hid her face, all pale and faint,\nAs one might be who stabs and turns the knife\nIn the warm heart of one more dear than life.\nShe turned and Gawayne saw not; but he heard,\nAnd felt his heart-strings tighten at her word.\n\"Nay, lady, if you wish it I will try;\nBe your least wish my will, although I die!\nYet one thing, if I may, I fain would ask,\nBefore I make the venture;--if this task\nProve fateful as it threatens,--do you care?\"\n\"Perhaps,\" said Elfinhart, \"you do not dare!\"\nLightly she laughed, and scoffing tossed her head,\nYet spoke as one who knew not what she said,\nWith random words, and with quick-taken breath;\nThen turned again, ere that same look of death\nShould steal upon her and betray her heart\nDespite all stratagems of woman's art.\nAnd Gawayne heard but saw not; and the night\nDescended on him, and his face grew white\nWith grief and passion. When all else is lost,\nThe brave man gives life too, nor counts the cost.\n\"I dreamt,\" he murmured to himself, \"and dreaming\nI took for truth what was but sweetest seeming.\nMy waking eyes find naught in life to keep;\nI take the venture, and so back--to sleep.\"\n\nBy this, the stranger had at last become\nTired of long waiting, and of sitting dumb\nUpon his charger; so with greenest leer\nHe vented his impatience in a sneer.\n\"Is this,\" he said, \"the glorious Table Round,\nAnd is its glory naught but empty sound?\nBraggarts! I put your bluster to the test,\nAnd find you quail before a merry jest!\"\nThen the great king himself stood up in ire,\nWith clenched hand raised, and eyes that gleamed dark fire,\nAnd fronting the Green Knight he cried: \"Forbear!\nFor by my sword Excalibur I swear,\n\n\"Whate'er thou be, thou shalt not carry hence\nUnscathed the memory of thine insolence.\nSuch jests as thine please not; yet even so\nI take thine axe; kneel thou, and take my blow.\"\n\nAcross the Green Knight's features there was seen\nTo pass a fleeting shade of deeper green,\nWhether of disappointment or resentment\nNone knew; but straight a smile of bright contentment\nFollowed, as through the throng of dazed beholders\nHe saw Sir Gawayne thrust his sturdy shoulders.\nThe stranger winked at Elfinhart once more,\nWell pleased, and Gawayne knelt down on the floor.\n\"A boon,\" he cried, \"a boon, my lord and king!\nIf ever yet in any little thing\nThese hands have served thee, hear my last request:\nLet _me_ adventure this mad monster's jest!\"\nKing Arthur shook his head in dumb denial,\nLoth to withdraw his own hand from the trial,\nAnd leave the vengeance that himself had vowed;\nBut all the people called to him aloud,\n\"Sir Gawayne! let Sir Gawayne strike the blow!\"\nAnd Guinevere, the queen, besought him low\nTo leave this venture to the lesser man.\nHe yielded, and the merry jest began.\n\nThe visitor, dismounting, made a bow\nTo Arthur, then to all the court. \"And now,\"\nSaid he to Gawayne, \"wheresoe'er you choose\nTo strike your blow, strike on; I'll not refuse;\nHead, shoulders, chest, or waist, I little reck;\nWhere shall it be?\" Quoth Gawayne, \"In the neck!\"\n\nSo Gawayne took the axe. The stranger knelt\nBefore him on the hearth and loosed his belt,\nAnd threw back his green cassock and his hood,\nTo give his foe the fairest mark he could.\nThen thus to Gawayne: \"Ready! But remember\nTo come the twenty-fifth of next December,\nAnd take from me the self-same stroke again!\"\n\"And where,\" asked Gawayne, \"may I find you then?\"\n\"We'll speak of that, please, when you've struck your blow;\nFor if I can't speak, then you need not go!\"\nHe chuckled softly to himself; then turned\nAnd waited for the blow, all unconcerned.\n\nNot so the knights and ladies of the court;\nThey pushed and craned their necks to see the sport;\nNot from the lust of blood, for few expected\nTo see blood shed, or the Green Knight dissected,\nBut knowing that some marvel was in store\nUnparalleled in all Arthurian lore,\nAnd fairly filled with wide-eyed wonderment.\nBut Lady Elfinhart stayed not. She went\nInto the alcove where we saw her first\nAnd laid her sweet face in her arms, and burst\nInto--but none could tell, unless by peeping,\nWhether she shook with laughter or with weeping.\n\nAnd Gawayne rubbed his arms, his chest he beat,\nThen grasped the battle-axe and braced his feet,\nAnd swung the ponderous weapon high in air,\nAnd brought it down like lightning, fair and square\nUpon the stranger's neck. The axe flashed through,\nCutting the Green Knight cleanly right in two,\nAnd split the hard stone floor like kindling wood.\nThe head dropped off; out gushed the thick, hot blood\nLike--I can't find the simile I want,\nBut let us say a flood of _cr\u00eame de menthe_!\nAnd then the warriors standing round about\nSent up from fifty throats a mighty shout,\nAs when o'er blood-sprent fields the long cheers roll\nCacophonous, for him who kicks a goal.\n\n\"O Gawayne! Well done, Gawayne!\" they all cried;\nBut straight the tumult and the shouting died,\nAnd deadly pallor overspread each face,\nFor the knight's body stood up in its place\nAnd stepping nimbly forward seized the head\nThat lay still on the hearth-stone, seeming dead;\nThen vaulted lightly, with a careless air,\nBack to the saddle of his grass-green mare.\nHe held the head up, and behold! it spoke.\n\"My best congratulations on that stroke,\nSir Gawayne; it was delicately done!\nOur merry little jest is well begun,\nBut look you fail me not this day next year!\nAt the Green Chapel by the Murmuring Mere\nI will await you when the sun sinks low,\nAnd pay you back full measure, blow for blow!\"\nHe wheeled about, the doors flew wide once more,\nThe mare's hoofs struck green sparkles from the floor,\nAnd with a whirring flash of emerald light\nBoth horse and rider vanished in the night.\n\nThen all the lords and ladies rubbed their eyes\nAnd slowly roused themselves from dumb surprise.\nThe great hall echoed once more with the clatter\nOf laughing men's and frightened women's chatter;\nBut Gawayne, with the axe in hand, stood still,\nHeedless of what was passing, with no will\nFor life or death, for all that made life dear\nWas fled like summer when the leaves fall sere.\nAnd Arthur spoke, misreading Gawayne's thought:\n\"Heaven send we have not all too dearly bought\nOur evening's pastime, Gawayne. You have done\nAs fits a fearless knight, and nobly won\nOur thanks in equal measure with our praise.