Stern Lancelot frown'd; for in those sturdy forms41
The Christian Knight the Saxon foemen fear'd.
"Why come ye hither?—nor compell'd by storms,
Nor proffering barter?" As he spoke they near'd
The noble knight;—and thus the elder said,
"Nought save his heart the Aleman hath led!
"Ere more I answer, say if this the shore,42
And thou the friend, of him who owns the dove?
Arthur the king,—who taught us to adore
By the man's deeds the God whose creed is love?"
Then Lancelot answer'd, with a moistening eye,
"Arthur's true knight and lealest friend am I."
With that, he leapt from selle to clasp the hand43
Of him who honour'd thus the absent one:
And now behold them seated on the sand,
Frank faces smiling in the cordial sun;
The absent, there, seem'd present: to unite,
In loving bonds, his converts and his knight.
Then told the Aleman the tale by song44
Already told—and we resume its flow
Where the mild hero charm'd the stormy throng
And twined the arm that shelter'd, round his foe:
Not meanly conquer'd but sublimely won—
Stern Harold vail'd his plume to Uther's son.
The Saxon troop resought the Vandal king,45
And Arthur sojourn'd with the savage race:
More easy such rude proselytes to bring
To Christian truth, than, in the wonderous place
Where now he rests, proud Wisdom he shall find!
For heaven dawns clearest on the simplest mind.
But when his cause of wrong the Cymrian show'd;46
The heathen foe—the carnage-crimson'd fields;
With one fierce impulse those fierce converts glow'd,
And their wild war-howl chimed with clashing shields
But Arthur wisely shunn'd that last appeal
Of falling states,—the stranger's fatal steel.
Yet to the chief (for there at least no fear)47
And his two sons, a slow consent he gave:
Show'd by the prince the stars by which to steer,
They hew'd a pine and launch'd it on the wave;
Bringing rough forms but dauntless hearts to swell
The force that guards the fates of Carduel.
The story heard, the son of royal Ban[12]48
Questions the paths to which the King was led.
"Know," answered Faul (so hight the Aleman),
"That, in our father's days, our warriors spread
O'er lands wherein eternal summer dwells,
Beyond the snow-storm's siegeless pinnacles;
"And on the borders of those lands, 'tis told,49
There lies a lake, some dead great city's grave,
Where, when the moon is at her full, behold
Pillar and palace shine up from the wave!
And o'er the lake, seen but by gifted seers,
Its phantom bark a silent phantom steers.
"It chanced, as round our fires we sate at night,50
And saga-runes to wile our watch were sung,
That with the legends of our father's might
And wandering labours, this old tale was strung,
Then the roused King much question'd:—what we knew
We told, still question from each answer grew.