| NOT having viewed Carleon or Carlisle, | |
| The King came home to Camelot after midnight, | 710 |
| Feigning an ill not feigned; and his return | |
| Brought Bedivere, and after him Gawaine, | |
| To the King’s inner chamber, where they waited | |
| Through the grim light of dawn. Sir Bedivere, | |
| By nature stern to see, though not so bleak | 715 |
| Within as to be frozen out of mercy, | |
| Sat with arms crossed and with his head weighed low | |
| In heavy meditation. Once or twice | |
| His eyes were lifted for a careful glimpse | |
| Of Gawaine at the window, where he stood | 720 |
| Twisting his fingers feverishly behind him, | |
| Like one distinguishing indignantly, | |
| For swift eclipse and for offence not his, | |
| The towers and roofs and the sad majesty | |
| Of Camelot in the dawn, for the last time. | 725 |
| |
| Sir Bedivere, at last, with a long sigh | |
| That said less of his pain than of his pity, | |
| Addressed the younger knight who turned and heard | |
| His elder, but with no large eagerness: | |
| “So it has come, Gawaine; and we are here. | 730 |
| I find when I see backward something farther, | |
| By grace of time, than you are given to see— | |
| Though you, past any doubt, see much that I | |
| See not—I find that what the colder speech | |
| Of reason most repeated says to us | 735 |
| Of what is in a way to come to us | |
| Is like enough to come. And we are here. | |
| Before the unseeing sun is here to mock us, | |
| Or the King here to prove us, we are here. | |
| We are the two, it seems, that are to make | 740 |
| Of words and of our presences a veil | |
| Between him and the sight of what he does. | |
| Little have I to say that I may tell him: | |
| For what I know is what the city knows, | |
| Not what it says,—for it says everything. | 745 |
| The city says the first of all who met | |
| The sword of Lancelot was Colgrevance, | |
| Who fell dead while he wept—a brave machine, | |
| Cranked only for the rudiments of war. | |
| But some of us are born to serve and shift, | 750 |
| And that’s not well. The city says, also, | |
| That you and Lancelot were in the garden, | |
| Before the sun went down.” | |
| |
| “Yes,” Gawaine groaned; | |
| “Yes, we were there together in the garden, | 755 |
| Before the sun went down; and I conceive | |
| A place among the possibilities | |
| For me with other causes unforeseen | |
| Of what may shake down soon to grief and ashes | |
| This kingdom and this empire. Bedivere, | 760 |
| Could I have given a decent seriousness | |
| To Lancelot while he said things to me | |
| That pulled his heart half out of him by the roots, | |
| And left him, I see now, half sick with pity | |
| For my poor uselessness to serve a need | 765 |
| That I had never known, we might be now | |
| Asleep and easy in our beds at home, | |
| And we might hear no murmurs after sunrise | |
| Of what we are to hear. A few right words | |
| Of mine, if said well, might have been enough. | 770 |
| That shall I never know. I shall know only | |
| That it was I who laughed at Lancelot | |
| When he said what lay heaviest on his heart. | |
| By now he might be far away from here, | |
| And farther from the world. But the Queen came; | 775 |
| The Queen came, and I left them there together; | |
| And I laughed as I left them. After dark | |
| I met with Modred and said what I could, | |
| When I had heard him, to discourage him. | |
| His mother was my mother. I told Bors, | 780 |
| And he told Lancelot; though as for that, | |
| My story would have been the same as his, | |
| And would have had the same acknowledgement: | |
| “Thanks, but no matter’—or to that effect. | |
| The Queen, of course, had fished him for his word, | 785 |
| And had it on the hook when she went home; | |
| And after that, an army of red devils | |
| Could not have held the man away from her. | |
| And I’m to live as long as I’m to wonder | |
| What might have been, had I not been—myself. | 790 |
| I heard him, and I laughed. Then the Queen came.” | |
| |
| “Recriminations are not remedies, | |
| Gawaine; and though you cast them at yourself, | |
| And hurt yourself, you cannot end or swerve | |
| The flowing of these minutes that leave hours | 795 |
| Behind us, as we leave our faded selves | |
| And yesterdays. The surest-visioned of us | |
| Are creatures of our dreams and inferences, | |
| And though it look to us a few go far | |
| For seeing far, the fewest and the farthest | 800 |
| Of all we know go not beyond themselves. | |
| No, Gawaine, you are not the cause of this; | |
| And I have many doubts if all you said, | |
| Or in your lightness may have left unsaid, | |
| Would have unarmed the Queen. The Queen was there.”— | 805 |
| Gawaine looked up, and then looked down again: | |
| “Good God, if I had only said—said something!” | |
| |
| “Say nothing now, Gawaine.” Bedivere sighed, | |
| And shook his head: “Morning is not in the west. | |
| The sun is rising and the King is coming; | 810 |
| Now you may hear him in the corridor, | |
| Like a sick landlord shuffling to the light | |
| For one last look-out on his mortgaged hills. | |
| But hills and valleys are not what he sees; | |
| He sees with us the fire—the sign—the law. | 815 |
| The King that is the father of the law | |
| Is weaker than his child, except he slay it. | |
| Not long ago, Gawaine, I had a dream | |
| Of a sword over kings, and of a world | |
| Without them.”—“Dreams, dreams.”—“Hush, Gawaine.” | 820 |