\nBe both remembered in the after days!\"\n\nSo spoke the king, and, to confirm his word,\nFrom far away in the deep night was heard\nOnce more the fairy horn-call, clear and shrill;\nIt died upon the wind, and all was still.\nThe hour was late. King Arthur, rising, said\nGood-night to all his court, and went to bed.\n\n\n\n\nCANTO II\n\nELFINHART\n\n\n\n\n\nCANTO II\n\nELFINHART\n\nIn Canto I. I followed the old rule\nWe learned from Horace when we went to school,\nAnd took a headlong plunge _in medias res_,\nAs Maro did, and blind M\u00e6onides;\nAnd now, still following the ancient mode,\nI come to the time-honored \"episode,\"\nRetrace my way some twenty years or more,\nAnd tell you what I should have told before.\nIt seems an awkward method, but it's art;--\nBesides, it brings us back to Elfinhart.\n\nIn those dark days before King Arthur came,\nWhen Britain was laid waste with sword and flame,\nWhen cut-throats lurked behind the blossoming thorn,\nAnd young maids cursed the day when they were born,\nA lady, widowed in one hideous night,\nFled over heath and hill, and in her flight\nCame to the magic willow-woods that stand\nBeside the Murmuring Mere, in Fairyland;\nAnd there, untimely, by the forest-side,\nClasping her infant in her arms, she died.\nYet not all friendless,--for such mortal throes\nPass not unpitied, though no mortal knows;--\nThe spirits that infest the clearer air\nLooked down upon the innocent lady there,\nWhile troops of fairies smoothed her mossy bed\nAnd with sweet balsam pillowed her fair head.\nHer dim eyes could not see them, but she guessed\nWhose gentle ministrations thus had blessed\nHer travail; and when pitying fairies laid\nUpon her heart the child,--a blue-eyed maid,--\nEre yet her troubled spirit might depart,\nWith one last word she named her \"Elfinhart.\"\n\nSo with new-quickened love the fairy elves\nTook the forlorn child-maiden to themselves\nAnd reared her in the wildwood, where no jar\nOf alien discord, echoing from afar,\nBroke the sweet forest murmur, long years round.\nHer ears, attuned to every woodland sound,\nTranslated to her soul the great world's voice,\nAnd the world-spirit made her heart rejoice.\nAnd love was hers,--perennial, intense,--\nThe love that wells from joy and innocence\nAnd sanctifies the cloistered heart of youth,--\nThe love of love, of beauty, and of truth.\n\nSo Elfinhart grew up. Each passing year\nOf forest life beside the Murmuring Mere\nEnriched tenfold the natural dower of grace\nThat shone from the pure spirit in her face.\nI cannot tell why each revolving season\nEnhanced her beauty thus. Some say the reason\nWas in the stars; _I_ think those luminaries\nHad less to do with it than had the fairies!\nThe more they found of grace in her, the more\nTheir silent influence added to her store;\nFor they were always with her; they and she\nStill bore each other loving company.\n\nAnd yet one further virtue,--not the least\nOf those that make life lovable,--increased\nIn Elfinhart's sweet nature from her birth\nBy fairy tutelage; and that was mirth.\nFor fairy natures are compounded all\nOf whimsies and of freaks fantastical,\nAnd what the best of fairies loves the best\n(Except pure kindness) is an artless jest.\nAnd so wise men have argued, on the whole,\nThat the misguided creatures have no soul;\nBut as for me, if the bright fairy elf\nHas none, I'll get along without, myself!\nThese fairies laughed and danced and sang sweet songs,\nAnd did all else that to their craft belongs,--\nAll tricks and pranks of whole-souled jollity\nThat make life merry 'neath the greenwood tree.\nThe youngest of them childishly beguiled\nThe time when Elfinhart was still a child;\nThey pinched her fingers, and they pulled her ears,\nOr sometimes, when her blue eyes dreamed of tears,\nHalf smothered her with showers of four-leafed clover,--\nThen fled for refuge to some sweet-fern cover;\nBut she pursued them through their tangled lair\nAnd caught them, and put fire-flies in their hair;\nAnd then they all joined hands, and round and round\nThey danced a morris on the moonlit ground.\n\nThe years went by, and Elfinhart outgrew\nThe madcap antics of the younger crew,\n(For fairies age but slowly: don't forget\nThat at two hundred they are children yet!)\nBut still she frolicked with them, though scarce _of_ them,\nAnd learned each year more tenderly to love them.\nBut most of all she loved with all her heart\nOn quiet summer nights to walk apart\nAnd hold close converse with the fairies' queen,--\nA radiant maiden princess who had seen\nSome twenty centuries of revolving suns\nPass over Fairyland,--all golden ones!\nSometimes they sat still in the mild moon's light,\nWhere chestnut blooms made sweet the breath of night,\nAnd talked of the great world beyond the wood,--\nOf death, or sin, or sorrow, understood\nOf neither,--till the twinkling stars were gone,\nAnd bustling Chanticleer proclaimed the dawn.\nAnd Elfinhart grew wise in fairy learning;\nBut by degrees a half unconscious yearning\nFor humankind stirred in her gentle heart,\nAnd woke a deep desire to bear her part\nOf love and sorrow in the larger life\nAs sister, helper,--nay, perhaps as wife;--\nFor such vague instincts, after all, are human,\nAnd Elfinhart herself was but a woman.\nAnd yet, for all this new desire, I doubt\nIf Elfinhart would e'er have spoken out,\nAnd told the fairies of her wish to leave them,\n(A wish her conscious heart well knew would grieve them),\nIf in the ripening of her silent thought\nA still voice had not whispered that she ought\nTo leave that world of love and mirth and beauty,\nTo share man's burden in this world of duty.\n(There's anticlimax for you! Most provoking,\nJust when you thought that I was only joking,\nOr idly fingering the poet's laurel,\nTo find my story threatens to be moral!\nBut as for morals, though in verse we scout them,\nIn life we somehow can't get on without them;\nSo if I don't insert a moral distich\nOnce in a while, I can't be realistic;--\nAnd in this tale, I solemnly aver,\nMy one wish is to tell things as they were!\nBut not _all_ things; time flies, and art is long,\nAnd I must hurry onward with my song.)\nHow Elfinhart at last told what she wanted,\nAnd what the fairies said, please take for granted.\nShe prayed, they yielded; Elfinhart full loth\nTo leave, as they to let her go, but both\nAgreeing that this bitter thing must be;\nFor they were fairies, and a mortal she.