Then some far trumpet startled all the morn, Trembling westward from its dewy sleep. And with the day new battle woke the meres, And as a wood-wolf scents the prey afar, The noise of coming battle smote his ears, And woke in him the fierceness of his race, And the old pagan, joyous lust of fight. And crying, “Farewell, Arthur, mine old youth, Farewell, Lancelot, mine old kinder self, Lancelot, Arthur’s brother, lie there low, Slain with the glory wherewithal you fell, While this new Lancelot, new-bred of old time, Before the new hope of the loftier day, Before the reign of mercy and glad law, Thunders in old madness forth to war.” And as in some bleak ruin of a house Where all the sweet, home joys are ravaged out, And some grim, evil pack hath entered in To tear and snarl, so the old Lancelot passed.
And where he closed the battle’s fiercest shock Did hem him round, till as a mighty surf, That clamours, thundering round some seaward tower, Toward him the battle roared, and clanged his shield, And fast his blade went circling in the sun, Like some red, flaming wheel, where’er he went; Nor cared for friend or foe, so that he slew, And drank his cup of madness to the death. Till those he fought with dreamed a giant earl Of grim old days had come once more to earth, To fight anew the battles of his youth.
But some huge islesmen of the west were there: And they were fain to hew him down, and came Like swift, loud storm of autumn at him there. Then there grew clamour of the reddest fight That ever man beheld, and all outside Were stayed in awe to see that one man fight With that dread host of wilding warriors there. Nor stayed his awful brand, but left and right Whirled he its bloody flamings in the sun, And men went down as in October woods Do crash the mighty trunks before the blast, Till all were slain but one grim islesman left. But Lancelot by this was all one stream Of ruddy wounds, and like some fire his brain. And, with one awful shout of battle joy, He sent his sword-blade wheeling in the sun, And cleft that mighty islesman to the neck; And crying, “Arthur!” smote the earth, and died.
Then spread such terror over all the foe, That gods did fight with them there, that they fled. And all that day the battle moved afar, Out to the west by distant copse and mere, Till died the tumult, and the night came in, With mighty hush far over all that waste. And one by one the lonely stars came out, And over the meres the wintry moon looked down, Unmindful of poor Lancelot and his wounds, His dead, lost youth, the stillness of his face, And all that awful carnage silent there.
IN AUTUMN.
Season of the languorous gold, Season of the hazy drouth; When the nights are nipt and cold, And the birds go calling south, Over lakes and still lagoons, Through the long-tranced afternoons.
Out in frosty, crimsoning woods, When the afternoons are sunny, In sweet open solitudes Where the wild bee stores her honey, And the bright wood-carpenter Hammers at some dead old fir.
There the world forgets its woe, And the heart releases trouble, Where the drumming partridge go, Trailing underneath the stubble; While the golden afternoon Slopes and slants and sinks too soon.