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Then Tristram, pacing moodily up and down,
“Vows! did ye keep the vow ye made to Mark
More than I mine? Lied, say ye? Nay, but learnt,
The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself–
My knighthood taught me this–ay, being snapt–
We run more counter to the soul thereof
Than had we never sworn. I swear no more.
I swore to the great King, and am forsworn.
For once–ev’n to the height–I honor’d him.
‘Man, is he man at all?’ methought, when first
I rode from our rough Lyonesse, and beheld
That victor of the Pagan throned in hall–
His hair, a sun that ray’d from off a brow
Like hillsnow high in heaven, the steel-blue eyes,
The golden beard that clothed his lips with light–
Moreover, that weird legend of his birth,
With Merlin’s mystic babble about his end,
Amazed me; then, his foot was on a stool
Shaped as a dragon; he seem’d to me no man,
But Michael trampling Satan; so I sware,
Being amazed: but this went by–the vows!
O ay–the wholesome madness of an hour–
They served their use, their time; for every knight
Believed himself a greater than himself,
And every follower eyed him as a God;
Till he, being lifted up beyond himself,
Did mightier deeds than elsewise he had done,
And so the realm was made; but then their vows–
First mainly thro’ that sullying of our Queen–
Began to gall the knighthood, asking whence
Had Arthur right to bind them to himself?
Dropt down from heaven? wash’d up from out the deep?
They fail’d to trace him thro’ the flesh and blood
Of our old Kings: whence then? a doubtful lord
To bind them by inviolable vows,
Which flesh and blood perforce would violate:
For feel this arm of mine–the tide within
Red with free chase and heather-scented air,
Pulsing full man; can Arthur make me pure
As any maiden child? lock up my tongue
From uttering freely what I freely hear?
Bind me to one? The great world laughs at it.
And worldling of the world am I, and know
The ptarmigan that whitens ere his hour
Wooes his own end; we are not angels here
Nor shall be: vows–I am woodman of the woods,
And hear the garnet-headed yaffingale
Mock them: my soul, we love but while we may;
And therefore is my love so large for thee,
Seeing it is not bounded save by love.”

Here ending, he moved toward her, and she said,
“Good: an I turn’d away my love for thee
To some one thrice as courteous as thyself–
For courtesy wins woman all as well
As valor may–but he that closes both
Is perfect, he is Lancelot–taller indeed,
Rosier, and comelier, thou–but say I loved
This knightliest of all knights, and cast thee back
Thine own small saw ‘We love but while we may,’
Well then, what answer?”

He that while she spake,
Mindful of what he brought to adorn her with,
The jewels, had let one finger lightly touch
The warm white apple of her throat, replied,
“Press this a little closer, sweet, until–
Come, I am hunger’d and half-anger’d–meat,
Wine, wine–and I will love thee to the death,
And out beyond into the dream to come.”

So then, when both were brought to full accord,
She rose, and set before him all he will’d;
And after these had comforted the blood
With meats and wines, and satiated their hearts–
Now talking of their woodland paradise,
The deer, the dews, the fern, the founts, the lawns;
Now mocking at the much ungainliness,
And craven shifts, and long crane legs of Mark–
Then Tristram laughing caught the harp, and sang:

“Ay, ay, O ay–the winds that bend the brier!
A star in heaven, a star within the mere!
Ay, ay, O ay–a star was my desire,
And one was far apart, and one was near:
Ay, ay, O ay–the winds that bow the grass!
And one was water and one star was fire,
And one will ever shine and one will pass.
Ay, ay, O ay–the winds that move the mere.”

Then in the light’s last glimmer Tristram show’d
And swung the ruby carcanet. She cried,
“The collar of some order, which our King
Hath newly founded, all for thee, my soul,
For thee, to yield thee grace beyond thy peers.”
“Not so, my Queen,” he said, “but the red fruit
Grown on a magic oak-tree in mid-heaven,
And won by Tristram as a tourney-prize,
And hither brought by Tristram for his last
Love-offering and peace-offering unto thee.”

He rose, he turn’d, and flinging round her neck,
Claspt it; but while he bow’d himself to lay
Warm kisses in the hollow of her throat,
Out of the dark, just as the lips had touch’d,
Behind him rose a shadow and a shriek–
“Mark’s way,” said Mark, and clove him thro’ the brain.

That night came Arthur home, and while he climb’d,
All in a death-dumb autumn-dripping gloom,
The stairway to the hall, and look’d and saw
The great Queen’s bower was dark,–about his feet
A voice clung sobbing till he question’d it,
“What art thou?” and the voice about his feet
Sent up an answer, sobbing, “I am thy fool,
And I shall never make thee smile again.”

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