Paused not, but overrode him, shouting, 'False,

And false with Gawain!' and so left him bruised

And batter'd, and fled on, and hill and wood

Went ever streaming by him till the

gloom

That follows on the turning of the world

Darken'd the common path. He twitch'd the reins,

And made his beast, that better knew it, swerve

540

The weary steed of Pelleas flounder ing flung

His rider, who call'd out from the dark field,

Thou art false as hell; slay me, I have no sword.'

Then Lancelot, 'Yea, between thy lips and sharp;

But here will I disedge it by thy death.'

Slay then,' he shriek'd, 'my will is to be slain,'

And Lancelot, with his heel upon the fallen,

And marvelling what it was; on whom the boy,

Across the silent seeded meadowgrass 550 Borne, clash'd; and Lancelot, saying, What name hast thou

That ridest here so blindly and so hard ?'

'No name, no name,' he shouted, 'a Scourge am I

To lash the treasons of the Table Round.'

Yea, but thy name?' 'I have many names,' he cried:

"I am wrath and shame and hate and evil fame,

And like a poisonous wind I pass to

blast

And blaze the crime of Lancelot and the Queen.'

*First over me,' said Lancelot, 'shalt

thou pass.

Fight therefore,' yell'd the youth, and either knight 560 Drew back a space, and when they closed, at once

And Lancelot slowly rode his war

horse back

To Camelot, and Sir Pelleas in brief while

Caught his unbroken limbs from the dark field,

And follow'd to the city. It chanced that both

Brake into hall together, worn and pale.

There with her knights and dames was Guinevere.

Full wonderingly she gazed on Lancelot

So soon return'd, and then on Pelleas, him

Who had not greeted her, but cast himself

Down on a bench, hard breathing. Have ye fought?'

580

She ask'd of Lancelot. Ay, my Queen,' he said.

And thou hast overthrown him?' Ay, my Queen.'

Then she, turning to Pelleas, ‘O young knight,

Hath the great heart of knighthood in thee fail'd

So far thou canst not bide, unfrowardly,

A fall from him?' Then, for he answer'd not,

* Or hast thou other griefs? If I, the Queen,

May help them, loose thy tongue, and

let me know.'

But Pelleas lifted up an eye so fierce

The loneliest ways are safe from shore to shore.

But thou, Sir Lancelot, sitting in my place Enchair'd to-morrow, arbitrate the field;

North by the gate. In her high bower the Queen,

Working a tapestry, lifted up her head,

Watch'd her lord pass, and knew not that she sigh'd.

mingle with it,

strange rhyme