And in those days she made a little song, And call'd her song "The Song of Love and Death," And sang it: sweetly could she make and sing.

"Sweet is true love, tho' given in vain, in vain; And sweet is death who puts an end to pain: I know not which is sweeter, no, not I.

To whom the gentle sister made reply, "Fret not yourself, dear brother, nor be wroth, Seeing it is no more Sir Lancelot's fault Not to love me, than it is mine to love Him of all men who seems to me the highest."

"Highest?" the father answer'd, echoing, "hig

est"

"Sweet love, that seems not made to fade away, Sweet death, that seems to make us loveless clay, I know not which is sweeter, no, not I.

"I fain would follow love, if that could be; I needs must follow death, who calls for me; Call and I follow, I follow! let me die."

Daughter, I know not what you call the highest;
But this I know, for all the people know it,
He loves the Queen, and in an open shame:
And she returns his love in open shame.
If this be high, what is it to be low?"

Then spake the lily maid of Astolat: "Sweet father, all too faint and sick am I For anger: these are slanders: never yet Was noble man but made ignoble talk. He makes no friend who never made a foe.

One peerless, without stain: so let me pass,

As when we dwell upon a word we know,
Repeating, till the word we know so well
Becomes a wonder, and we know not why,
So dwelt the father on her face, and thought,
"Is this Elaine ?" till back the maiden fell,
Then gave a languid hand to each, and lay,
Speaking a still good-morrow with her eyes.
At last she said, "Sweet brothers, yesternight
I seem'd a curious little maid again,

As happy as when we dwelt among the woods,
And when ye used to take me with the flood
Up the great river in the boatman's boat.
Only ye would not pass beyond the cape
That has the poplar on it: there ye fixt
Your limit, oft returning with the tide.
And yet I cried because ye would not pass
Beyond it, and far up the shining flood
Until we found the palace of the King.

And yet ye would not; but this night I dream'd
That I was all alone upon the flood,

And then I said, 'Now shall I have my will:'
And there I woke, but still the wish remain'd.
So let me hence that I may pass at last
Beyond the poplar and far up the flood,
Until I find the palace of the King.
There will I enter in among them all,
And no man there will dare to mock at me;
But there the fine Gawain will wonder at me,
And there the great Sir Lancelot muse at me;
Gawain, who bade a thousand farewells to me,
Lancelot, who coldly went, nor bade me one:
And there the King will know me and my love,
And there the Queen herself will pity me,
And all the gentle court will welcome me,
And after my long voyage I shall rest!"

"Peace," said her father, "O my child, ye seem
Light-headed, for what force is yours to go
So far, being sick? and wherefore would ye look
On this proud fellow again, who scorns us all?"

Then the rough Torre began to heave and move, And bluster into stormy sobs, and say, "I never loved him: an I meet with him, I care not howsoever great he be, Then will I strike at him and strike him down, Give me good fortune, I will strike him dead, For this discomfort he hath done the house."

Not all unhappy, having loved God's best
And greatest, tho' my love had no return:
Yet, seeing you desire your child to live,
Thanks, but you work against your own desire;
For if I could believe the things you say
I should but die the sooner; wherefore cease,
Sweet father, and bid call the ghostly man
Hither, and let me shrive me clean, and die."

So when the ghostly man had come and gone
She with a face bright, as for sin forgiven,
Besought Lavaine to write as she devised
A letter, word for word; and when he ask'd,
"Is it for Lancelot, is it for my dear lord?
Then will I bear it gladly;" she replied,
"For Lancelot and the Queen and all the world,
But I myself must bear it." Then he wrote
The letter she devised; which being writ
And folded, "O sweet father, tender and true,
Deny me not," she said-"ye never yet
Denied my fancies-this, however strange,
My latest: lay the letter in my hand

A little ere I die, and close the hand
Upon it; I shall guard it even in death.
And when the heat is gone from out my heart,
Then take the little bed on which I died
For Lancelot's love, and deck it like the Queen's
For richness, and me also like the Queen
In all I have of rich, and lay me on it.
And let there be prepared a chariot-bier
To take me to the river, and a barge
Be ready on the river, clothed in black.
I go in state to court, to meet the Queen.
There surely I shall speak for mine own self,
And none of you can speak for me so well.
And therefore let our dumb old man alone
Go with me, he can steer and row, and he
Will guide me to that palace, to the doors."