| |
| King Arthur | |
| Came slowly on till in the darkened entrance | |
| He stared and shivered like a sleep-walker, | |
| Brought suddenly awake where a cliff’s edge | |
| Is all he sees between another step | 825 |
| And his annihilation. Bedivere rose, | |
| And Gawaine rose; and with instinctive arms | |
| They partly guided, partly carried him, | |
| To the King’s chair. | |
| |
| “I thank you, gentlemen, | 830 |
| Though I am not so shaken, I dare say, | |
| As you would have me. This is not the hour | |
| When kings who do not sleep are at their best; | |
| And had I slept this night that now is over, | |
| No man should ever call me King again.” | 835 |
| He pulled his heavy robe around him closer, | |
| And laid upon his forehead a cold hand | |
| That came down warm and wet. “You, Bedivere, | |
| And you, Gawaine, are shaken with events | |
| Incredible yesterday,—but kings are men. | 840 |
| Take off their crowns and tear away their colors | |
| And let them see with my eyes what I see— | |
| Yes, they are men, indeed! If there’s a slave | |
| In Britain with a reptile at his heart | |
| Like mine that with his claws of ice and fire | 845 |
| Tears out of me the fevered roots of mercy, | |
| Find him, and I will make a king of him! | |
| And then, so that his happiness may swell | |
| Tenfold, I’ll sift the beauty of all courts | |
| And capitals, to fetch the fairest woman | 850 |
| That evil has in hiding; after that, | |
| That he may know the sovran one man living | |
| To be his friend, I’ll prune all chivalry | |
| To one sure knight. In this wise our new king | |
| Will have his queen to love, as I had mine,— | 855 |
| His friend that he may trust, as I had mine,— | |
| And he will be as gay, if all goes well, | |
| As I have been: as fortunate in his love, | |
| And in his friend as fortunate—as I am! | |
| And what am I?… And what are you—you two! | 860 |
| If you are men, why don’t you say I’m dreaming? | |
| I know men when I see them, I know daylight; | |
| And I see now the gray shine of our dreams. | |
| I tell you I’m asleep and in my bed!… | |
| But no—no… I remember. You are men. | 865 |
| You are no dreams—but God, God, if you were! | |
| If I were strong enough to make you vanish | |
| And have you back again with yesterday— | |
| Before I lent myself to that false hunting, | |
| Which yet may stalk the hours of many more | 870 |
| Than Lancelot’s unhappy twelve who died,— | |
| With a misguided Colgrevance to lead them, | |
| And Agravaine to follow and fall next,— | |
| Then should I know at last that I was King, | |
| And I should then be King. But kings are men, | 875 |
| And I have gleaned enough these two years gone | |
| To know that queens are women. Merlin told me: | |
| “The love that never was.’ Two years ago | |
| He told me that: ‘The love that never was!’ | |
| I saw—but I saw nothing. Like the bird | 880 |
| That hides his head, I made myself see nothing. | |
| But yesterday I saw—and I saw fire. | |
| I think I saw it first in Modred’s eyes; | |
| Yet he said only truth—and fire is right. | |
| It is—it must be fire. The law says fire. | 885 |
| And I, the King who made the law, say fire! | |
| What have I done—what folly have I said, | |
| Since I came here, of dreaming? Dreaming? Ha! | |
| I wonder if the Queen and Lancelot | |
| Are dreaming!… Lancelot! Have they found him yet? | 890 |
| He slashed a way into the outer night— | |
| Somewhere with Bors. We’ll have him here anon, | |
| And we shall feed him also to the fire. | |
| There are too many faggots lying cold | |
| That might as well be cleansing, for our good, | 895 |
| A few deferred infections of our state | |
| That honor should no longer look upon. | |
| Thank heaven, I man my drifting wits again! | |
| Gawaine, your brothers, Gareth and Gaheris, | |
| Are by our royal order there to see | 900 |
| And to report. They went unwillingly, | |
| For they are new to law and young to justice; | |
| But what they are to see will harden them | |
| With wholesome admiration of a realm | |
| Where treason’s end is ashes. Ashes. Ashes! | 905 |
| Now this is better. I am King again. | |
| Forget, I pray, my drowsy temporizing, | |
| For I was not then properly awake…. | |
| What? Hark! Whose crass insanity is that! | |
| If I be King, go find the fellow and hang him | 910 |
| Who beats into the morning on that bell | |
| Before there is a morning! This is dawn! | |
| What! Bedivere? Gawaine? You shake your heads? | |
| I tell you this is dawn!… What have I done? | |
| What have I said so lately that I flinch | 915 |
| To think on! What have I sent those boys to see? | |
| I’ll put clouts on my eyes, and I’ll not see it! | |
| Her face, and hands, and little small white feet, | |
| And all her shining hair and her warm body— | |
| No—for the love of God, no!—it’s alive! | 920 |
| She’s all alive, and they are burning her— | |
| The Queen—the love—the love that never was! | |
| Gawaine! Bedivere! Gawaine!—Where is Gawaine! | |
| Is he there in the shadow? Is he dead? | |
| Are we all dead? Are we in hell?—Gawaine!… | 925 |
| I cannot see her now in the smoke. Her eyes | |
| Are what I see—and her white body is burning! | |
| She never did enough to make me see her | |
| Like that—to make her look at me like that! | |
| There’s not room in the world for so much evil | 930 |
| As I see clamoring in her poor white face | |
| For pity. Pity her, God! God!… Lancelot!” | |