\nBut ere they yielded, they made imposition\nOf what then seemed to her a light condition.\n'Twas done in kindness, be it understood,\nWith fairy foresight for the maiden's good.\nThe elf-queen spoke for all: \"Dear Elfinhart,\nWe bind you to one promise ere we part.\nWe fear naught from men's malice; hate and wrath\nAnd every evil thing will shun your path,\nAnd sunshine will go with you when you move;\nThe only danger that we dread is love.\nIf in the after days, when suitors woo you,\nYour heart makes choice of one, as dearest to you,\nBefore you put your hand in his and own\nThe sacred trust reserved for him alone,\nLet us make trial of him, and approve\nHis virtue, and his manhood, and his love.\nSend him to us; and if he bears the test,\nAnd if we find him worthy to be blest\nWith love like yours, be sure we will befriend him;\nAnd may a life-long happiness attend him!\nBut if he prove a traitor, or faint-hearted,\nOr if his love and he are lightly parted,\nIn the deep willow-woods he shall remain,\nAnd never look upon your face again!\"\nThe maiden, fancy-free, was well content,\nAnd with light laughter gave her full consent;\nFor when maids think of love (as maidens do)\nIt seems a far-off thing; and well she knew\nHer lover, if she loved, would be both brave and true!\nNot long thereafter came an errant band\nRiding along the edge of Fairyland,--\nStout men-at-arms, without reproach or spot,\nAnd in the lead the bold Sir Launcelot.\nHe, riding on ahead, silent, alone,\nWas stopped by a beseeching ancient crone\nWho hobbled to his side, as if in pain,\nAnd clutched with palsied fingers at his rein.\nAnd there behind her, from the leafage green,\nThe sweetest eyes his eyes had ever seen\nWere gazing at him with wide wonderment,\nNor bold nor fearful; innocence unshent\nShone from their blue depths, and old dreams awoke\nIn Launcelot's breast, while thus the beldame spoke:\n\"A boon, a boon, Sir Launcelot of the Lake!\nI Pray you of your courtesy to take\nThis damsel to the King. Her enemies\nHave spoiled her of her birthright, and she flees\nAn innocent outcast from her wasted lands,\nTo lay her life and fortune in his hands.\"\nShe spoke, and vanished in the woodland shade.\n\nThen Launcelot, leaning over helped the maid\nTo mount behind and at an easy trot\nThey and the troop rode on to Camelot.\nHe asked no questions for some fairy spell\nMade light his heart, and told him all was well;\nAnd as these two rode through the land together,\nBy dappled greenwood shade and sunlit heather,\nHer soft voice in his ears, the innocent charm\nOf her light, steady touch upon his arm,\nWrought magic in his soul. That day, I ween,\nSir Launcelot well-nigh forgot his queen.\nAnd Elfinhart (you knew those eyes were hers!)\nLaughed with the silvery jingle of his spurs,\nAnd from her heart the new world's rapture drove\nAll thought of Fairyland--excepting love.\n\nAnd so to high-towered Camelot they came,\nThe golden city,--now a shadowy name;\nFor over heath-clad hills the wild-winds blow\nWhere Arthur's halls, a thousand years ago\nBright with all far-fetched gems of curious art,\nShone brighter with the eyes of Elfinhart.\nShe came to Camelot; the king receives her;\nAnd there for five glad years my story leaves her.\nFive glad years, and this \"episode\" is done,\nAnd we are back again at Canto I.\nI write of merry jest and greenwood shade,\nBut tales of chivalry are not my trade;\nSo if you wish to read that five years' story\nOf lady-love, romance, and martial glory,--\nThe mighty feats of arms that Gawayne did,--\nThe ever ripening love that Gawayne hid\nFive long years in his breast, biding his time,--\nGo seek it in some abler poet's rime.\nMy tale begins with the young knight's brave soul\nAll Elfinhart's. She thinks herself heart-whole.\n\nBut at that Christmas feast, in Arthur's hall,\nWith night's soft mantle folded over all,\nThe magic influence of the evening tide\nStole on their two hearts beating side by side.\nAnd Gawayne talked of troubles long ago,\nWhen each man's neighbor was his dearest foe,\nAnd of the trials he himself had passed,\nAnd the high purpose that from first to last\nHad been his stay and spur, he scarce knew how,\nSince on Excalibur he took the vow.\nHe told of his own hopes for future days,\nAnd how he wrought and fought not for men's praise,\n(Though like all good men Gawayne held that dear),\nYet trusting, when men laid him on his bier,\nThey might remember, as they gathered round it,\n\"He left this good world better than he found it.\"\nHe talked as true men seldom talk, unless\nSwayed utterly by some pure passion's stress,\nAnd ever gently, though with heart on fire,\nStill hovered nearer to his soul's desire.\nAnd Elfinhart in gravest silence listened,\nBut her sweet heart beat high, her blue eyes glistened;\nFor as he bared his soul to her she dreamed\nA day-dream strange and new, wherein it seemed\nThat in that soul's clear depth she saw her own,\nAnd his most secret thought (till then unknown)\nSeemed hers eternally. He spoke of death,\nAnd then her heart shrank, and she drew deep breath.\nSuddenly, ere she understood at all\nWhat new life dawned before her, came the call\nOf fairy horns; and so the Green Knight burst\nUpon the scene, as told in Canto First.\n\nOne jarring note, the tuneful chords among,\nMay make mad discord of the sweetest song.\nE'en so with dissonant clamor through the breast\nOf Gawayne rang the Green Knight's merry jest;\nBut what wild meaning must it not impart\nTo the vague fears of gentle Elfinhart?\nFor she had heard in the first trumpet-blast\nA signal to her from the far-gone past;\nAnd now, of all the strange things that had been,\nHer half forgotten compact with the queen\nFlushed through her memory, and a swift thought came\nLike sudden fear, a thought without a name,\nAn unvoiced question and a blind alarm;\nAnd in sheer helplessness she reached an arm\nToward Gawayne scarcely knowing what she would;\nHer eyes beheld him, and she understood.\nAnd is it Gawayne? He? Yes, Elfinhart,\nThe hour has come, and you must play your part.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSo now it's all explained; and I intend\nTo go straight onward to the story's end.