She ceased: her father promised; whereupon She grew so cheerful that they deem'd her death Was rather in the fantasy than the blood. But ten slow mornings past, and on the eleventh Her father laid the letter in her hand, And closed the hand upon it, and she died. So that day there was dole in Astolat.

But when the next sun brake from underground, Then, those two brethren slowly with bent brows Accompanying, the sad chariot-bier

Past like a shadow thro' the field, that shone Full-summer, to that stream whereon the barge, Pall'd all its length in blackest samite, lay. There sat the lifelong creature of the house Loyal, the dumb old servitor, on deck,

Winking his eyes, and twisted all his face.
So those two brethren from the chariot took
And on the black decks laid her in her bed,
Set in her hand a lily, o'er her hung
The silken case with braided blazonings,
And kiss'd her quiet brows, and saying to her
"Sister, farewell for ever," and again
"Farewell, sweet sister," parted all in tears.
Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead,
Oar'd by the dumb, went upward with the flood-
In her right hand the lily, in her left

The letter-all her bright hair streaming down-
And all the coverlid was cloth of gold
Drawn to her waist, and she herself in white
All but her face, and that clear-featured face
Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead,
But fast asleep, and lay as tho' she smiled.

That day Sir Lancelot at the palace craved Audience of Guinevere, to give at last The price of half a realm, his costly gift, Hard-won and hardly won with bruise and blow, With deaths of others, and almost his own, The nine-years-fought-for diamonds: for he saw One of her house, and sent him to the Queen Bearing his wish, whereto the Queen agreed With such and so unmoved a majesty She might have seem'd her statue, but that he, Low-drooping till he wellnigh kiss'd her feet For loyal awe, saw with sidelong eye The shadow of some piece of pointed lace, In the Queen's shadow, vibrate on the walls, And parted, laughing in his courtly heart.

All in an oriel on the summer side, Vine-clad, of Arthur's palace toward the stream, They met, and Lancelot kneeling utter'd, "Queen, Lady, my liege, in whom I have my joy, Take, what I had not won except for you, These jewels, and make me happy, making them An armlet for the roundest arm on earth, Or necklace for a neck to which the swan's Is tawnier than her cygnet's: these are words: Your beauty is your beauty, and I sin In speaking, yet, oh grant my worship of it Words, as we grant grief tears. Such sin in words Perchance, we both can pardon: but, my Queen, I hear of rumors flying thro' your court. Our bond, as not the bond of man and wife, Should have in it an absoluter trust To make up that defect: let rumors be: When did not rumors fly? these, as I trust That you trust me in your own nobleness, I may not well believe that you believe."

So much of what is graceful: and myself
Would shun to break those bounds of courtesy
In which as Arthur's Queen I move and rule:
So cannot speak my mind. An end to this!
A strange one! yet I take it with Amen.
So pray you, add my diamonds to her pearls ;
Deck her with these; tell her, she shines me down:
An armlet for an arm to which the Queen's

Is haggard, or a necklace for a neck
Oh, as much fairer-as a faith once fair
Was richer than these diamonds-hers, not mine-
Nay, by the mother of our Lord himself,

Or hers or mine, mine now to work my will-
She shall not have them."

Saying which she seized, And thro' the casement standing wide for heat, Flung them, and down they flash'd, and smote the stream.

Then from the smitten surface flash'd, as it were,
Diamonds to meet them, and they past away.
Then while Sir Lancelot leant, in half disdain
At love, life, all things, on the window ledge,
Close underneath his eyes, and right across
Where these had fallen, slowly past the barge
Whereon the lily maid of Astolat

Lay smiling, like a star in blackest night.

But the wild Queen, who saw not, burst away
To weep and wail in secret; and the barge,
On to the palace-doorway sliding, paused.
There two stood arm'd, and kept the door; to
whom,

All up the marble stair, tier over tier,
Were added mouths that gaped, and eyes that ask'd
"What is it?" but that oarsman's haggard face,
As hard and still as is the face that men
Shape to their fancy's eye from broken rocks
On some cliff-side, appall'd them, and they said,
"He is enchanted, cannot speak-and she,
Look how she sleeps-the Fairy Queen, so fair!
Yea, but how pale! what are they? flesh and blood?
Or come to take the King to Fairyland?
For some do hold our Arthur cannot die,
But that he passes into Fairyland."

