With cities on their flanks-thou read the book!

And every margin scribbled, crost, and cramm'd

With comment, densest condensation, hard

And two fair babes, and went to distant lands;

Was one year gone, and on returning found Not two but three? there lay the reckling,

one

nights

Of my long life have made it easy to me. And none can read the text, not even I; And none can read the comment but

myself;

And in the comment did I find the charm.
O, the results are simple; a mere child
Might use it to the harm of anyone,
And never could undo it: ask no more :
For tho' you should not prove it upon me,
But keep that oath ye sware, ye might,
perchance,

Assay it on some one of the Table Round, And all because ye dream they babble of you.'

And Vivien, frowning in true anger, said:

'What dare the full-fed liars say of me? They ride abroad redressing human wrongs!

They sit with knife in meat and wine in horn!

They bound to holy vows of chastity! Were I not woman, I could tell a tale. But you are man, you well can understand The shame that cannot be explain'd for shame.

Not one of all the drove should touch me: swine !'

Then answer'd Merlin careless of her words:

'You breathe but accusation vast and

vague,

To catch a loathly plume fall'n from the wing

Of that foul bird of rapine whose whole prey

Is man's good name: he never wrong'd his bride.

ye know,

Set up the charge ye know, to stand or fall!'

And Vivien answer'd frowning wrathfully:

'O ay, what say ye to Sir Valence, him Whose kinsman left him watcher o'er his

wife

And many-corridor'd complexities
Of Arthur's palace: then he found a door,
And darkling felt the sculptured ornament
That wreathen round it made it seem his

own;

And wearied out made for the couch and slept,

A stainless man beside a stainless maid; And either slept, nor knew of other there; Till the high dawn piercing the royal rose In Arthur's casement glimmer'd chastely down,

Blushing upon them blushing, and at once He rose without a word and parted from her:

But when the thing was blazed about the court,

The brute world howling forced them into bonds,

And as it chanced they are happy, being pure.'

'O ay,' said Vivien, 'that were likely

too.

What say ye then to fair Sir Percivale And of the horrid foulness that he wrought, The saintly youth, the spotless lamb of Christ,

Or some black wether of St. Satan's fold. What, in the precincts of the chapel-yard, Among the knightly brasses of the graves, And by the cold Hic Jacets of the dead!'

And Merlin answer'd careless of her charge,

'A sober man is Percivale and pure; But once in life was fluster'd with new wine,

Then paced for coolness in the chapelyard;

Where one of Satan's shepherdesses caught And meant to stamp him with her master's mark;

And that he sinn'd is not believable ;
For, look upon his face !—but if he sinn'd,
The sin that practice burns into the blood,
And not the one dark hour which brings

Traitor or true? that commerce with the Queen,

I ask you, is it clamour'd by the child, Or whisper'd in the corner? do ye know it ?'

To which he answer'd sadly, 'Yea,! know it.

Sir Lancelot went ambassador, at first, To fetch her, and she watch'd him from her walls.

A rumour runs, she took him for the King, So fixt her fancy on him: let them be. But have ye no one word of loyal praise For Arthur, blameless King and stainless man?'

She answer'd with a low and chuckling

laugh:

'Man! is he man at all, who knows and winks?

Sees what his fair bride is and does, and winks?

By which the good King means to blind himself,

And blinds himself and all the Table Round To all the foulness that they work. Myself Could call him (were it not for womanhood) The pretty, popular name such manhood

earns,

Could call him the main cause of all their crime;

Yea, were he not crown'd King, coward, and fool.'

Then Merlin to his own heart, loathing, said:

'O true and tender! O my liege and King!

selfless man and stainless gentleman, Who wouldst against thine own eye-wit ness fain

Have all men true and leal, all women

pure;

How, in the mouths of base interpreters, From over-fineness not intelligible

To things with every sense as false and foul As the poach'd filth that floods the middle

street,

Is thy white blamelessness accounted blame!'

But Vivien, deeming Merlin overborne By instance, recommenced, and let her tongue

Rage like a fire among the noblest names,
Polluting, and imputing her whole self,
Defaming and defacing, till she left
Not even Lancelot brave, nor Galahad
clean.

Her words had issue other than she will'd.

He dragg'd his eyebrow bushes down, and made

A snowy penthouse for his hollow eyes, And mutter'd in himself, 'Tell her the charm!

So, if she had it, would she rail on me To snare the next, and if she have it not So will she rail. What did the wanton say? "Not mount as high; "" we scarce can sink as low:

For men at most differ as Heaven and earth,

But women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell.

I know the Table Round, my friends of old;

All brave, and many generous, and some chaste.

She cloaks the scar of some repulse with

lies; I well believe she tempted them and fail'd, Being so bitter for fine plots may fail, Tho' harlots paint their talk as well as face With colours of the heart that are not theirs. I will not let her know: nine tithes of times

Face-flatterer and backbiter are the same. And they, sweet soul, that most impute a

crime

Are pronest to it, and impute themselves, Wanting the mental range; or low desire Not to feel lowest makes them level all; Yea, they would pare the mountain to the plain,

To leave an equal baseness; and in this Are harlots like the crowd, that if they find Some stain or blemish in a name of note, Not grieving that their greatest are so small,

He spoke in words part heard, in whispers part,

Half-suffocated in the hoary fell And many-winter'd fleece of throat and chin.

But Vivien, gathering somewhat of his mood,

And hearing 'harlot' mutter'd twice or thrice,

Leapt from her session on his lap, and stood

Stiff as a viper frozen; loathsome sight, How from the rosy lips of life and love, Flash'd the bare-grinning skeleton of death!

White was her cheek; sharp breaths of anger puff'd

Her fairy nostril out; her hand halfclench'd

Went faltering sideways downward to her belt,

And feeling; had she found a dagger there

(For in a wink the false love turns to hate)

She would have stabb'd him; but she found it not :

His eye was calm, and suddenly she took
To bitter weeping like a beaten child,
A long, long weeping, not consolable.
Then her false voice made way, broken
with sobs:

'O crueller than was ever told in tale, Or sung in song! O vainly lavish'd love! O cruel, there was nothing wild or strange, Or seeming shameful-for what shame in love,

So love be true, and not as yours isnothing

Poor Vivien had not done to win his trust

Who call'd her what he call'd her-all her crime,

All--all the wish to prove him wholly hers.'

Call'd her to shelter in the hollow oak, 'Come from the storm,' and having no reply,

Gazed at the heaving shoulder, and the face

And call'd him dear protector in her fright,

Nor yet forgot her practice in her fright, But wrought upon his mood and hugg'd him close.

The pale blood of the wizard at her touch Took gayer colours, like an opal warm'd. She blamed herself for telling hearsay tales :

She shook from fear, and for her fault she wept

Of petulancy; she call'd him lord and liege,

Her seer, her bard, her silver star of eve, Her God, her Merlin, the one passionate love

Of her whole life; and ever overhead