Split you, and Hell burst up your harlot roofs

Bellowing and charr'd you thro' and thro' within,

Black as the harlot's heart - hollow as a skull !

Let the fierce east scream thro' your eyelet-holes,

And whirl the dust of harlots round and round

In dung and nettles! hiss, snake- 1 saw him there

Who

Let the fox bark, let the wolf yell. yells Here in the still sweet summer night, but I

1, the poor Pelleas whom she call'd her fool?

Fool, beast - he, she, or I? myself most fool;

Beast too, as lacking human wit-disgraced,

Dishonor'd all for trial of true loveLove? we be all alike: only the king Hath made us fools and liars. O noble Vows!

O great and sane and simple race of brutes That own no lust because they have no law!

For why should I have loved her to my shame ?

I loathe her, as I loved her to my shame. I never loved her, I but lusted for herAway

He dash'd the rowel into his horse, And bounded forth and vanish'd thro' the night.

Then she, that felt the cold touch on her throat,

Awaking knew the sword, and turn'd herself

To Gawain: "Liar, for thou hast not slain

This Pelleas! here he stood and might have slain

Me and thyself." And he that tells the tale

Says that her ever-veering fancy turn'd To Pelleas, as the one true knight on earth, And only lover; and thro' her love her life Wasted and pined, desiring him in vain.

But he by wild and way, for half the night,

And over hard and soft, striking the sod

From out the soft, the spark from off the hard,

Rode till the star above the wakening sun, Beside that tower where Percivale was cowl'd,

Glanced from the rosy forehead of the dawn.

For so the words were flash'd into his heart

He knew not whence or wherefore: "0 sweet star,

Pure on the virgin forehead of the dawn." And there he would have wept, but felt his eyes

Harder and drier than a fountain bed
In summer: thither came the village girls
And linger'd talking, and they come no

more

Till the sweet heavens have fill'd it from the heights

Again with living waters in the change Of seasons: hard his eyes; harder his heart

Seem'd; but so weary were his limbs, that he,

Gasping, "Of Arthur's hall am I, but here,

Here let me rest and die," cast himself down,

And gulph'd his griefs in inmost sleep; so lay,

Till shaken by a dream, that Gawain fired The hall of Merlin, and the morning star Reel'd in the smoke, brake into flame, and fell.

Queen

"Or hast thou other griefs? If I, the Queen,

May help them, loose thy tongue, and let me know."

But Pelleas lifted up an eye so fierce She quail'd; and he, hissing "I have no sword,"

Look'd hard upon her lover, he on her; And each foresaw the dolorous day to be:

And all talk died, as in a grove all song Beneath the shadow of some bird of prey, Then a long silence came upon the hall, And Modred thought, "The time is hard at hand."

eye,

Climb'd to the high top of the garden-wall To spy some secret scandal if he might, And saw the Queen who sat betwixt her best

Enid, and lissome Vivien, of her court The wiliest and the worst; and more than this

He saw not, for Sir Lancelot passing by Spied where he couch'd, and as the gardener's hand

Picks from the colewort a green caterpillar, So from the high wall and the flowering grove

Of grasses Lancelot pluck'd him by the heel,

And cast him as a worm upon the way; But when he knew the Prince tho' marr'd

with dust,

He, reverencing king's blood in a bad man, Made such excuses as he might, and these Full knightly without scorn; for in those days

No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in

scorn;

But, if a man were halt or hunch'd, in him

By those whom God had made full-limb'd and tall,

Scorn was allow'd as part of his defect, And he was answer'd softly by the King And all his Table. So Sir Lancelot holn To raise the Prince, who rising twice or thrice

Full sharply smote his knees, and smiled, and went :

But, ever after, the small violence done
Rankled in him and ruffled all his heart,
As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long
A little bitter pool about a stone
On the bare coast.

Henceforward too, the Powers that tend the soul,

To help it from the death that cannot die,
And save it even in extremes, began
To vex and plague her. Many a time
for hours,

Beside the placid breathings of the King,
In the dead night, grim faces came and

went

Before her, or a vague spiritual fearLike to some doubtful noise of creaking doors,

Heard by the watcher in a haunted house, That keeps the rust of murder on the walls

Held her awake or if she slept, she dream'd

An awful dream; for then she seem'd to stand

On some vast plain before a setting sun, And from the sun there swiftly made at her A ghastly something, and its shadow flew Before it, till it touch'd her, and she turn'd

When lo! her own, that broadening from her feet,

And blackening, swallow'd all the land, and in it

Far cities burnt, and with a cry she woke. And all this trouble did not pass but grew; Till ev'n the clear face of the guileless

Will make the smouldering scandal break and blaze

Before the people, and our lord the King." And Lancelot ever promised, but remain'd,

And still they met and met. Again she said,

"O Lancelot, if thou love me get thee hence."

And then they were agreed upon a night (When the good King should not be there)

to meet

And part for ever. Passion-pale they met And greeted: hands in hands, and eye to eye,

Low on the border of her couch they sat Stammering and staring: it was their last hour,

A madness of farewells. And Modred brought

His creatures to the basement of the tower For testimony; and crying with full voice "Traitor, come out, ye are trapt at last," aroused

Lancelot, who rushing outward lionlike Leapt on him, and hurl'd him headlong, and he fell

Stunn'd, and his creatures took and bare him off

And all was still then she, "the end is

So the stately Queen abode For many a week, unknown, among the

nuns;

Nor with them mix'd, nor told her name, nor sought,

Wrapt in her grief, for housel or for shrift, But communed only with the little maid, Who pleased her with a babbling heedlessness

Which often lured her from herself; but now,

This night, a rumor wildly blown about Came, that Sir Modred had usurped the realm,

And leagued him with the heathen, while the King

Was waging war on Lancelot then she thought,

"With what a hate the people and the King

Must hate me," and bow'd down upon her hands

Silent, until the little maid, who brook'd No silence, brake it, uttering "late! so

late!

What hour, I wonder, now?" and when she drew

No answer, by and by began to hum