“What, O my Master, have ye found your voice?
I bid the stranger welcome. Thanks at last!
But yesterday you never open’d lip,
Except indeed to drink. No cup had we;
In mine own lady palms I cull’d the spring
That gather’d trickling dropwise from the cleft,
And made a pretty cup of both my hands
And offer’d you it kneeling. Then you drank
And knew no more, nor gave me one poor word;
O, no more thanks than might a goat have given
With no more sign of reverence than a beard.
And when we halted at that other well,
And I was faint to swooning, and you lay
Foot-gilt with all the blossom-dust of those
Deep meadows we had traversed, did you know
That Vivien bathed your feet before her own?
And yet no thanks; and all thro’ this wild wood
And all this morning when I fondled you.
Boon, ay, there was a boon, one not so strange—
How had I wrong’d you? surely ye are wise,
But such a silence is more wise than kind.”
And Merlin lock’d his hand in hers and said:
“O, did ye never lie upon the shore,
And watch the curl’d white of the coming wave
Glass’d in the slippery sand before it breaks?
Even such a wave, but not so pleasurable,
Dark in the glass of some presageful mood,
Had I for three days seen, ready to fall.
And then I rose and fled from Arthur’s court
To break the mood. You follow’d me unask’d;
And when I look’d, and saw you following still,
My mind involved yourself the nearest thing
In that mind-mist—for shall I tell you truth?
You seem’d that wave about to break upon me
And sweep me from my hold upon the world,
My use and name and fame. Your pardon, child.
Your pretty sports have brighten’d all again.
And ask your boon, for boon I owe you thrice,
Once for wrong done you by confusion, next
For thanks it seems till now neglected, last
For these your dainty gambols; wherefore ask,
And take this boon so strange and not so strange.”
And Vivien answer’d smiling mournfully:
“O, not so strange as my long asking it,
Not yet so strange as you yourself are strange,
Nor half so strange as that dark mood of yours.
I ever fear’d ye were not wholly mine;
And see, yourself have own’d ye did me wrong.
The people call you prophet; let it be;
But not of those that can expound themselves.
Take Vivien for expounder; she will call
That three-days-long presageful gloom of yours
No presage, but the same mistrustful mood
That makes you seem less noble than yourself,
Whenever I have ask’d this very boon,
Now ask’d again; for see you not, dear love,
That such a mood as that which lately gloom’d
Your fancy when ye saw me following you
Must make me fear still more you are not mine,
Must make me yearn still more to prove you mine,
And make me wish still more to learn this charm
Of woven paces and of waving hands,
As proof of trust. O Merlin, teach it me!
The charm so taught will charm us both to rest.
For, grant me some slight power upon your fate,
I, feeling that you felt me worthy trust,
Should rest and let you rest, knowing you mine.
And therefore be as great as ye are named,
Not muffled round with selfish reticence.
How hard you look and how denyingly!
O, if you think this wickedness in me,
That I should prove it on you unawares,
That makes me passing wrathful; then our bond
Had best be loosed for ever; but think or not,
By Heaven that hears, I tell you the clean truth,
As clean as blood of babes, as white as milk!
O Merlin, may this earth, if ever I,
If these unwitty wandering wits of mine,
Even in the jumbled rubbish of a dream,
Have tript on such conjectural treachery—
May this hard earth cleave to the nadir hell
Down, down, and close again and nip me flat,
If I be such a traitress! Yield my boon,
Till which I scarce can yield you all I am;
And grant my re-reiterated wish,
The great proof of your love; because I think,
However wise, ye hardly know me yet.”
And Merlin loosed his hand from hers and said:
“I never was less wise, however wise,
Too curious Vivien, tho’ you talk of trust,
Than when I told you first of such a charm.
Yea, if ye talk of trust I tell you this,
Too much I trusted when I told you that,
And stirr’d this vice in you which ruin’d man
Thro’ woman the first hour; for howsoe’er
In children a great curiousness be well,
Who have to learn themselves and all the world,
In you, that are no child, for still I find
Your face is practised when I spell the lines,
I call it,—well, I will not call it vice;
But since you name yourself the summer fly,
I well could wish a cobweb for the gnat
That settles beaten back, and beaten back
Settles, till one could yield for weariness.
But since I will not yield to give you power
Upon my life and use and name and fame,
Why will ye never ask some other boon?
Yea, by God’s rood, I trusted you too much!”
