Queen Guinevere had fled the court, and sat
There in the holy house at Almesbury
Weeping, none with her save a little maid,
A novice1: one low light betwixt them burned
Blurred2 by the creeping mist, for all abroad,
Beneath a moon unseen albeit3 at full,
The white mist, like a face-cloth to the face,
Clung to the dead earth, and the land was still.
For hither had she fled, her cause of flight
Sir Modred; he that like a subtle beast
Lay couchant with his eyes upon the throne,
Ready to spring, waiting a chance: for this
He chilled the popular praises of the King
With silent smiles of slow disparagement5;
And tampered6 with the Lords of the White Horse,
Heathen, the brood by Hengist left; and sought
To make disruption in the Table Round
Of Arthur, and to splinter it into feuds7
Serving his traitorous9 end; and all his aims
Were sharpened by strong hate for Lancelot.
For thus it chanced one morn when all the court,
Green-suited, but with plumes11 that mocked the may,
Had been, their wont12, a-maying and returned,
That Modred still in green, all ear and eye,
Climbed 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 lissome13 Vivien, of her court
The wiliest and the worst; and more than this
He saw not, for Sir Lancelot passing by
Spied where he couched, and as the gardener’s hand
Picks from the colewort a green caterpillar14,
So from the high wall and the flowering grove15
Of grasses Lancelot plucked him by the heel,
And cast him as a worm upon the way;
But when he knew the Prince though marred16 with dust,
He, reverencing17 king’s blood in a bad man,
Made such excuses as he might, and these
Full knightly18 without scorn; for in those days
No knight19 of Arthur’s noblest dealt in scorn;
But, if a man were halt or hunched20, in him
By those whom God had made full-limbed and tall,
Scorn was allowed as part of his defect,
And he was answered softly by the King
And all his Table. So Sir Lancelot holp
To raise the Prince, who rising twice or thrice
Full sharply smote21 his knees, and smiled, and went:
But, ever after, the small violence done
Rankled22 in him and ruffled23 all his heart,
As the sharp wind that ruffles24 all day long
A little bitter pool about a stone
On the bare coast.
But when Sir Lancelot told
This matter to the Queen, at first she laughed
Lightly, to think of Modred’s dusty fall,
Then shuddered26, as the village wife who cries
“I shudder25, some one steps across my grave;”
Then laughed again, but faintlier, for indeed
She half-foresaw that he, the subtle beast,
Would track her guilt27 until he found, and hers
Would be for evermore a name of scorn.
Henceforward rarely could she front in hall,
Or elsewhere, Modred’s narrow foxy face,
Heart-hiding smile, and gray persistent28 eye:
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 vex29 and plague her. Many a time for hours,
Beside the placid30 breathings of the King,
In the dead night, grim faces came and went
Before her, or a vague spiritual fear—
Like to some doubtful noise of creaking doors,
Heard by the watcher in a haunted house,
That keeps the rust31 of murder on the walls—
Held her awake: or if she slept, she dreamed
An awful dream; for then she seemed 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 touched her, and she turned—
When lo! her own, that broadening from her feet,
And blackening, swallowed 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 even the clear face of the guileless King,
And trustful courtesies of household life,
Became her bane; and at the last she said,
“O Lancelot, get thee hence to thine own land,
For if thou tarry we shall meet again,
And if we meet again, some evil chance
Will make the smouldering scandal break and blaze
Before the people, and our lord the King.”
And Lancelot ever promised, but remained,
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. Vivien, lurking32, heard.
She told Sir Modred. Passion-pale they met
And greeted. Hands in hands, and eye to eye,
Low on the border of her couch they sat
Stammering33 and staring. It was their last hour,
A madness of farewells. And Modred brought
His creatures to the basement of the tower
For testimony34; and crying with full voice
“Traitor8, come out, ye are trapt at last,” aroused
Lancelot, who rushing outward lionlike
Leapt on him, and hurled35 him headlong, and he fell
Stunned36, and his creatures took and bare him off,
And all was still: then she, “The end is come,
And I am shamed for ever;” and he said,
“Mine be the shame; mine was the sin: but rise,
And fly to my strong castle overseas:
There will I hide thee, till my life shall end,
There hold thee with my life against the world.”
She answered, “Lancelot, wilt37 thou hold me so?
Nay38, friend, for we have taken our farewells.
Would God that thou couldst hide me from myself!
