Then on a sudden a cry, 'The King.' She sat

Stiff-stricken, listening; but when armed feet

Thro' the long gallery from the outer doors

Rang coming, prone from off her seat she fell,

And grovell'd with her face against the floor:

There with her milkwhite arms and shadowy hair

She made her face a darkness from the King:

And in the darkness heard his armed feet

Pause by her; then came silence, then a voice,

Monotonous and hollow like a Ghost's Denouncing judgment, but tho' changed, the King's:

'Liest thou here so low, the child of

one

I honour'd, happy, dead before thy shame?

Well is it that no child is born of thee. The children born of thee are sword and fire,

Red ruin, and the breaking up of laws, The craft of kindred and the Godless hosts

Of heathen swarming o'er the Northern Sea;

Whom I, while yet Sir Lancelot, my right

arm,

The mightiest of my knights, abode with

me,

Have everywhere about this land of Christ

In twelve great battles ruining overthrown.

And knowest thou now from whence I come- - from him,

From waging bitter war with him: and he,

That did not shun to smite me in worse way,

Had yet that grace of courtesy in him left, He spared to lift his hand against the King Who made him knight: but many a knight was slain;

And many more, and all his kith and kin

Clave to him, and abode in his own land. And many more when Modred raised revolt,

Forgetful of their troth and fealty, clave To Modred, and a remnant stays with me. And of this remnant will I leave a part, True men who love me still, for whom I live,

To guard thee in the wild hour coming on, Lest but a hair of this low head be harm'd. Fear not thou shalt be guarded till my death.

Howbeit I know, if ancient prophecies Have err'd not, that I march to meet my doom.

Thou hast not made my life so sweet to

Of no more subtle master under heaven Than is the maiden passion for a maid, Not only to keep down the base in man, But teach high thought, and amiable words

And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes a

man.

And all this throve before I wedded thee, Believing, "lo mine helpmate, one to feel My purpose and rejoicing in my joy." Then came thy shameful sin with Lancelot;

Then came the sin of Tristram and Isolt; Then others, following these my mightiest knights,

And drawing foul ensample from fair

names,

Sinn'd also, till the loathsome opposite Of all my heart had destined did obtain, And all thro' thee! so that this life of mine I guard as God's high gift from scathe and wrong,

Not greatly care to lose; but rather think
How sad it were for Arthur, should he live,
To sit once more within his lonely hall,
And miss the wonted number of my
knights,

And miss to hear high talk of noble deeds
As in the golden days before thy sin.
For which of us, who might be left, could
speak

Of the pure heart, nor seem to glance at thee?

And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Usk Thy shadow still would glide from room

I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere, I, whose vast pity almost makes me die To see thee, laying there thy golden head, My pride in happier summers, at my feet. The wrath which forced my thoughts on that fierce law,

The doom of treason and the flaming death

(When first I learnt thee hidden here), is past.

The pang-which while I weigh'd thy heart with one

Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee, Made my tears burn-is also past-in

I cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine, But Lancelot's: nay, they never were the King's.

I cannot take thy hand; that too is flesh, And in the flesh thou hast sinn'd; and

mine own flesh,

Here looking down on thine polluted, cries "I loathe thee: "yet not less, O Guinevere, For I was ever virgin save for thee,

My love thro' flesh hath wrought into my life

So far, that my doom is, I love thee still. Let no man dream but that I love thee still. Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul, And so thou lean on our fair father Christ, Hereafter in that world where all are pure We two may meet before high God, and thou

Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine,

Then, listening till those armed steps were gone,

Rose the pale Queen, and in her anguish found

The casement: 'peradventure,' so she thought,

'If I might see his face, and not be seen.' And lo, he sat on horseback at the door! And near him the sad nuns with each a light

Stood, and he gave them charge about the Queen,

To guard and foster her for evermore. And while he spake to these his helm was lower'd,

To which for crest the golden dragon clung

Of Britain; so she did not see the face, Which then was as an angel's, but she

His mercy choked me. Gone, my lord the King,

My own true lord! how dare I call him mine?

The shadow of another cleaves to me, And makes me one pollution: he, the

King,

Call'd me polluted: shall I kill myself? What help in that? I cannot kill my sin,

If soul be soul; nor can I kill my shame;
No, nor by living can I live it down.
The days will grow to weeks, the weeks
to months,

The months will add themselves and make the years,

The years will roll into the centuries,
And mine will ever be a name of scorn.
I must not dwell on that defeat of fame.
Let the world be; that is but of the
world.

What else? what hope? I think there was a hope,

Except he mock'd me when he spake of hope;

His hope he call'd it; but he never mocks,

For mockery is the fume of little hearts. And blessed be the King, who hath forgiven

My wickedness to him, and left me hope That in mine own heart I can live down sin

And be his mate hereafter in the heavens Before high God. Ah, great and gentle lord,

Who wast, as is the conscience of a saint

Among his warring senses, to thy knights

To whom my false voluptuous pride, that took

Full easily all impressions from below, Would not look up, or half-despised the height

To which I would not or 1 could not

climb

I thought I could not breathe in that fine air

That pure severity of perfect light —
I yearn'd for warmth and colour which
I found

In Lancelot - now I see thee what thou art,

I mark'd Him in the flowering of His fields,

But in His ways with men I find Him not.
I waged His wars, and now I pass and die.
O me! for why is all around us here
As if some lesser god had made the world,
But had not force to shape it as he would,
Till the High God behold it from beyond,
And enter it, and make it beautiful?
Or else as if the world were wholly fair,
But that these eyes of men are dense and

dim,

And have not power to see it as it is:

Perchance, because we see not to the

close;

For I, being simple, thought to work His will,

And have but stricken with the sword in vain;

And all whereon I lean'd in wife and friend

Is traitor to my peace, and all my realm Reels back into the beast, and is no more. My God, thou hast forgotten me in my death:

Nay God my Christ-I pass but shall not die.'

Then, ere that last weird battle in the

west,

There came on Arthur sleeping, Gawain kill'd

In Lancelot's war, the ghost of Gawain

blown

Along a wandering wind, and past his ear Went shrilling, 'Hollow, hollow all delight!

Hail, King! to-morrow thou shalt pass

away.

Farewell! there is an isle of rest for thee. And I am blown along a wandering wind, And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight.' And fainter onward, like wild birds that change