Tristram of Lyonesse - VI - Joyous Gard

A little time, O Love, a little light,     A little hour for ease before the night.     Sweet Love, that art so bitter; foolish Love,     Whom wise men know for wiser, and thy dove     More subtle than the serpent; for thy sake     These pray thee for a little beam to break,     A little grace to help them, lest men think     Thy servants have but hours like tears to drink.     O Love, a little comfort, lest they fear     To serve as these have served thee who stand here.     For these are thine, thy servants these, that stand     Here nigh the limit of the wild north land,     At margin of the grey great eastern sea,     Dense-islanded with peaks and reefs, that see     No life but of the fleet wings fair and free     Which cleave the mist and sunlight all day long     With sleepless flight and cries more glad than song.     Strange ways of life have led them hither, here     To win fleet respite from desire and fear     With armistice from sorrow; strange and sweet     Ways trodden by forlorn and casual feet     Till kindlier chance woke toward them kindly will     In happier hearts of lovers, and their ill     Found rest, as healing surely might it not,     By gift and kingly grace of Launcelot     At gracious bidding given of Guenevere.     For in the trembling twilight of this year     Ere April sprang from hope to certitude     Two hearts of friends fast linked had fallen at feud     As they rode forth on hawking, by the sign     Which gave his new brides brother Ganhardine     To know the truth of Tristrams dealing, how     Faith kept of him against his marriage vow     Kept virginal his bride-bed night and morn;     Whereat, as wroth his blood should suffer scorn,     Came Ganhardine to Tristram, saying, Behold,     We have loved thee, and for love we have shown of old     Scorn hast thou shown us: wherefore is thy bride     Not thine indeed, a stranger at thy side,     Contemned? what evil hath she done, to be     Mocked with mouth-marriage and despised of thee,     Shamed, set at nought, rejected? But there came     On Tristrams brow and eye the shadow and flame     Confused of wrath and wonder, ere he spake,     Saying, Hath she bid thee for thy sisters sake     Plead with me, who believed of her in heart     More nobly than to deem such piteous part     Should find so fair a player? or whence hast thou     Of us this knowledge? Nay, said he, but now,     Riding beneath these whitethorns overhead,     There fell a flower into her girdlestead     Which laughing she shook out, and smiling said,     Lo, what large leave the wind hath given this stray,     To lie more near my heart than till this day     Aught ever since my mother lulled me lay     Or even my lord came ever; whence I wot     We are all thy scorn, a race regarded not     Nor held as worth communion of thine own,     Except in her be found some fault alone     To blemish our alliance. Then replied     Tristram, Nor blame nor scorn may touch my bride,     Albeit unknown of love she live, and be     Worth a man worthier than her love thought me.     Faith only, faith withheld me, faith forbade     The blameless grace wherewith loves grace makes glad     All lives linked else in wedlock; not that less     I loved the sweet light of her loveliness,     But that my love toward faith was more: and thou,     Albeit thine heart be keen against me now,     Couldst thou behold my very lady, then     No more of thee than of all other men     Should this my faith be held a faithless fault.     And ere that day their hawking came to halt,     Being sore of him entreated for a sign,     He sware to bring his brother Ganhardine     To sight of that strange Iseult: and thereon     Forth soon for Cornwall are these brethren gone,     Even to that royal pleasance where the hunt     Rang ever of old with Tristrams horn in front     Blithe as the queens horse bounded at his side:     And first of all her dames forth pranced in pride     That day before them, with a ringing rein     All golden-glad, the kings false bride Brangwain,     The queens true handmaid ever: and on her     Glancing, Be called for all time truth-teller,     O Tristram, of all true mens tongues alive,     Quoth Ganhardine; for may my soul so thrive     As yet mine eye drank never sight like this.     Ay? Tristram said, and she thou lookst on is     So great in grace of goodliness, that thou     Hast less thought left of wrath against me now,     Seeing but my ladys handmaid? Nay, behold;     Seest thou no light more golden than of gold     Shine where she moves in midst of all, above     All, past all price or praise or prayer of love?     Lo, this is she. But as one mazed with wine     Stood, stunned in spirit and stricken, Ganhardine,     And gazed out hard against them: and his heart     As with a sword was cloven, and rent apart     As with strong fangs of fire; and scarce he spake,     Saying how his life for even a handmaids sake     Was made a flame within him. And the knight     Bade him, being known of none that stood in sight,     Bear to Brangwain his ring, that she unseen     Might give in token privily to the queen     And send swift word where under moon or sun     They twain might yet be no more twain but one.     And that same night, under the stars that rolled     Over their warm deep wildwood nights of old     Whose hours for grains of sand shed sparks of fire,     Such way was made anew for their desire     By secret wile of sickness feigned, to keep     The king far off her vigils or her sleep,     That in the queens pavilion midway set     By glimmering moondawn were those lovers met,     And Ganhardine of Brangwain gat him grace.     And in some passionate soft interspace     Between two swells of passion, when their lips     Breathed, and made room for such brief speech as slips     From tongues athirst with draughts of amorous wine     That leaves them thirstier than the salt seas brine,     Was counsel taken how to fly, and where     Find covert from the wild worlds ravening air     That hunts with storm the feet of nights and days     Through strange thwart lines of life and flowerless ways.     Then said Iseult: Lo, now the chance is here     Foreshown me late by word of Guenevere,     To give me comfort of thy rumoured wrong,     My traitor Tristram, when report was strong     Of me forsaken and thine heart estranged:     Nor should her sweet soul toward me yet be changed     Nor all her love lie barren, if mine hand     Crave harvest of it from the flowering land.     