Mine is the shame, for I was wife, and thou
Unwedded: yet rise now, and let us fly,
For I will draw me into sanctuary40,
And bide41 my doom42.” So Lancelot got her horse,
Set her thereon, and mounted on his own,
And then they rode to the divided way,
There kissed, and parted weeping: for he past,
Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen,
Back to his land; but she to Almesbury
Fled all night long by glimmering43 waste and weald,
And heard the Spirits of the waste and weald
Moan as she fled, or thought she heard them moan:
And in herself she moaned “Too late, too late!”
Till in the cold wind that foreruns the morn,
A blot44 in heaven, the Raven45, flying high,
Croaked46, and she thought, “He spies a field of death;
For now the Heathen of the Northern Sea,
Lured47 by the crimes and frailties48 of the court,
Begin to slay49 the folk, and spoil the land.”
And when she came to Almesbury she spake
There to the nuns51, and said, “Mine enemies
Pursue me, but, O peaceful Sisterhood,
Receive, and yield me sanctuary, nor ask
Her name to whom ye yield it, till her time
To tell you:” and her beauty, grace and power,
Wrought52 as a charm upon them, and they spared
To ask it.
So the stately Queen abode53
For many a week, unknown, among the nuns;
Nor with them mixed, 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 babbling54 heedlessness
Which often lured her from herself; but now,
This night, a rumour55 wildly blown about
Came, that Sir Modred had usurped56 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 bowed down upon her hands
Silent, until the little maid, who brooked57
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
An air the nuns had taught her; “Late, so late!”
Which when she heard, the Queen looked up, and said,
“O maiden59, if indeed ye list to sing,
Sing, and unbind my heart that I may weep.”
Whereat full willingly sang the little maid.
“Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill!
Late, late, so late! but we can enter still.
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.
“No light had we: for that we do repent60;
And learning this, the bridegroom will relent.
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.
“No light: so late! and dark and chill the night!
O let us in, that we may find the light!
Too late, too late: ye cannot enter now.
“Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet?
O let us in, though late, to kiss his feet!
No, no, too late! ye cannot enter now.”
So sang the novice, while full passionately62,
Her head upon her hands, remembering
Her thought when first she came, wept the sad Queen.
Then said the little novice prattling63 to her,
“O pray you, noble lady, weep no more;
But let my words, the words of one so small,
Who knowing nothing knows but to obey,
And if I do not there is penance64 given—
Comfort your sorrows; for they do not flow
From evil done; right sure am I of that,
Who see your tender grace and stateliness.
But weigh your sorrows with our lord the King’s,
And weighing find them less; for gone is he
To wage grim war against Sir Lancelot there,
Round that strong castle where he holds the Queen;
And Modred whom he left in charge of all,
The traitor—Ah sweet lady, the King’s grief
For his own self, and his own Queen, and realm,
Must needs be thrice as great as any of ours.
For me, I thank the saints, I am not great.
For if there ever come a grief to me
I cry my cry in silence, and have done.
None knows it, and my tears have brought me good:
But even were the griefs of little ones
As great as those of great ones, yet this grief
Is added to the griefs the great must bear,
That howsoever much they may desire
Silence, they cannot weep behind a cloud:
As even here they talk at Almesbury
About the good King and his wicked Queen,
And were I such a King with such a Queen,
Well might I wish to veil her wickedness,
But were I such a King, it could not be.”
Then to her own sad heart muttered the Queen,
“Will the child kill me with her innocent talk?”
But openly she answered, “Must not I,
If this false traitor have displaced his lord,
Grieve with the common grief of all the realm?”
“Yea,” said the maid, “this is all woman’s grief,
That she is woman, whose disloyal life
Hath wrought confusion in the Table Round
Which good King Arthur founded, years ago,
With signs and miracles and wonders, there
At Camelot, ere the coming of the Queen.”
Then thought the Queen within herself again,
“Will the child kill me with her foolish prate65?”
But openly she spake and said to her,
“O little maid, shut in by nunnery walls,
What canst thou know of Kings and Tables Round,
Or what of signs and wonders, but the signs
And simple miracles of thy nunnery?”
To whom the little novice garrulously66,
“Yea, but I know: the land was full of signs
And wonders ere the coming of the Queen.