\nSir Gawayne had cut off the Green Knight's head,\nAnd Arthur and his court had gone to bed;\nIn the great hall the dying embers shone\nWith a faint ghostly gleam, and there, alone,\nWhile all the rest of Camelot was sleeping,\nIn the dark alcove Elfinhart lay weeping.\nBut as she lay there, all about her head\nThere fell a checkered beam of moonlight, shed\nThrough the barred casement; and she faintly stirred,\nFor in her troubled soul it seemed she heard\nVague music from some region far away!\nShe raised her head and, turning where she lay,\nSaw in the silver moonlight the serene\nAnd tranquil beauty of the fairy queen!\n\n\"We sent before you called us, Elfinhart,\nFor love lent keener magic to our art,\nAnd warned us of the thoughts that in your breast\nAwoke new rapture, trembling unconfessed.\"\nAnd Elfinhart moved closer to her knees\nAnd hid her face in the white draperies\nThat veiled the fairy form, till, nestling there,\nHer heart recovered from that blank despair,\nAnd whispered her that whatsoe'er befell\nLove ruled the world, and all would yet be well.\nAnd the good fairy stroked the maiden's head\nAnd kissed her tear-starred eyes, and smiling said:\n\"Fie on you women's hearts! Consistency\nHides her shamed head where mortal women be!\nTrue love breeds faith and trust, it makes hearts strong;\nThe heart's anointed king can do no wrong!\nAnd yet you weep as if you feared to prove him;--\nUpon my word, I don't believe you love him!\"\nAnd Elfinhart replied: \"Laugh if you will,\nMy queen, but let me be a woman still.\nYou fairies love where love is wise and just;\nWe mortal women love because we must:\nAnd if I feared to prove him, I confess\nI fear I still must love him none the less.\"\nShe paused, for once again her eyes grew dim:\n\"Think you I love his virtues? I love him!\nBut yet you judged me wrongly, for believe me,\n(And then laugh once again, and so forgive me),\nIf at the first I feared what you might do,\nMy doubts were not of Gawayne, but of you!\"\nAnd so both laughed, and for a little space\nFolded each other in a glad embrace;\n(For fairies, bathed the whole year round in bliss,\nMay yet be gladdened by a fair maid's kiss);\nAnd Elfinhart spoke on: \"Do what you will,\nI trust you with my all, and fear no ill.\nBut oh, my friend, to wait the long, long year,--\nTo keep my heart in silence, not to hear\nThe words my whole soul hungers for, nor say\nOne syllable to brighten his dark day!\nMust it be so, my queen? And how shall I\nSchool eyes and lips to act this year-long lie?\nFrom the dear teacher-guardian of my youth\nThe only ways I learned were ways of truth!\nI tried my skill this night, and learned to know\nThat there are deeps below the deeps of woe;\nHearts may be bruised and broken, yet still live;--\nThe wounds that kill us are the wounds we give!\"\n\nAnd so these two talked on, until the night\nBegan to shiver with the gray dawn's light,\nAnd in the deep-dyed casement they might see\nNew life flush through old dreams of chivalry.\nAnd then they parted. What the queen had said\nI know not, but the lady, comforted,\nBade farewell with calm voice and tranquil eyes,\nAnd saw with new-born strength the new sun rise.\nPerhaps in Fairyland there chanced to be\nFor them that grieve some sovereign alchemy\nTo turn the worst to best, and the good queen\nApplied this soothing balm. Such things have been;\nBut yet I doubt if any fairy art\nWas needed in the case of Elfinhart;\nThe medicine that charmed away her dole\nNature had planted in her own sweet soul.\nOf all sure things, this thing I'm surest of,--\nThat the best cure for love's own ills is love.\n\n\n\n\nCANTO III\n\nGAWAYNE\n\n\n\n\n\nCANTO III\n\nGAWAYNE\n\n\nO Muse!--But no: heaven knows I need a muse;\nBut which of all the nine, pray, should I choose?\nThalia, Clio, and Melpomene,\nI love them all, but none, alas, loves me;\nFor if you want a muse to take your part\nYou must be solely hers with all your heart;\nAnd I have mingled since my earliest youth\nMy smiles and tears, my fictions and my truth;\nNay, in this very tale, scarce yet half done,\nI've courted all the nine, and so won none!\nNot for me, therefore, the Parnassian lyre,\nOr winged war-horse shod with heavenly fire;\nHarsh numbers flow from throats whose thirst has been\nA whole life long unslaked of Hippocrene;\nBut I will e'en go on as best I can\nAnd let the story end as it began,--\nA plain, straightforward man's unvarnished word,\nPart sad, part sweet,--and part of it absurd.\n\nA year passed by, as years are wont to do,\nWinter and spring, summer and autumn too,\nTill mid-December's flaw-blown flakes of snow\nWarned Gawayne that the time was come to go\nTo the Green Chapel by the Murmuring Mere,\nAnd take again the blow he gave last year.\nIn the great court his charger stamped the ground,\nWhile knights and weeping ladies thronged around\nTo arm him (as the custom was of yore)\nAnd bid him sad farewell for evermore.\nOne face alone in all that bustling throng\nOur hero's eyes sought eagerly, and long\nSought vainly; for the lady Elfinhart,\nDebating with herself, stood yet apart;\nBut as Sir Gawayne gathered up his reins\nAnd bade the draw-bridge warden loose the chains,\nSuddenly Elfinhart stood by his side,\nHer fair face flushed with love, and joy, and pride.\nShe plucked a sprig of holly from her gown\nAnd looked up, questioning; and he leaned down,\nAnd so she placed it in his helm. No word\nMight Gawayne's lips then utter, but he heard\nThe voice that was his music, and could feel\nThe touch of gentle fingers through the steel.\n\"Wear this, Sir Gawayne, for a loyal friend\nWhose hopes and prayers go with you to the end.\"\nAnd, staying not for answer, she withdrew,\nAnd in the throng was lost to Gawayne's view.\nHe roused himself, and waving high his hand,\nStruck spur, and so rode off toward Fairyland.\n\nLong time he traveled by an unknown way,\nUnhoused at night, companionless by day.\nThe cold sleet stung him through his shirt of mail,\nBut, underneath, his stout heart would not fail,\nBut beat full measure through the fiercest storm,\nAnd kept his head clear and his brave soul warm.\nNo need to tell the perils that he passed;\nHe conquered all, and came unscathed at last\nTo where a high-embattled castle stood\nDeep in the heart of a dense willow-wood.