FullReads

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So dame and damsel glitter’d at the feast
Variously gay: for he that tells the tale
Liken’d them, saying “as when an hour of cold
Falls on the mountain in midsummer snows,
And all the purple slopes of mountain flowers
Pass under white, till the warm hour returns
With veer of wind, and all are flowers again;”
So dame and damsel cast the simple white,
And glowing in all colors, the live grass,
Rose-campion, bluebell, kingcup, poppy, glanced
About the revels, and with mirth so loud
Beyond all use, that, half-amazed, the Queen,
And wroth at Tristram and the lawless jousts,
Brake up their sports, then slowly to her bower
Parted, and in her bosom pain was lord.

* * * * *

And little Dagonet on the morrow morn,
High over all the yellowing Autumn-tide,
Danced like a wither’d leaf before the hall.
Then Tristram saying, “Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?”
Wheel’d round on either heel, Dagonet replied,
“Belike for lack of wiser company;
Or being fool, and seeing too much wit
Makes the world rotten, why, belike I skip
To know myself the wisest knight of all.”
“Ay, fool,” said Tristram, “but ’tis eating dry
To dance without a catch, a roundelay
To dance to.” Then he twangled on his harp,
And while he twangled little Dagonet stood,
Quiet as any water-sodden log
Stay’d in the wandering warble of a brook;
But when the twangling ended, skipt again;
Then being ask’d, “Why skipt ye not, Sir Fool?”
Made answer, “I had liefer twenty years
Skip to the broken music of my brains
Than any broken music ye can make.”
Then Tristram, waiting for the quip to come,
“Good now, what music have I broken, fool?”
And little Dagonet, skipping, “Arthur, the king’s;
For when thou playest that air with Queen Isolt,
Thou makest broken music with thy bride,
Her daintier namesake down in Brittany–
And so thou breakest Arthur’s music too.”
“Save for that broken music in thy brains,
Sir Fool,” said Tristram, “I would break thy head.
Fool, I came late, the heathen wars were o’er,
The life had flown, we sware but by the shell–
I am but a fool to reason with a fool
Come, thou art crabb’d and sour: but lean me down,
Sir Dagonet, one of thy long asses’ ears,
And hearken if my music be not true.

“‘Free love–free field–we love but while we may:
The woods are hush’d, their music is no more:
The leaf is dead, the yearning past away:
New leaf, new life–the days of frost are o’er:
New life, new love to suit the newer day:
New loves are sweet as those that went before:
Free love,–free field–we love but while we may.’

“Ye might have moved slow-measure to my tune,
Not stood stockstill. I made it in the woods,
And found it ring as true as tested gold.”

But Dagonet with one foot poised in his hand,
“Friend, did ye mark that fountain yesterday
Made to run wine?–but this had run itself
All out like a long life to a sour end–
And them that round it sat with golden cups
To hand the wine to whomsoever came–
The twelve small damosels white as Innocence,

“In honor of poor Innocence the babe,
Who left the gems which Innocence the Queen
Lent to the King, and Innocence the King
Gave for a prize–and one of those white slips
Handed her cup and piped, the pretty one,
‘Drink, drink, Sir Fool,’ and thereupon I drank,
Spat–pish–the cup was gold, the draught was mud.”
And Tristram, “Was it muddier than thy gibes?
Is all the laughter gone dead out of thee?–
Not marking how the knighthood mock thee, fool–
‘Fear God: honor the king–his one true knight–
Sole follower of the vows’–for here be they
Who knew thee swine enow before I came,
Smuttier than blasted grain: but when the King
Had made thee fool, thy vanity so shot up
It frighted all free fool from out thy heart;
Which left thee less than fool, and less than swine,
A naked aught–yet swine I hold thee still,
For I have flung thee pearls, and find thee swine.”