And Vivien, like the tenderest-hearted maid
That ever bided tryst at village stile,
Made answer, either eyelid wet with tears:
“Nay, Master, be not wrathful with your maid;
Caress her, let her feel herself forgiven
Who feels no heart to ask another boon.
I think ye hardly know the tender rhyme
Of ‘trust me not at all or all in all.’
I heard the great Sir Lancelot sing it once
And it shall answer for me. Listen to it.
“ ‘In love, if love be love, if love be ours,
Faith and unfaith can ne’er be equal powers:
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.
“ ‘It is the little rift within the lute,
That by and by will make the music mute,
And ever widening slowly silence all.
“ ‘The little rift within the lover’s lute,
Or little pitted speck in garner’d fruit,
That rotting inward slowly moulders all.
“ ‘It is not worth the keeping; let it go:
But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no.
And trust me not at all or all in all.
“O master, do ye love my tender rhyme?”
And Merlin look’d and half believed her true,
So tender was her voice, so fair her face,
So sweetly gleam’d her eyes behind her tears
Like sunlight on the plain behind a shower;
And yet he answer’d half indignantly:
“Far other was the song that once I heard
By this huge oak, sung nearly where we sit;
For here we met, some ten or twelve of us,
To chase a creature that was current then
In these wild woods, the hart with golden horns.
It was the time when first the question rose
About the fou
nding of a Table Round,
That was to be, for love of God and men
And noble deeds, the flower of all the world;
And each incited each to noble deeds.
And while we waited, one, the youngest of us,
We could not keep him silent, out he flash’d,
And into such a song, such fire for fame,
Such trumpet-blowings in it, coming down
To such a stern and iron-clashing close,
That when he stopt we long’d to hurl together,
And should have done it, but the beauteous beast
Scared by the noise upstarted at our feet,
And like a silver shadow slipt away
Thro’ the dim land. And all day long we rode
Thro’ the dim land against a rushing wind,
That glorious roundel echoing in our ears,
And chased the flashes of his golden horns
Until they vanish’d by the fairy well
That laughs at iron—as our warriors did—
Where children cast their pins and nails, and cry
‘Laugh, little well!’ but touch it with a sword,
It buzzes fiercely round the point; and there
We lost him—such a noble song was that.
But, Vivien, when you sang me that sweet rhyme,
I felt as tho’ you knew this cursed charm,
Were proving it on me, and that I lay
And felt them slowly ebbing, name and fame.”
And Vivien answer’d smiling mournfully:
“O, mine have ebb’d away for evermore,
And all thro’ following you to this wild wood,
Because I saw you sad, to comfort you.
Lo now, what hearts have men! they never mount
As high as woman in her selfless mood.
And touching fame, howe’er ye scorn my song,
Take one verse more—the lady speaks it—this:
“ ‘My name, once mine, now thine, is closelier mine, For fame, could fame be mine, that fame were thine, And, shame, could shame be thine, that shame were mine. So trust me not at all or all in all.’
“Says she not well? and there is more—this rhyme
Is like the fair pearl-necklace of the Queen,
That burst in dancing and the pearls were spilt;
Some lost, some stolen, some as relics kept;
But nevermore the same two sister pearls
Ran down the silken thread to kiss each other
On her white neck—so is it with this rhyme.
It lives dispersedly in many hands,
And every minstrel sings it differently;
Yet is there one true line, the pearl of pearls:
‘Man dreams of fame while woman wakes to love.’
Yea! love, tho’ love were of the grossest, carves
A portion from the solid present, eats
And uses, careless of the rest; but fame,
The fame that follows death is nothing to us;
And what is fame in life but half-disfame
And counterchanged with darkness? ye yourself
Know well that envy calls you devil’s son,
And since ye seem the master of all art,
They fain would make you master of all vice.”
And Merlin lock’d his hand in hers and said:
“I once was looking for a magic weed,
And found a fair young squire who sat alone,
Had carved himself a knightly shield of wood,
And then was painting on it fancied arms,
Azure, an eagle rising or, the sun
In dexter chief; the scroll, ‘I follow fame.’
And speaking not, but leaning over him,
I took his brush and blotted out the bird,
And made a gardener putting in a graff,
With this for motto, ‘Rather use than fame.’
