| “GAWAINE, GAWAINE, what look ye for to see, | |
| So far beyond the faint edge of the world? | |
| D’ye look to see the lady Vivian, | |
| Pursued by divers ominous vile demons | |
| That have another king more fierce than ours? | 5 |
| Or think ye that if ye look far enough | |
| And hard enough into the feathery west | |
| Ye’ll have a glimmer of the Grail itself? | |
| And if ye look for neither Grail nor lady, | |
| What look ye for to see, Gawaine, Gawaine?” | 10 |
| |
| So Dagonet, whom Arthur made a knight | |
| Because he loved him as he laughed at him, | |
| Intoned his idle presence on a day | |
| To Gawaine, who had thought himself alone, | |
| Had there been in him thought of anything | 15 |
| Save what was murmured now in Camelot | |
| Of Merlin’s hushed and all but unconfirmed | |
| Appearance out of Brittany. It was heard | |
| At first there was a ghost in Arthur’s palace, | |
| But soon among the scullions and anon | 20 |
| Among the knights a firmer credit held | |
| All tongues from uttering what all glances told— | |
| Though not for long. Gawaine, this afternoon, | |
| Fearing he might say more to Lancelot | |
| Of Merlin’s rumor-laden resurrection | 25 |
| Than Lancelot would have an ear to cherish, | |
| Had sauntered off with his imagination | |
| To Merlin’s Rock, where now there was no Merlin | |
| To meditate upon a whispering town | |
| Below him in the silence.—Once he said | 30 |
| To Gawaine: “You are young; and that being so, | |
| Behold the shining city of our dreams | |
| And of our King.”—“Long live the King,” said Gawaine.— | |
| “Long live the King,” said Merlin after him; | |
| “Better for me that I shall not be King; | 35 |
| Wherefore I say again, Long live the King, | |
| And add, God save him, also, and all kings— | |
| All kings and queens. I speak in general. | |
| Kings have I known that were but weary men | |
| With no stout appetite for more than peace | 40 |
| That was not made for them.”—“Nor were they made | |
| For kings,” Gawaine said, laughing.—“You are young, | |
| Gawaine, and you may one day hold the world | |
| Between your fingers, knowing not what it is | |
| That you are holding. Better for you and me, | 45 |
| I think, that we shall not be kings.” | |
| |
| Gawaine, | |
| Remembering Merlin’s words of long ago, | |
| Frowned as he thought, and having frowned again, | |
| He smiled and threw an acorn at a lizard: | 50 |
| “There’s more afoot and in the air to-day | |
| Than what is good for Camelot. Merlin | |
| May or may not know all, but he said well | |
| To say to me that he would not be King. | |
| Nor more would I be King.” Far down he gazed | 55 |
| On Camelot, until he made of it | |
| A phantom town of many stillnesses, | |
| Not reared for men to dwell in, or for kings | |
| To reign in, without omens and obscure | |
| Familiars to bring terror to their days; | 60 |
| For though a knight, and one as hard at arms | |
| As any, save the fate-begotten few | |
| That all acknowledged or in envy loathed, | |
| He felt a foreign sort of creeping up | |
| And down him, as of moist things in the dark,— | 65 |
| When Dagonet, coming on him unawares, | |
| Presuming on his title of Sir Fool, | |
| Addressed him and crooned on till he was done: | |
| “What look ye for to see, Gawaine, Gawaine?” | |
| |
| “Sir Dagonet, you best and wariest | 70 |
| Of all dishonest men, I look through Time, | |
| For sight of what it is that is to be. | |
| I look to see it, though I see it not. | |
| I see a town down there that holds a king, | |
| And over it I see a few small clouds— | 75 |
| Like feathers in the west, as you observe; | |
| And I shall see no more this afternoon | |
| Than what there is around us every day, | |
| Unless you have a skill that I have not | |
| To ferret the invisible for rats.” | 80 |
| |
| “If you see what’s around us every day, | |
| You need no other showing to go mad. | |
| Remember that and take it home with you; | |
| And say tonight, ‘I had it of a fool— | |
| With no immediate obliquity | 85 |
| For this one or for that one, or for me.’” | |
| Gawaine, having risen, eyed the fool curiously: | |
| “I’ll not forget I had it of a knight, | |
| Whose only folly is to fool himself; | |
| And as for making other men to laugh, | 90 |
| And so forget their sins and selves a little, | |
| There’s no great folly there. So keep it up, | |
| As long as you’ve a legend or a song, | |
| And have whatever sport of us you like | |
| Till havoc is the word and we fall howling. | 95 |
| For I’ve a guess there may not be so loud | |
| A sound of laughing here in Camelot | |
| When Merlin goes again to his gay grave | |
| In Brittany. To mention lesser terrors, | |
| Men say his beard is gone.” | 100 |
| |
| “Do men say that?” | |
| A twitch of an impatient weariness | |
| Played for a moment over the lean face | |
| Of Dagonet, who reasoned inwardly: | |
| “The friendly zeal of this inquiring knight | 105 |
| Will overtake his tact and leave it squealing, | |
| One of these days.”—Gawaine looked hard at him: | |
| “If I be too familiar with a fool, | |