While thus they babbled of the King, the King Came girt with knights: then turn'd the tongueless

man

Brake from the vast oriel-embowering vine

Leaf after leaf, and tore, and cast them off,
Till all the place whereon she stood was green;
Then, when he ceased, in one cold passive hand
Received at once and laid aside the gems
There on a table near her, and replied:

"It may be, I am quicker of belief
Than you believe me, Lancelot of the Lake.
Our bond is not the bond of man and wife.
This good is in it, whatsoe'er of ill,
It can be broken easier. I for you
This many a year have done despite and wrong
To one whom ever in my heart of hearts

I did acknowledge nobler. What are these?
Diamonds for me! they had been thrice their worth
Being your gift, had you not lost your own.
To loyal hearts the value of all gifts
Must vary as the giver's. Not for me!
For her for your new fancy. Only this
Grant me, I pray you: have your joys apart.
I doubt not that however changed, you keep

And last the Queen herself, and pitied her:
But Arthur spied the letter in her hand,
Stoopt, took, brake seal, and read it; this was all:

"Most noble lord, Sir Lancelot of the Lake,
I, sometime call'd the maid of Astolat,
Come, for you left me taking no farewell,
Hither, to take my last farewell of you.

I loved you, and my love had no return,
And therefore my true love has been my death.
And therefore to our Lady Guinevere,
And to all other ladies, I make moan.
Pray for my soul, and yield me burial.
Pray for my soul thou too, Sir Lancelot,
As thou art a knight peerless."

Thus he read.

And ever in the reading, lords and dames
Wept, looking often from his face who read
To hers which lay so silent, and at times,
So touch'd were they, half-thinking that her lips,
Who had devised the letter, moved again.

Then freely spoke Sir Lancelot to them all: "My lord liege Arthur, and all ye that hear, Know that for this most gentle maiden's death Right heavy am I; for good she was and true, But loved me with a love beyond all love In woman, whomsoever I have known. Yet to be loved makes not to love again; Not at my years, however it hold in youth. I swear by truth and knighthood that I gave No cause, not willingly, for such a love: To this I call my friends in testimony, Her brethren, and her father, who himself Besought me to be plain and blunt, and use, To break her passion, some discourtesy Against my nature: what I could, I did. I left her, and I bade her no farewell; Tho', had I dreamt the damsel would have died, I might have put my wits to some rough use, And help'd her from herself."

Then said the Queen (Sea was her wrath, yet working after storm), "Ye might at least have done her so much grace, Fair lord, as would have help'd her from her death." He raised his head, their eyes met and hers fell, He adding,

"Queen, she would not be content

Save that I wedded her, which could not be.

What thou hast been in battle by my side,
And many a time have watch'd thee at the tilt
Strike down the lusty and long-practised knight,
And let the younger and unskill'd go by
To win his honor and to make his name,
And loved thy courtesies and thee, a man
Made to be loved; but now I would to God,
Seeing the homeless trouble in thine eyes,
Thou couldst have loved this maiden, shaped, it

seems,

By God for thee alone, and from her face,
If one may judge the living by the dead,
Delicately pure and marvellously fair,
Who might have brought thee, now a lonely man,
Wifeless and heirless, noble issue, sons

Born to the glory of thy name and fame,

My knight, the great Sir Lancelot of the Lake."

Then answer'd Lancelot, "Fair she was, my King, Pure, as you ever wish your knights to be. To doubt her fairness were to want an eye, To doubt her pureness were to want a heartYea, to be loved, if what is worthy love Could bind him, but free love will not be bound."

It could not be. I told her that her love

Was but the flash of youth, would darken down
To rise hereafter in a stiller flame

Toward one more worthy of her-then would I,
More specially were he, she wedded, poor,
Estate them with large land and territory
In mine own realm beyond the narrow seas,
To keep them in all joyance: more than this
I could not; this she would not, and she died."

He pansing, Arthur answer'd, "O my knight, It will be to thy worship, as my knight, And mine, as head of all our Table Round, To see that she be buried worshipfully."

She fail'd to bind, tho' being, as I think, Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know."