\nAnd Gawayne called aloud, and to the gate\nA smiling porter came, who opened straight,\nAnd bade him enter in and take his rest;\nAnd Gawayne entered, and the people pressed\nAbout him with fair speeches; and he laid\nHis armor off, and gave it them, and prayed\nThat they would take his message to their lord,--\nprayer for friendly shelter, bed and board.\nHe told them whence he was, his birth and name;\nAnd the bold baron of the castle came,\nA mighty man, huge-limbed, with flashing eyes,\nAnd welcomed him with old-time courtesies;\nFor manners, in those days, were held of worth,\nAnd gentle breeding went with gentle birth.\nHe heartily was glad his guest had come,\nAnd made Sir Gawayne feel himself at home;\nAnd as they walked in, side by side, each knew\nThe other for an honest man and true.\n\nThat night our hero and the baron ate\nA sumptuous dinner in the hall of state,\nAnd all the household, ranged along the board,\nMade good cheer with Sir Gawayne and their lord,\nAnd passed the brimming bowl right merrily\nWith friendly banter and quick repartee.\nAnd Gawayne asked if they had chanced to hear\nOf a Green Chapel by a Murmuring Mere,\nAnd straightway all grew grave. Within his breast\nSir Gawayne felt a tremor of unrest,\nBut told his story with a gay outside,\nAnd asked for some good man to be his guide\nTo find his foe. \"I promise him,\" said he,\n\"No golden guerdon;--his reward shall be\nThe consciousness that unto him 't was given\nTo show a parting soul the way to heaven!\"\n\nUp jumped his host. \"My friend, I like your attitude,\nAnd know no surer way to win heaven's gratitude\nThan sending thither just such men as you;\nI'll be your guide. But since you are not due\nAt the Green Chapel till three nights from now,\nAnd since the way is short, I'll tell you how\nThe interim may be disposed of best:--\nIn short, let me propose a merry jest!\"\nAt this Sir Gawayne gave a sudden start,\nFor some old memory seemed to clutch his heart,\nAnd in the baron's eyes he seemed to see\nA twinkling gleam of green benignity\nNot wholly strange; but like a flash 't was gone.\nGawayne sank back, and his good host went on:\n\"Two days you sojourn here, and while I take\nMy daily hunting in the wood, you make\nMy house and castle yours; and then, each night,\nWe'll meet together here at candle-light,\nAnd all my winnings in the wood, and all\nThat comes to you at home, whate'er befall,\nWe'll give each other in exchange; in fine,\nMy fortune shall be yours, and yours be mine.\"\nTo Gawayne this seemed generous indeed.\nAnd with most cordial laughter he agreed.\nThey clasped hands o'er the bargain with good zest,\nAnd then all said good-night, and went to rest.\n\nNext morning Gawayne was awakened early\nFrom a deep slumber by the hurly-burly\nOf footman, horseman, seneschal, and groom,\nBustling beneath the windows of his room.\nHe rose and looked out, just in time to see\nThe baron and a goodly company\nOf huntsmen, armed with cross-bow, axe, and spear,\nRide through the castle gate and disappear.\nAnd then, while Gawayne dressed, there came a knock\nUpon his chamber door. He threw the lock,\nAnd a boy page brought robes of ermine fur\nAnd Tarsic silk,--black, white, and lavender,--\nFor his array, and with them a kind message,\nWhich the good knight received with no ill presage:\n\"Will brave Sir Gawayne spare an idle hour\nFor quiet converse in my lady's bower?\"\nThe boy led on, and Gawayne followed him\nThrough crooked corridors and archways dim,\nAlong low galleries echoing from afar,\nAnd down a winding stair; then \"Here we are!\"\nThe page cried cheerily, and paused before\nThe massive carvings of an antique door.\nThis he swung open; and the knight passed through\nInto a garden, fresh with summer dew!\nA lady's bower in Fairyland! What pen\nCould make that strange enchantment live again?\nNot he who drew Acrasia's Bower of Bliss\nAnd Ph\u00e6dria's happy isle could picture this.\nThat sweet-souled Puritan discerned too well\nThe serpent's coil behind the witch's spell;\nAnd he who saw--when the dark veil was torn--\nThe rose of Paradise without the thorn,\n(Sublimest prophet, whose immortal verse\nLent mightier thunders to the primal curse),\nEven he too sternly, in the soul's defense,\nRepressed the still importunate cries of sense.\nBid me not, therefore, task my feebler pen\nWith dreams beyond the limits of their ken;\nThe phantom conjurings of the magic hour\nThat Gawayne passed in that enchanted bower\nMust be from mortal eyes forever hid.\nBut yet some part of what he felt and did\nThese lines must needs disclose. As he stood there,\nBreathing soft odors from the mellow air,\nAll hopes, all aims of noble knighthood seemed\nLike the dim yesterdays of one who dreamed,\nIn starless caves of memory sunken deep,\nAnd, like lost music, folded in strange sleep.\n\n\"How long, O mortal man, wilt thou give heed\nTo the world's phantom voices? The hours speed,\nAnd fame and fortune yield to moth and rust,\nAnd good and evil crumble into dust.\nEven now the sands are running in the glass;\nSet not your heart upon vain things that pass;\nAmbitions, honors, toils, are but the snare\nWhere lurks for aye the blind old world's despair.\nNay, quiet the bootless striving in your breast\nAnd let your tired heart here at last find rest.\nIn vain have joy, love, beauty, struck deep root\nIn your heart's heart, unless you pluck the fruit;\nThen put away the cheating soul's pretense,\nHeap high the press, fill full the cup of sense;\nShatter the idols of blind yesterday,\nAnd let love, joy, and beauty reign alway!\"\n\nSuch thoughts as these, confused and unexpressed,\nFlooded the silence in Sir Gawayne's breast.\nMeanwhile a brasier filled the scented air\nWith wreaths of magic mist, and he was ware\nThat the mist drew together like a shroud;\nAnd then the veil was rent, and in the cloud\nStood one who seemed, in features, form, and dress,\nThe perfect image of all loveliness.\n\nThe wonders of that vision none could tell\nSave one whose heart had felt the mystic spell.\nOnce and once only, in the golden days\nWhen youth made melody for love's sweet lays,\nIn two dark eyes (yet oh, how bright, how bright!)\nI saw the wakening rapture of love's light,\nAnd, in the hush of that still dawning, heard\nFrom two sweet trembling lips love's whispered word.