Was freed, and the Queen false, yé set yourself
To babble about him, all to show your wit
And whether he were king by courtesy,
Or king by right and so went harping down
The black king's highway, got so far, and grew
So witty that ye play'd at ducks and drakes
With Arthur's vows on the great lake of fire.
Tuwhoo! do ye see it? do ye see the star?

'Nay, fool,' said Tristram, 'not in open day.'
And Dagonet, 'Nay, nor will: I see it and hear.
It makes a silent music up in heaven,
And I, and Arthur and the angels hear,
And then we skip.' 'Lo, fool,' he said, 'ye talk
Fool's treason: is the King thy brother fool?"
Then little Dagonet clapt his hands and shrill'd,
'Ay, ay, my brother fool, the king of fools!
Conceits himself as God that he can make
Figs out of thistles, silk from bristles, milk
From burning spurge, honey from hornet-combs;
And men from beasts Long live the king of fools!'

And down the city Dagonet danced away. But thro' the slowly-mellowing_avenues

And solitary passes of the wood

Rode Tristram toward Lyonesse and the west.
Before him fled the face of Queen Isolt

With ruby-circled neck, but evermore

Past, as a rustle or twitter in the wood

Madé dull his inner, keen his outer eye

For all that walk'd, or crept, or perch'd, or flew.
Anon the face, as, when a gust hath blown,
Unruffling waters re-collect the shape

Of one that in them sees himself, return'd;
But at the slot or fewmets of a deer,
Or ev❜n a fall'n feather, vanish'd again.

So on for all that day from lawn to lawn

Thro' many a league-long bower he rode. At length
A lodge of intertwisted beechen-boughs

Furze-cramm'd, and bracken-rooft, the which himself
Built for a summer day with Queen Isolt
Against a shower, dark in the golden grove
Appearing, sent his fancy back to where

She lived a moon in that low lodge with him:
Till Mark her lord had past, the Cornish king,
With six or seven, when Tristram was away,

And snatch'd her thence; yet dreading worse than shame
Her warrior Tristram, spake not any word,

But bode his hour, devising wretchedness.

And now that desert lodge to Tristram lookt So sweet, that halting, in he past, and sank Down on a drift of foliage random-blown;

But could not rest for musing how to smooth
And sleek his marriage over to the Queen.
Perchance in lone Tintagil far from all

The tonguesters of the court she had not heard.
But then what folly had sent him overseas
After she left him lonely here? a name?
Was it the name of one in Brittany,

Isolt, the daughter of the King? 'Isolt

Of the white hands' they call'd her: the sweet name
Allured him first, and then the maid herself,

Who served him well with those white hands of hers,
And loved him well, until himself had thought
He loved her also, wedded easily,

But left her all as easily, and return'd.
The black-blue Irish hair and Irish eyes
Had drawn him home
His brows upon the drifted leaf and dream'd.

what marvel? then he laid

He seem'd to pace the strand of Brittany
Between Isolt of Britain and his bride,
And show'd them both the ruby-chain, and both
Began to struggle for it, till his Queen

Graspt it so hard, that all her hand was red.
Then cried the Breton, 'Look, her hand is red!
These be no rubies, this is frozen blood,
And melts within her hand her hand is hot
With il desires, but this I gave thee, look,
Is all as cool and white as any flower.'
Follow'd a rush of eagle's wings, and then
A whimpering of the spirit of the child,
Because the twain had spoil'd her carcanet.

He dream'd; but Arthur with a hundred spears
Rode far, till o'er the illimitable reed,

And many a glancing plash and sallowy isle,
The wide-wing'd sunset of the misty marsh
Glared on a huge machicolated tower

That stood with open doors, whereout was roll'd
A roar of riot, as from men secure

Amid their marshes, ruffians at their ease
Among their harlot-brides, an evil song.

'Lo there,' said one of Arthur's youth, for there,
High on a grim dead tree before the tower,
A goodly brother of the Table Round

Swung by the neck: and on the boughs a shield
Showing a shower of blood in a field noir,
And there beside a horn, inflamed the knights
At that dishonour done the gilded spur,

Till each would clash the shield, and blow the horn
But Arthur waved them back. Alone he rode.
Then at the dry harsh roar of the great horn,

That sent the face of all the marsh aloft

An ever upward-rushing storm and cloud

Of shriek and plume, the Red Knight heard, and all,

Even to tipmost lance and topmost helm,
In blood-red armour sallying, howl'd to the King,

"The teeth of Hell flay bare and gnash thee flat!
Lo! art thou not that eunuch-hearted King
Who fain had clipt free manhood from the world
The woman-worshipper? Yea, God's curse, and I!
Slain was the brother of my paramour

By a knight of thine, and I that heard her whine
And snivel, being eunuch-hearted too,
Sware by the scorpion-worm that twists in hell,
And stings itself to everlasting death,
To hang whatever knight of thine I fought
And tumbled. Art thou King? Look to thy life!