You should have seen him blush; but afterwards
He made a stalwart knight. O Vivien,
For you, methinks you think you love me well;
For me, I love you somewhat. Rest; and Love
Should have some rest and pleasure in himself,
Not ever be too curious for a boon,
Too prurient for a proof against the grain
Of him ye say ye love. But Fame with men,
Being but ampler means to serve mankind,
Should have small rest or pleasure in herself,
But work as vassal to the larger love
That dwarfs the petty love of one to one.
Use gave me fame at first, and fame again
Increasing gave me use. Lo, there my boon!
What other? for men sought to prove me vile,
Because I fain had given them greater wits;
And then did envy call me devil’s son.
The sick weak beast, seeking to help herself
By striking at her better, miss’d, and brought
Her own claw back and wounded her own heart.
Sweet were the days when I was all unknown,
But when my name was lifted up the storm
Brake on the mountain and I cared not for it.
Right well know I that fame is half-disfame,
Yet needs must work my work. That other fame,
To one at least who hath not children, vague,
The cackle of the unborn about the grave,
I cared not for it. A single misty star,
Which is the second in line of stars
That seem a sword beneath a belt of three,
I never gazed upon it but I dreamt
Of some vast charm concluded in that star
To make fame nothing. Wherefore, if I fear,
Giving you power upon me thro’ this charm,
That you might play me falsely, having power,
However well ye think ye love me now—
As sons of kings loving in pupilage
Have turn’d to tyrants when they came to power—
If you—and not so much from wickedness,
As some wild turn of anger, or a mood
Of overstrain’d affection, it may be,
To keep me all to your own self,—or else
A sudden spurt of woman’s jealousy,—
Should try this charm on whom ye say ye love.”
And Vivien answer’d smiling as in wrath:
“Have I not sworn? I am not trusted. Good!
Well, hide it, hide it; I shall find it out,
And being found take heed of Vivien.
A woman and not trusted, doubtless I
Might feel some sudden turn of anger born
Of your misfaith; and your fine epithet
Is accurate too, for this full love of mine
Without the full heart back may merit well
Your term of overstrain’d. So used as I,
My daily wonder is, I love at all.
And as to woman’s jealousy, O, why not?
O, to what end, except a jealous one,
And one to make me jealous if I love,
Was this fair charm invented by yourself?
I well believe that all about this world
Ye cage a buxom captive here and there,
Closed in the four walls of a hollow tower
From which is no escape for evermore.”
Then the great master merrily answer’d her:
“Full many a love in loving youth was mine;
I needed then no charm to keep them mine
But youth and love; and that full heart of yours
Whereof ye prattle, may now assure you mine;
So live uncharm’d. For those who wrought it first,
The wrist is parted from the hand that waved,
The feet unmortised from their ankle-bones
Who paced it, ages back—but will ye hear
The legend as in guerdon for your rhyme?
“There lived a king in the most eastern
East,
Less old than I, yet older, for my blood
Hath earnest in it of far springs to be.
A tawny pirate anchor’d in his port,
Whose bark had plunder’d twenty nameless isles;
And passing one, at the high peep of dawn,
He saw two cities in a thousand boats
All fighting for a woman on the sea.
And pushing his black craft among them all
He lightly scatter’d theirs and brought her off,
With loss of half his people arrow-slain;
A maid so smooth, so white, so wonderful,
They said a light came from her when she moved.
And since the pirate would not yield her up,
The king impaled him for his piracy,
Then made her queen. But those isle-nurtured eyes
Waged such unwilling tho’ successful war
On all the youth, they sicken’d; councils thinn’d,
And armies waned, for magnet-like she drew
The rustiest iron of old fighters’ hearts;
And beasts themselves would worship; camels knelt
Unbidden, and the brutes of mountain back
That carry kings in castles bow’d black knees
Of homage, ringing with their serpent hands,
To make her smile, her golden ankle-bells.
What wonder, being jealous, that he sent
His horns of proclamation out thro’ all
The hundred under-kingdoms that he sway’d
To find a wizard who might teach the King
Some charm which, being wrought upon the Queen,
Might keep her all his own. To such a one
He promised more than ever king has given,
A league of mountain full of golden mines,
A province with a hundred miles of coast,
A palace and a princess, all for him;
But on all those who tried and fail’d the king
Pronounced a dismal sentence, meaning by it
To keep the list low and pretenders back,
Or, like a king, not to be trifled with—
Their heads should moulder on the city gates.
And many tried and fail’d, because the charm
Of nature in her overbore their own;
And many a wizard brow bleach’d on the walls,
And many weeks a troop of carrion crows
Hung like a cloud above the gateway towers.”