\nThe twilight deepens when the sun has set;\nIn memory golden glories linger yet;\nBut these avail not. Though my soul lay bare,\nWith all those memories sanctuaried there,\nThat spell was human. But the unseen power\nThat wove the witchery of this fairy bower,\nIn Gawayne's heart such subtle magic wrought\nThat past and future were well-nigh forgot,\nAnd all that earth holds else, or heaven above,\nSeemed naught worth keeping, save this dream of love.\n\nAnd now, as the strange cloud of incense broke,\nThe vision, if it were a vision, spoke,--\nIf it were speech that filled the quivering air\nWith low harmonious music. Let none dare\nIn the rude jargons of this world to fashion\nThat sweet, wild anthem of unearthly passion.\nCould I from the broad-billowing ocean borrow\nOf Tristan's love and of Isolde's sorrow,\nThe flood of those world-darkening surges, wrought\nWith thoughts that lie beyond the reach of thought,\nMight bring me succor where weak words must fail.\nBut Gawayne saw and heard, and passion-pale\nShrank back, and made a darkness of his face;\n(As though the unplumbed deeps of starless space\nCould quench those lustrous eyes, or close his ears\nTo the eternal music of love's spheres!)\nBut the voice changed, and Gawayne, listening there,\nHeard now a heart's low cry of wild despair.\nHe turned again, and lo! the vision knelt\nAnd drew a jeweled poniard from her belt,\nTo arm herself against her own dear life;\nBut as she bared her white breast to the knife\nHe started quickly forward, and he grasped\nThe hand that held the hilt; and then she clasped\nHer soft arms round his neck, and as their lips\nMet in the shadowing fold of love's eclipse,\nAll earth, all heaven, all knightly hopes of grace,\nDied in the darkness of one blind embrace.\n\nDied? Nay; for Gawayne, ere the moment passed,\nBroke from the arms that strove to bind him fast,\nAnd turned away once more; and, as he pressed\nA trembling hand against his throbbing breast,\nHis aimless fingers touched a treasured part\nOf the green holly-branch of Elfinhart,\nLaid in his breast when he put off his arms.\nWhat perils now are left in fairy charms?\nFor poets fable when they call love blind;\nLove's habitation is the purer mind,\nWhence with his keen eyes he may penetrate\nAll mists and fogs that baser spells create.\nLove? What is love? Not the wild feverish thrill,\nWhen heart to heart the thronging pulses fill,\nAnd lips that close in parching kisses find\nNo speech but those;--the best remains behind.\nThe tranquil spirit--the divine assurance\nThat this life's seemings have a high endurance--\nThoughts that allay this restless striving, calm\nThe passionate heart, and fill old wounds with balm;--\nThese are the choirs invisible that move\nIn white processionals up the aisles of love.\n\nSuch love was Gawayne's,--love that sanctifies\nThe heart's most secret altar; and his eyes\nWere opened, and his pulses beat once more\nTheir old true rhythm. And so the strife was o'er,\nAnd all the perilous wiles of magic art\nWere foiled by Gawayne--and by Elfinhart.\n\nBut time flies, and 't were tedious to delay\nMy song for all the trials of that day.\nLight summer breezes, skurrying o'er the deep,\nRipple and foam and flash,--then sink to sleep;\nBut underneath, serene and changing never,\nThe mighty heart of ocean beats forever,\nAnd his deep streams renew from pole to pole\nThe living world's indomitable soul.\nEnough, then, of the spells that vexed the brain\nOf Gawayne; love and knighthood made all\nvain.\n\nAnd in the afternoon, when Gawayne learned\nThat his good host, the baron, had returned,\nHe met him in the hall at candle-light,\nAccording to his promise of last night.\nAnd then the baron motioned to a page,\nAnd straightway six tall men, of lusty age\nAnd mighty sinews, entered the great door,\nBearing the carcass of a huge wild boar,\nIn all its uncouth ugliness complete,\nAnd dropped it quivering at our hero's feet.\n\"What do you say to that, Sir Gawayne?\" cried\nThe baron, swelling with true sportsman's pride\n\"But come: your promise, now, of yester-eve;\n'T is blesseder to give than to receive!\nThough I'll be sworn you'll find it hard to pay\nFull value for the winnings of this day.\"\n\"Not so,\" said Gawayne; \"you will rest my debtor;\nYour gift is good, but mine will be far better.\"\nAnd then he strode with solemn steps along\nThe echoing hall, and through the listening throng,\nAnd with the words, \"My noble lord, take this!\"\nHe gave the baron a resounding kiss.\nThe baron jumped up in ecstatic glee.\n\"Now by my great-great-grandsire's beard,\" quoth he,\n\"Better than all dead boars in Christendom\nIs one sweet loving kiss!--Whence did it come?\"\n\"Nay, there,\" Sir Gawayne said, \"you step beyond\nThe terms we stipulated in our bond.\nTake you my kiss in peace, as I your boar;\nBe glad; give thanks;--and seek to know no more.\"\nLoud laughter made the baron's eyes grow bright\nAnd glitter with green sparkles of delight;\nAnd then he chuckled: \"Sir, I'm proud of you;\nI drink your best of health; _I think you'll do!_\"\n\nAnd now the board was laid and dressed, and all\nSat down to dinner at the baron's call;\nAnd Gawayne looked along the room askance,\nSeeking the lady; and he caught one glance\nOf laughing eyes--then looked away in haste,\nBut turned again, and wondered why his taste\nHad erred so strangely, for the lady seemed\nNot fairer now than others. Had he dreamed?\nHe rubbed his eyes and pondered,--though in sooth\nWithout one glimmering presage of the truth,--\nTill all passed lightly from his puzzled mind,\nLeaving contentment and good cheer behind.\nSo all the company feasted well, and sped\nThe flying hours, till it was time for bed.\n\nOne whole day longer must our hero rest\nWithin doors, to fulfill the merry jest.\nSo when, next morning, Gawayne once more heard\nThe hunt's-up in the court, he never stirred,\nBut let the merry horsemen ride away\nWhile he slept soundly well into the day.\nLater he rose, and strolled from room to room,\nThrough vaulted twilights of ancestral gloom,\nUntil, descending a long stair, he found\nThe dim-lit castle crypt, deep under ground,\nWhere sculptured effigies forever kept\nTheir long last marble silence as they slept,\nAnd iron sentinels, on bended knees,\nHeld eyeless vigil in old panoplies.\n\nSir Gawayne, wandering on in aimless mood,\nPondered the tomb-stone legends, quaint and rude,\nWherein the pensive dreamer might divine\nA tragic history in every line;\nFor so does fate, with bitterest irony,\nEpitomize fame's immortality,\nPerpetuating for all after days\nMute lamentations and unnoted praise.