And faster and faster on the shadowy air, Across the phantom glimmerings of the moon, Will fold the silences, far, chilled and bare, In one white, mantling swoon;
And howl and shriek and moan and pass away, Leaving the world one whited death forlorn, When stir the slim-cold-fingered ghosts of grey The curtains of the morn.
SIR LANCELOT.
He rode, a king, amid the armoured knights, The glory of day tossing on helm and shield, And all the glory of his youth and joy, In the strong, wine-like splendour of his face. He rode among them, the one man of men, Their lordliest, loveliest, he who might have been, Because of very human breadth of love, And his glad, winning sympathy for earth, Greater than even Arthur under heaven.
Kindlier than the morning was his face, Swift, like the lightning, was his eagle glance, No bit of beauty earth had ever held, Of child or flower or dream of woman’s face, Or noble, passing godliness of mood, In man toward man, but garnered in his eye, As in some mere that gathereth all earth’s face, And foldeth it in beauty to its breast.
He rode among them, Arthur’s own right hand, Arthur, whom he loved as John loved Christ, And watched each day with joy that lofty brow Lift up its lonely splendour, isolate, Half god-like, o’er that serried host of spears, And knew his love the kingliest, holiest thing, ’Twixt man and man upon this glowing earth.
So passed those days of splendour and of peace, When all men loved his majesty and strength And kindliness of spirit which the king, Great Arthur, with his lofty coldness lacked. ’Twas Lancelot fought the mightiest in the lists, And beat with thunders back the brazen shields, And stormed the fastness of the farthest isles, Slaying the grizzly warriors of the meres, And winning all men’s fealty and love, And worship of fair women in the towers, Who laid their distaffs down to watch him pass; And made the hot blood mantle each fair cheek, With sweet sense of his presence, till all men Called Arthur half a god, and Lancelot The greatest heart that beat in his great realm.
Then came that fatal day that brake his life, When he, being sent of Arthur, all unknowing, Saw Guinevere, like some fair flower of heaven, As men may only see in dreams the gods Do send to kill the common ways of earth, And make all else but drear and dull and bleak; Such magic she did work upon his soul, Till Arthur, God and all the Table Round, Were but a nebulous mist before his eyes, In which the splendour of her beauty shone.