So said my father, and himself was knight
Of the great Table—at the founding of it;
And rode thereto from Lyonnesse, and he said
That as he rode, an hour or maybe twain
After the sunset, down the coast, he heard
Strange music, and he paused, and turning—there,
All down the lonely coast of Lyonnesse,
Each with a beacon-star upon his head,
And with a wild sea-light about his feet,
He saw them—headland after headland flame
Far on into the rich heart of the west:
And in the light the white mermaiden swam,
And strong man-breasted things stood from the sea,
And sent a deep sea-voice through all the land,
To which the little elves of chasm67 and cleft68
Made answer, sounding like a distant horn.
So said my father—yea, and furthermore,
Next morning, while he past the dim-lit woods,
Himself beheld69 three spirits mad with joy
Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower,
That shook beneath them, as the thistle shakes
When three gray linnets wrangle70 for the seed:
And still at evenings on before his horse
The flickering71 fairy-circle wheeled and broke
Flying, and linked again, and wheeled and broke
Flying, for all the land was full of life.
And when at last he came to Camelot,
A wreath of airy dancers hand-in-hand
Swung round the lighted lantern of the hall;
And in the hall itself was such a feast
As never man had dreamed; for every knight
Had whatsoever72 meat he longed for served
By hands unseen; and even as he said
Down in the cellars merry bloated things
Shouldered the spigot, straddling on the butts73
While the wine ran: so glad were spirits and men
Before the coming of the sinful Queen.”
Then spake the Queen and somewhat bitterly,
“Were they so glad? ill prophets were they all,
Spirits and men: could none of them foresee,
Not even thy wise father with his signs
And wonders, what has fallen upon the realm?”
To whom the novice garrulously again,
“Yea, one, a bard74; of whom my father said,
Full many a noble war-song had he sung,
Even in the presence of an enemy’s fleet,
Between the steep cliff and the coming wave;
And many a mystic lay of life and death
Had chanted on the smoky mountain-tops,
When round him bent75 the spirits of the hills
With all their dewy hair blown back like flame:
So said my father—and that night the bard
Sang Arthur’s glorious wars, and sang the King
As wellnigh more than man, and railed at those
Who called him the false son of Gorlois:
For there was no man knew from whence he came;
But after tempest, when the long wave broke
All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos,
There came a day as still as heaven, and then
They found a naked child upon the sands
Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea;
And that was Arthur; and they fostered him
Till he by miracle was approven King:
And that his grave should be a mystery
From all men, like his birth; and could he find
A woman in her womanhood as great
As he was in his manhood, then, he sang,
The twain together well might change the world.
But even in the middle of his song
He faltered77, and his hand fell from the harp10,
And pale he turned, and reeled, and would have fallen,
But that they stayed him up; nor would he tell
His vision; but what doubt that he foresaw
This evil work of Lancelot and the Queen?”
Then thought the Queen, “Lo! they have set her on,
Our simple-seeming Abbess and her nuns,
To play upon me,” and bowed her head nor spake.
Whereat the novice crying, with clasped hands,
Shame on her own garrulity78 garrulously,
Said the good nuns would check her gadding79 tongue
Full often, “and, sweet lady, if I seem
To vex an ear too sad to listen to me,
Unmannerly, with prattling and the tales
Which my good father told me, check me too
Nor let me shame my father’s memory, one
Of noblest manners, though himself would say
Sir Lancelot had the noblest; and he died,
Killed in a tilt80, come next, five summers back,
And left me; but of others who remain,
And of the two first-famed for courtesy—
And pray you check me if I ask amiss—
But pray you, which had noblest, while you moved
Among them, Lancelot or our lord the King?”
Then the pale Queen looked up and answered her,
“Sir Lancelot, as became a noble knight,
Was gracious to all ladies, and the same
In open battle or the tilting-field
Forbore his own advantage, and the King
In open battle or the tilting-field
Forbore his own advantage, and these two
Were the most nobly-mannered men of all;
For manners are not idle, but the fruit
Of loyal nature, and of noble mind.”
“Yea,” said the maid, “be manners such fair fruit?”
Then Lancelot’s needs must be a thousand-fold
Less noble, being, as all rumour runs,
The most disloyal friend in all the world.”
To which a mournful answer made the Queen:
“O closed about by narrowing nunnery-walls,
What knowest thou of the world, and all its lights
And shadows, all the wealth and all the woe81?
If ever Lancelot, that most noble knight,
Were for one hour less noble than himself,
Pray for him that he scape the doom of fire,
And weep for her that drew him to his doom.”
“Yea,” said the little............