\nAnd Gawayne, reading here and there the story\nOf fame obscure and unremembered glory,\nFound on a tablet these words: \"Where he lies,\nThe gray wave breaks and the wild sea-mew flies:\nIf any be that loved him, seek not here,\nBut in the lone hills by the Murmuring Mere.\"\nA nameless cenotaph!--perhaps of one\nLike Gawayne's self deluded and undone\nBy the green stranger; and the legend brought\nA tide of passion flooding Gawayne's thought;\nA flood-tide, not of fear,--for Gawayne's breast\nShrank never at the perilous behest\nOf noble knighthood,--but the love of life,\nCompassion, and soul-sickness of the strife.\n\"If any be that loved him!\" Oh, to die\nFar from green-swarded Camelot, and lie\nAmong these bleak and barren hills alone,\nHis end unwept for and his grave unknown,--\nNever again to see the glad sunrise\nThat brightened all his world in those dear eyes!\n\nHalf suffocating in the charneled air\nOf that low vault, he staggered up the stair,\nOut of the dim-lit halls of silent death\nInto the living light, and drew quick breath\nWhere, through a casement-arch of ivied stone,\nBright from the clear blue sky the warm sun shone.\nThe whole of life's glad rapture thrilled his heart;\nTill a quick step behind him made him start,\nAnd there, deep-veiled, in muffling cloak and hood,\nOnce more the lady of the castle stood.\n\nLow-voiced she spoke, as if with studied care\nWeighing the syllables of her parting prayer.\n\"Sir Gawayne--nay, I pray you, turn not yet,\nBut hear me;--though my heart may not forget\nThat once, for one sweet moment, you were kind,\nI come not to recall that to your mind;--\nBetween us two be love's words aye unspoken!\nYet ere you go, I pray you, leave some token\nThat in the long, long years may comfort me\nFor the dear face I nevermore shall see.\"\n\"Nay, lady,\" said the knight, \"I have no gifts\nTo give you. Errant knighthood ever drifts\nFrom shore to shore, by wandering breezes blown,\nWith naught save its good name to call its own.\nIn friendship, then, I pray you keep for me\nMy name untarnished in your memory.\"\n\"Ah, sir,\" she said, \"my memory bears that name\nBurnt in with characters of living flame.\nBut though you give me naught, I pray you take\nThis girdle from me;--wear it for my sake;\nNay, but refuse me not; you little know\nIts magic power. I had it long ago\nFrom Fairyland; and its encircling charm\nKeeps scathless him who wears it from all harm;\nNo evil thing can touch him. Gird it on,\nIf but to ease my heart when you are gone.\"\n\nShe held a plain green girdle in her hand,\nIn outward seeming just a narrow band\nOf silk, with silver clasps; but in those days\nThe strangest things were wrought in simplest ways,\nAs Gawayne knew full well; and he could see\nThat all the lady said was verity.\nHe took the girdle, held it, fingered it,\nThen clasped it round his waist to try the fit,\nIrresolutely dallying with temptation,\nTill conscience grew too weak for inclination;\nFor at the last he threw one wandering glance\nOut at the casement, and the merry dance\nOf sparkling sunbeams on the fields of snow\nWrought havoc in his wavering heart; and so,\nRepeating to himself one word: \"Life, life!\"\nHe took the token from the baron's wife.\n\nThat evening, when the baron and our knight\nMet to exchange their gifts at candle-light,\nThe baron, looking graver than before,\nSaid: \"Sir, my luck has left me; not a boar\nDid we get wind of, all this blessed day.\nI come with empty hands, only to pray\nYour pardon. What good fortune do _you_ bring?\"\nAnd Gawayne answered firmly: \"Not a thing!\"\n\n\n\n\nCANTO IV\n\nCONCLUSION\n\n\n\n\n\nCANTO IV\n\nCONCLUSION\n\n\nBy noon the next day, Gawayne and his host\nRode side by side along the perilous coast\nOf the gray Mere, from whose unquiet sleep\nReverberating murmurs of the deep\nStartled the still December's listening air.\nThe baron, shuddering, pointed seaward. \"There,\"\nHe said, \"year in, year out, these voices haunt\nThat fearful water; heaven knows what they want!\nMen tell me--and I have no doubt it's true--\nThey are knights-errant whom the Green Knight slew!\nWoe unto him, the over-bold, who dares\nAdventure near that uncouth monster's snares!\"\nQuoth Gawayne: \"How have _you_ escaped the net?\"\nThe baron answered: \"I? We never met!\nWhen I'm about, he seems to shun the place,\nAnd where he is, I never show my face;\nBut if we did meet, 't would be safe to say\nNot more than one of us would get away!\"\n\nAnd then the baron told tales by the score\nAbout the Green Knight's quenchless thirst for gore,\nAnd kept repeating that no magic charm\nWas proof against the prowess of his arm;\nAt his first blow each vain defense must fall,\nFor he was arch-magician over all.\nAnd as from tale to tale the baron ran,\nSir Gawayne, had he been another man,\nWould certainly have felt his heart's blood curdle,\nDespite his secret wearing of the girdle;\nBut when the baron finally suggested\nAbandoning the venture, and protested\nThat the whole monstrous business was absurd,\nSir Gawayne simply said: \"I gave my word.\"\nAnd when the baron saw he would not bend,\nHe seemed to lose all patience. \"Well, my friend,\nI'll go no further with you. On your head\nShall be your own mad blood when you are dead.\nYonder your two roads fork; pause there, I pray,\nAnd ponder well before you choose your way.\nOne takes the hills, one winds along the wave;\nTo Camelot this,--the other to your grave!\nChoose the high road, Sir Gawayne; shun the danger!\nSay you were misdirected by a stranger;--\nI swear by all that's sacred, I'll not tell\nOne syllable to a soul:--and so farewell!\"\nHe galloped off without another word,\nAnd vanished where the road turned. Gawayne heard,\nLong after he had disappeared, the sound\nOf iron hoof-beats on the frozen ground,\nTill all died into silence, save those drear\nAnd hollow voices from the Murmuring Mere.\n\nBut Gawayne chose the lower road, and passed\nAlong the desolate shore. The die was cast.\nThe western skies, as the red sun sank low,\nCast purple shades across the drifted snow,\nAnd Gawayne knew that the dread hour was come\nFor the fulfillment of his martyrdom.\n\nAnd now, from just beyond a jutting hill,\nCame hideous sounds, as of a giant mill\nThat hisses, roars, and sputters, clicks and clacks;--\nIt was the Green Knight sharpening his axe!