And Lancelot answer'd nothing, but he went, And at the inrunning of a little brook Sat by the river in a cove, and watch'd The high reed wave, and lifted up his eyes And saw the barge that brought her moving down, Far-off, a blot upon the stream, and said Low in himself, "Ah, simple heart and sweet, Ye loved me, damsel, surely with a love Far tenderer than my Queen's. Pray for thy scul? Ay, that will I. Farewell too-now at lastFarewell, fair lily. Jealousy in love?'

Not rather dead love's harsh heir, jealous pride? Queen, if I grant the jealousy as of love,

Was richest, Arthur leading, slowly went
The marshall'd Order of their Table Round,
And Lancelot sad beyond his wout, to see
The maiden buried, not as one unknown,
Nor meanly, but with gorgeous obsequies,
And mass, and rolling music, like a queen.
And when the knights had laid her comely head
Low in the dust of half-forgotten kings,
Then Arthur spake among them, "Let her tomb
Be costly, and her image thereupon.
And let the shield of Lancelot at her feet

Be carven, and her lily in her hand.
And let the story of her dolorous voyage
For all true hearts be blazon'd on her tomb
In letters gold and azure!" which was wrought
Thereafter; but when now the lords and dames
And people from the high door streaming, brake
Disorderly, as homeward each, the Queen,
Who mark'd Sir Lancelot where he moved apart,
Drew near, and sigh'd in passing, "Lancelot,
Forgive me; mine was jealousy in love."
He answer'd with his eyes upon the ground,
"That is love's curse; pass on, my Queen, forgiv-

en."

But Arthur, who beheld his cloudy brows, Approach'd him, and with full affection said,

"Lancelot, my Lancelot, thou in whom I have Most joy and most affiance, for I know

Speak, as it waxes, of a love that wanes?
Why did the King dwell on my name to me?
Mine own name shames me, seeming a reproach,
Lancelot, whom the Lady of the Lake
Caught from his mother's arms-the wondrous one
Who passes thro' the vision of the night-
She chanted snatches of mysterious hymns
Heard on the winding waters, eve and morn
She kiss'd me, saying, 'Thou art fair, my child,
As a king's son,' and often in her arms
She bare me, pacing on the dusky mere.
Would she had drown'd me in it, where'er it be!
For what am I? what profits me my name
Of greatest knight? I fought for it, and have it:
Pleasure to have it, none; to lose it, pain:
Now grown a part of me: but what use in it?
To make men worse by making my sin known?
Or sin seem less, the sinner seeming great?
Alas for Arthur's greatest knight, a man
Not after Arthur's heart! I needs must break
These bonds that so defame me: not without
She wills it: would I, if she will'd it? nay,
Who knows? but if I would not, then may God,
I pray him, send a sudden Angel down
To seize me by the hair and bear me far,
And fling me deep in that forgotten mere,
Among the tumbled fragments of the hills."

So groan'd Sir Lancelot in remorseful pain, Not knowing he should die a holy man.

"Sister or brother none had he; but some Call'd him a son of Lancelot, and some said Begotten by enchantment-chatterers they, Like birds of passage piping up and down, That gape for flies-we know not whence they come; For when was Lancelot wanderingly lewd?

"But she, the wan sweet maiden, shore away Clean from her forehead all that wealth of hair Which made a silken mat-work for her feet; And out of this she plaited broad and long A strong sword-belt, and wove with silver thread And crimson in the belt a strange device, A crimson grail within a silver beam:

And saw the bright boy-knight, and bound it on him,

Saying, 'My knight, my love, my knight of Heaven,
O thou, my love, whose love is one with mine,
I, maiden, round thee, maiden, bind my belt.
Go forth, for thou shalt see what I have seen,
And break thro' all, till one will crown thee king
Far in the spiritual city:' and as she spake
She sent the deathless passion in her eyes
Thro' him, and made him hers, aud laid her mind
On him, and he believed in her belief.

"Then came a year of miracle: O brother, In our great hall there stood a vacant chair, Fashion'd by Merlin ere he past away,

And carven with strange figures, and in and out
The figures, like a serpent, ran a scroll
Of letters in a tongue no man could read.
And Merlin call'd it The Siege perilous,'
Perilous for good and ill; for there,' he said,
No man could sit but he should lose himself:'
And once by misadvertence Merlin sat
In his own chair, and so was lost; but he,
Galahad, when he heard of Merlin's doom,
Cried, 'If I lose myself I save myself!'