He ended: Arthur knew the voice; the face
Wellnigh was helmet-hidden, and the name
Went wandering somewhere darkling in his mind.
And Arthur deign'd not use of word or sword,
But let the drunkard, as he stretch'd from horse
To strike him, overbalancing his bulk,

Down from the causeway heavily to the swamp
Fall, as the crest of some slow-arching wave,
Heard in dead night along that table-shore,
Drops flat, and after the great waters break
Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves,
Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud,
From less and less to nothing; thus he fell
Head-heavy, while the knights, who watch'd him, roar'd
And shouted and leapt down upon the fall'n:
There trampled out his face from being known,
And sank his head in mire, and slimed themselves:

Nor heard the King for their own cries, but sprang
Thro' open doors, and swording right and left
Men, women, on their sodden faces, hurl'd
The tables over and the wines, and slew
Till all the rafters rang with woman-yells,
And all the pavement stream'd with massacre:
Then, yell with yell echoing, they fired the tower,

Which half that autumn night, like the live North,
Red-pulsing up thro' Alioth and Alcor,
Made all above it, and a hundred meres
About it, as the water Moab saw

Come round by the East, and out beyond them flush'd

The long low dune, and lazy-plunging sea.

So all the ways were safe from shore to shore,
But in the heart of Arthur pain was lord.

Then, out of Tristram waking, the red dream
Fled with a shout, and that low lodge return'd,
Mid-forest, and the wind among the boughs.
He whistled his good warhorse left to graze
Among the forest greens, vaulted upon him,
And rode beneath an ever-showering leaf,

Till one lone woman, weeping near a cross,
Stay'd him. Why weep ye? Lord,' she said, 'my man
Hath left me or is dead;' whereon he thought
'What, an she hate me now? I would not this.
What, an she love me still? I would not that.
I know not what I woul'd but said to her,
'Yet weep not thou, lest, if thy mate return,
He find thy favour changed and love thee not'
Then pressing day by day thro' Lyonesse
Last in a roky hollow, belling, heard

The hounds of Mark, and felt the goodly hounds
Yelp at his heart, but turning, past and gain'd
Tintagil, half in sea, and high on land,

A crown of towers.

And drawing somewhat backward she replied, 'Can he be wrong'd who is not ev'n his own, But save for dread of thee had beaten me, Scratch'd, bitten, blinded, marr'd me somehow Mark? What rights are his that dare not strike for them? Not lift a hand not, tho' he found me thus! But harken! have ye met him? hence he went To-day for three days' hunting

as he said

And so returns belike within an hour.

Mark's way, my soul! but eat not thou with Mark, Because he hates thee even more than fears;

Nor drink and when thou passest any wood

Close vizor, lest an arrow from the bush
Should leave me all alone with Mark and bell.
My God, the measure of my hate for Mark,
Is as the measure of my love for thee.'

So, pluck'd one way by hate and one by love,
Drain'd of her force, again she sat, and spake
To Tristram, as he knelt before her, saying,
'O hunter, and O blower of the horn,
Harper, and thou hast been a rover too,

For, ere I mated with my shambling king,
Ye twain had fallen out about the bride
Of one- his name is out of me - the prize,
If prize she were - (what marvel she could see)
Thine, friend; and ever since my craven seeks
To wreck thee villanously: but, O Sir Knight,
What dame or damsel have ye kneel'd to last?

And Tristram, 'Last to my Queen Paramount.
Here now to my Queen Paramount of love
And loveliness ay, lovelier than when first
Her light feet fell on our rough Lyonesse,
Sailing from Ireland.'

Softly laugh'd Isolt,
'Flatter me not, for hath not our great Queen
My dole of beauty trebled?' and he said,
'Her beauty is her beauty, and thine thine,
And thine is more to me soft, gracious, kind
Save when thy Mark is kindled on thy lips
Most gracious; but she, haugthty, ev'n to him
Lancelot; for I have seen him wan enow
To make one doubt if ever the great Queen
Have yielded him her love.'

To whom Isolt,
'Ah then, false hunter and false harper, thou
Who brakest thro' the scruple of my bond,
Calling me thy white hind, and saying to me
That Guinevere had sinn'd against the highest,
And I - misyoked with such a want of man
That I could hardly sin against the lowest.'

He answer'd, 'O my soul, be comforted!
If this be sweet, to sin in leading-strings,
If here be comfort, and if ours be sin,
Crown'd warrant had we for the crowning sin
That made us happy: but how ye greet me - fear
And fault and doubt - no word of that fond tale
Thy deep heart-yearnings, thy sweet memories
Of Tristram in that year he was away.'

And, saddening on the sudden, spake Isolt, 'I had forgotten all in my strong joy

To see thee yearnings? ay! for, hour by hour
Here in the never-ended afternoon,

O sweeter than all memories of thee,

Deeper than any yearnings after thee

Seem'd those far-rolling, westward-smiling seas,

Watch'd from this tower. Isolt of Britain dash'd

Before Isolt of Britanny on the strand,

Would that have chill'd her bride-kiss? Wedded her?
Fought in her father's battles? wounded there?
The King was all fulfill'd with gratefulness,