\nAnd Gawayne, coming past the corner, found him,\nWith ghastly mouldering skulls and bones strewn round him,\nIn joyous fury urging the keen steel\nAgainst the surface of his grinding wheel.\nThe place was a wild hollow, circled round\nWith barren hills, and on the bottom ground\nStood the Green Chapel, moss-grown, solitary;--\nIn sooth, it seemed the devil's mortuary!\nThe Green Knight's back was turned, and he stirred not\nTill Gawayne hailed him sharply; then he shot\nOne glance--as when, o'erhead, a living wire\nStartles the night with flashes of green fire;--\nThen hurried forward, bland as bland could be,\nAnd greeted Gawayne with green courtesy.\n\"Dear sir, I ask a thousand pardons; pray\nForgive me. You are punctual to the day;\nThat's good! Of course I knew you would not fail.\nHow do you do? You look a trifle pale;\nI trust, with all my heart, you are not ill?\nJust the cold air? It does blow rather chill!\nWhat can I do to cheer you? Let me see;--\nSuppose I brew a cup of hot green tea?\nYou'ld rather not? You're pressed for time? Of course,\nI understand; then just get off your horse,\nAnd I'll do all I can to expedite\nOur little business for you. There, that's right;\nAnd now your helmet? Thanks; and if you please\nPerhaps you'll kindly kneel down on your knees,\nAs I did when I came to Camelot; So!\nAre you all ready? Will you bide the blow?\"\nAnd Gawayne said \"I will,\" in such soft notes\nAs happy bridegrooms utter, when their throats\nAre paralyzed with blest anticipation;--\n(What Gawayne looked for was decapitation!)\nAnd then the Green Knight swung his axe in air\nWith a loud whirr; and Gawayne, kneeling there,\nShrank back an inch; and the green giant stayed\nHis threatening hand, and with a cold sneer said:\n\"You shrink, sir, from the axe; I can't hit true\nUnless you hold still, as I did for you.\"\n\"Your pardon,\" Gawayne said, with bated breath;\n\"This time I swear to hold as still as death.\"\nHe did so, and the Green Knight swung again\nHis axe, and whirled it round his head, and then,\nPausing a second time, said: \"Very good!\nYou're holding quite still now; I knew you would!\"\nGawayne, in anger, said: \"Jest, if you like,\nAfter the blow; tarry no longer; strike!\"\nSo once again the ponderous axe was raised;\nBut this time down it came, and lightly grazed\nSir Gawayne's neck. He felt the hot blood flow,\nAnd saw red drops that sank deep in the snow,\nAnd then he jumped up, faced his foe, and cried:\n\"Enough: you owed me one blow, though I died;\nBut be you man or beast or devil abhorred,\nI yield no further; with my mortal sword\nI do defy you; and if mortal man\nMay hope against\" ...\n                   But the Green Knight began\nA low melodious laugh, like running brooks\nWhose pebbly babble fills the shadowy nooks\nOf green-aisled woodlands, when the winds are still.\n\"My friend, we bear each other no ill will.\nWhen first I swung my axe, you showed some fear;\nI owed you that much for your blow last year.\nThe second time I swung,--yet spared your life,--\nThat paid you for the kiss you gave my wife!\"\n\"Your wife!\" \"My wife, Sir Gawayne; 't was my word;\nAnd when I swung my weapon for the third\nAnd last time, then I made the red blood spirt\nFor that green girdle underneath your shirt!\nYou played me false, my friend!\"\n                                   And Gawayne knelt\nOnce more, and casting off the magic belt,\nIn bitter broken words confessed his shame,\nAnd begged the Green Knight to avenge the name\nOf injured knighthood, and with one last blow\nTo end his guilty life. \"Nay, nay, not so,\"\nThe other softly said. \"Be of good cheer;\nYour fault was small, for all men hold life dear.\nWe tempted you, my friend, with all our might,\nAnd proved you in good sooth a noble knight;\nA veritable Joseph, sir, you are!\"\nQuoth Gawayne drily, \"Thanks, Lord Potiphar!\nBut may I ask you why you played this part?\"\nThe other said: \"Ask Lady Elfinhart!\"\n\nHe smiled, and from his smile a genial glow\nOf green mid-summer seemed to overflow,\nFilling with verdure all that barren place.\nThe warm red blood rushed to Sir Gawayne's face;\nHe caught his breath, and in his eager eyes\nThere shone a sudden flash of dark surmise,\nAnd then he stood a long while pondering;\nBut in his breast his heart began to sing\nThe old, old music whose still echoes roll\nForever voiceless through the listening soul.\nHe said farewell to his good fairy friend\nAs in a dream, where real and unreal blend\nIn phantom unison, and with the light\nOf love to lead him home, rode through the night,\nBeside the tranquil murmurs of the Mere,\nAnd through the silence of the passing year;\nAnd earth and sea and starlit sky took part\nIn the still exaltation of his heart,\nWhile all but love and wonder was forgot,\nUntil he came to high-towered Camelot.\n\nTo Camelot he came, and there he found\nThe good King Arthur and his Table Round\nAwaiting his return in anxious doubt;\nBut ere he passed the gates a mighty shout\nRose from the watchmen on the outward wall\nAnd bore the tidings to the inmost hall.\nFrom every window flaunting flags were flung;\nFrom the high battlements brass trumpets sung;\nAnd great bells, chiming in the topmost tower,\nPealed salutation to the joyous hour,\nAs Gawayne, riding through the cullis-port,\nFaced the glad throng that filled the palace court.\n\nAnd with this tribute paid to knightly glory\nIt seems most fitting to conclude my story.\nEntreat me not, dear reader, to impart\nFurther of Gawayne, or of Elfinhart.\nLet your own fancy round the story out\nWhatever way you please; I cannot doubt\nThe sequel; but when I, in silent thought,\nHad brought Sir Gawayne back to her, and sought\nWith hand profane to lift the veil, behind\nWhose secret shelter their two hearts enshrined\nThe mutual covenant of love's mystery,\nThat pure fane would not desecrated be.\nBut this alone I know: the power that wove\nThrough human lives the warp and woof of love\nWrought not in darkness, nor with hand unsure;--\nHis fabric must forevermore endure.\nAnd hence I doubt not that these two were blest\nAs none may be, save they who have confessed\nAllegiance to that mighty spirit's law,\nAnd trod his holy ground with reverent awe.","title":"Gawayne and the Green Knight: A Fairy Tale","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":11131}