"Then on a summer night it came to pass, While the great banquet lay along the hall, That Galahad would sit down in Merlin's chair.

"And all at once, as there we sat, we heard
A cracking and a riving of the roofs,
And rending, and a blast, and overhead
Thunder, and in the thunder was a cry.
And in the blast there smote along the hall

A beam of light seven times more clear than day:
And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail
All over cover'd with a luminous cloud,
And none might see who bare it, and it past.
But every knight beheld his fellow's face
As in a glory, and all the knights arose,
And staring each at other like dumb men
Stood, till I found a voice and sware a vow.

"I sware a vow before them all, that I,
Because I had not seen the Grail, would ride
A twelvemonth and a day in quest of it,
Until I found and saw it, as the nun

My sister saw it; and Galahad sware the vow,
And good Sir Bors, our Lancelot's cousin, sware,
And Lancelot sware, and many among the knights,
And Gawain sware, and louder than the rest."

Then spake the monk Ambrosius, asking him, "What said the King? Did Arthur take the vow ?"

"Nay, for my lord," said Percivale, "the King, Was not in hall: for early that same day, Scaped thro' a cavern from a bandit hold, An outraged maiden sprang into the hall Crying on help: for all her shining hair Was smear'd with earth, and either milky arm Red-rent with hooks of bramble, and all she wore Torn as a sail that leaves the rope is torn

In tempest: so the King arose and went
To smoke the scandalous hive of those wild bees
That made such honey in his realm. Howbeit
Some little of this marvel he too saw,
Returning o'er the plain that then began
To darken under Camelot; whence the King
Look'd up, calling aloud, 'Lo, there! the roofs
Of our great hall are roll'd in thunder-smoke!
Pray Heaven, they be not smitten by the bolt.'
For dear to Arthur was that hall of ours,
As having there so oft with all his knights
Feasted, and as the stateliest under heaven.

"O brother, had you known our mighty hall, Which Merlin built for Arthur long ago! For all the sacred mount of Camelot, And all the dim rich city, roof by roof, Tower after tower, spire beyond spire, By grove, and garden-lawn, and rushing brook, Climbs to the mighty hall that Merlin built. And four great zones of sculpture, set betwixt With many a mystic symbol, gird the hall: And in the lowest beasts are slaying men, And in the second men are slaying beasts, And on the third are warriors, perfect men, And on the fourth are men with growing wings, And over all one statue in the mould Of Arthur, made by Merlin, with a crown, And peak'd wings pointed to the Northern Star. And eastward fronts the statue, and the crown And both the wings are made of gold, and flame At sunrise till the people in far fields, Wasted so often by the heathen hordes, Behold it, crying, 'We have still a King.'

"And, brother, had you known our hall within, Broader and higher than any in all the lands! Where twelve great windows blazon Arthur's wars, And all the light that falls upon the board Streams thro' the twelve great battles of our King. Nay, one there is, and at the eastern end, Wealthy with wandering lines of mount and mere, Where Arthur finds the brand Excalibur. And also one to the west, and counter to it, And blank: and who shall blazon it? when and how?

Oh, there, perchance, when all our wars are done, The brand Excalibur will be cast away.

"So to this hall full quickly rode the King,
In horror lest the work by Merlin wrought,
Dreamlike, should on the sudden vanish, wrapt
In unremorseful folds of rolling fire.

And in he rode, and up I glanced, and saw
The golden dragon sparkling over all:

And many of those who burnt the hold, their arms
Hack'd, and their foreheads grimed with smoke, and

sear'd,

Follow'd, and in among bright faces, ours,
Full of the vision, prest: and then the King
Spake to me, being nearest, 'Percivale'
(Because the hall was all in tumult-some
Vowing, and some protesting), 'what is this?'

"O brother, when I told him what had chanced, My sister's vision, and the rest, his face Darken'd, as I have seen it more than once, When some brave deed seem'd to be done in vain, Darken; and Woe is me, my knights,' he cried, 'Had I been here, ye had not sworn the vow.' Bold was mine answer, 'Had thyself been here, My King, thou wouldst have sworn.' 'Yea, yea,' said he,

'Art thou so bold and hast not seen the Grail?'

"Nay, lord, I heard the sound, I saw the light, But since I did not see the Holy Thing,

I sware a vow to follow it till I saw.'