| I’m on the way to be another fool,” | |
| He mused, and owned a rueful qualm within him: | 110 |
| “Yes, Dagonet,” he ventured, with a laugh, | |
| “Men tell me that his beard has vanished wholly, | |
| And that he shines now as the Lord’s anointed, | |
| And wears the valiance of an ageless youth | |
| Crowned with a glory of eternal peace.” | 115 |
| |
| Dagonet, smiling strangely, shook his head: | |
| “I grant your valiance of a kind of youth | |
| To Merlin, but your crown of peace I question; | |
| For, though I know no more than any churl | |
| Who pinches any chambermaid soever | 120 |
| In the King’s palace, I look not to Merlin | |
| For peace, when out of his peculiar tomb | |
| He comes again to Camelot. Time swings | |
| A mighty scythe, and some day all your peace | |
| Goes down before its edge like so much clover. | 125 |
| No, it is not for peace that Merlin comes, | |
| Without a trumpet—and without a beard, | |
| If what you say men say of him be true— | |
| Nor yet for sudden war.” | |
| |
| Gawaine, for a moment, | 130 |
| Met then the ambiguous gaze of Dagonet, | |
| And, making nothing of it, looked abroad | |
| As if at something cheerful on all sides, | |
| And back again to the fool’s unasking eyes: | |
| “Well, Dagonet, if Merlin would have peace, | 135 |
| Let Merlin stay away from Brittany,” | |
| Said he, with admiration for the man | |
| Whom Folly called a fool: “And we have known him; | |
| We knew him once when he knew everything.” | |
| |
| “He knew as much as God would let him know | 140 |
| Until he met the lady Vivian. | |
| I tell you that, for the world knows all that; | |
| Also it knows he told the King one day | |
| That he was to be buried, and alive, | |
| In Brittany; and that the King should see | 145 |
| The face of him no more. Then Merlin sailed | |
| Away to Vivian in Broceliande, | |
| Where now she crowns him and herself with flowers | |
| And feeds him fruits and wines and many foods | |
| Of many savors, and sweet ortolans. | 150 |
| Wise books of every lore of every land | |
| Are there to fill his days, if he require them, | |
| And there are players of all instruments— | |
| Flutes, hautboys, drums, and viols; and she sings | |
| To Merlin, till he trembles in her arms | 155 |
| And there forgets that any town alive | |
| Had ever such a name as Camelot. | |
| So Vivian holds him with her love, they say, | |
| And he, who has no age, has not grown old. | |
| I swear to nothing, but that’s what they say. | 160 |
| That’s being buried in Broceliande | |
| For too much wisdom and clairvoyancy. | |
| But you and all who live, Gawaine, have heard | |
| This tale, or many like it, more than once; | |
| And you must know that Love, when Love invites | 165 |
| Philosophy to play, plays high and wins, | |
| Or low and loses. And you say to me, | |
| ‘If Merlin would have peace, let Merlin stay | |
| Away from Brittany.’ Gawaine, you are young, | |
| And Merlin’s in his grave.” | 170 |
| |
| “Merlin said once | |
| That I was young, and it’s a joy for me | |
| That I am here to listen while you say it. | |
| Young or not young, if that be burial, | |
| May I be buried long before I die. | 175 |
| I might be worse than young; I might be old.”— | |
| Dagonet answered, and without a smile: | |
| “Somehow I fancy Merlin saying that; | |
| A fancy—a mere fancy.” Then he smiled: | |
| “And such a doom as his may be for you, | 180 |
| Gawaine, should your untiring divination | |
| Delve in the veiled eternal mysteries | |
| Too far to be a pleasure for the Lord. | |
| And when you stake your wisdom for a woman, | |
| Compute the woman to be worth a grave, | 185 |
| As Merlin did, and say no more about it. | |
| But Vivian, she played high. Oh, very high! | |
| Flutes, hautboys, drums, and viols,—and her love. | |
| Gawaine, farewell.” | |
| |
| “Farewell, Sir Dagonet, | 190 |
| And may the devil take you presently.” | |
| He followed with a vexed and envious eye, | |
| And with an arid laugh, Sir Dagonet’s | |
| Departure, till his gaunt obscurity | |
| Was cloaked and lost amid the glimmering trees. | 195 |
| “Poor fool!” he murmured. “Or am I the fool? | |
| With all my fast ascendency in arms, | |
| That ominous clown is nearer to the King | |
| Than I am—yet; and God knows what he knows, | |
| And what his wits infer from what he sees | 200 |
| And feels and hears. I wonder what he knows | |
| Of Lancelot, or what I might know now, | |
| Could I have sunk myself to sound a fool | |
| To springe a friend.… No, I like not this day. | |
| There’s a cloud coming over Camelot | 205 |
| Larger than any that is in the sky,— | |
| Or Merlin would be still in Brittany, | |
| With Vivian and the viols. It’s all too strange.” | |
| |
| And later, when descending to the city, | |
| Through unavailing casements he could hear | 210 |
| The roaring of a mighty voice within, | |
| Confirming fervidly his own conviction: | |
| “It’s all too strange, and half the world’s half crazy!”— | |
| He scowled: “Well, I agree with Lamorak.” | |
| He frowned, and passed: “And I like not this day.” | 215 |