See therefore if this counsel please thee not,     That we take horse in haste for Camelot     And seek that friendship of her plighted troth     Which love shall be full fain to lend, nor loth     Shall my love be to take it. So next night     The multitudinous stars laughed round their flight,     Fulfilling far with laughter made of light     The encircling deeps of heaven: and in brief space     At Camelot their long love gat them grace     Of those fair twain whose heads mens praise impearled     As loves two lordliest lovers in the world:     And thence as guests for harbourage past they forth     To win this noblest hold of all the north.     Far by wild ways and many days they rode,     Till clear across Junes kingliest sunset glowed     The great round girth of goodly wall that showed     Where for one clear sweet seasons length should be     Their place of strength to rest in, fain and free,     By the utmost margin of the loud lone sea.     And now, O Love, what comfort? God most high,     Whose life is as a flowers to live and die,     Whose light is everlasting: Lord, whose breath     Speaks music through the deathless lips of death     Whereto times heart rings answer: Bard, whom time     Hears, and is vanquished with a wandering rhyme     That once thy lips made fragrant: Seer, whose sooth     Joy knows not well, but sorrow knows for truth,     Being priestess of thy soothsayings: Love, what grace     Shall these twain find at last before thy face?     This many a year they have served thee, and deserved,     If ever man might yet of all that served,     Since the first heartbeat bade the first mans knee     Bend, and his mouth take music, praising thee,     Some comfort; and some honey indeed of thine     Thou hast mixed for these with lifes most bitter wine,     Commending to their passionate lips a draught     No deadlier than thy chosen of old have quaffed     And blessed thine hand, their cupbearers: for not     On all men comes the grace that seals their lot     As holier in thy sight, for all these feuds     That rend it, than the light-souled multitudes,     Nor thwarted of thine hand nor blessed; but these     Shall see no twilight, Love, nor fade at ease,     Grey-grown and careless of desired delight,     But lie down tired and sleep before the night.     These shall not live till time or change may chill     Or doubt divide or shame subdue their will,     Or fear or slow repentance work them wrong,     Or love die first: these shall not live so long.     Death shall not take them drained of dear true life     Already, sick or stagnant from the strife,     Quenched: not with dry-drawn veins and lingering breath     Shall these through crumbling hours crouch down to death.     Swift, with one strong clean leap, ere lifes pulse tire,     Most like the leap of lions or of fire,     Sheer death shall bound upon them: one pang past,     The first keen sense of him shall be their last,     Their last shall be no sense of any fear,     More than their life had sense of anguish here.     Weeks and light months had fled at swallows speed     Since here their first hour sowed for them the seed     Of many sweet as rest or hope could be;     Since on the blown beach of a glad new sea     Wherein strange rocks like fighting men stand scarred     They saw the strength and help of Joyous Gard.     Within the full deep glorious tower that stands     Between the wild sea and the broad wild lands     Love led and gave them quiet: and they drew     Life like a Gods life in each wind that blew,     And took their rest, and triumphed. Day by day     The mighty moorlands and the sea-walls grey,     The brown bright waters of green fells that sing     One song to rocks and flowers and birds on wing,     Beheld the joy and glory that they had,     Passing, and how the whole world made them glad,     And their great love was mixed with all things great,     As life being lovely, and yet being strong like fate.     For when the sun sprang on the sudden sea     Their eyes sprang eastward, and the day to be     Was lit in them untimely: such delight     They took yet of the clear cold breath and light     That goes before the morning, and such grace     Was deathless in them through their whole lifes space     As dies in many with their dawn that dies     And leaves in pulseless hearts and flameless eyes     No light to lighten and no tear to weep     For youths high joy that time has cast on sleep.     Yea, this old grace and height of joy they had,     To lose no jot of all that made them glad     And filled their springs of spirit with such fire     That all delight fed in them all desire;     And no whit less than in their first keen prime     The springs breath blew through all their summer time,     And in their skies would sunlike Love confuse     Clear April colours with hot August hues,     And in their hearts one light of sun and moon     Reigned, and the morning died not of the noon:     Such might of life was in them, and so high     Their heart of love rose higher than fate could fly.     And many a large delight of hawk and hound     The great glad land that knows no bourne or bound,     Save the winds own and the outer sea-banks, gave     Their days for comfort; many a long blithe wave     Buoyed their blithe bark between the bare bald rocks,     Deep, steep, and still, save for the swift free flocks     Unshepherded, uncompassed, unconfined,     That when blown foam keeps all the loud air blind     Mix with the winds their triumph, and partake     The joy of blasts that ravin, waves that break,     All round and all below their mustering wings,     A clanging cloud that round the cliffs edge clings     On each bleak bluff breaking the strenuous tides     That rings reverberate mirth when storm bestrides     The subject night in thunder: many a noon     They took the moorlands or the bright seas boon     With all their hearts into their spirit of sense,     Rejoicing, where the sudden dells grew dense     With sharp thick flight of hillside birds, or where     On some strait rocks ledge in the intense mute air     Erect against the cliffs sheer sunlit white     Blue as the clear north heaven, clothed warm with light,     Stood neck to bended neck and wing to wing     With heads fast hidden under, close as cling     Flowers on one flowering almond-branch in spring,     Three herons deep asleep against the sun,     Each with one bright foot downward poised, and one     Wing-hidden hard by the bright head, and all     Still as fair shapes fixed on some wondrous wall     Of minster-aisle or cloister-close or hall     To take even times eye prisoner with delight.     Or, satisfied with joy of sound and sight,     They sat and communed of things past: what state     King Arthur, yet unwarred upon by fate,     Held high in hall at Camelot, like one     Whose lordly life was as the mounting sun     That climbs and pauses on the point of noon,     Sovereign: how royal rang the tourneys tune     Through Tristrams three days triumph, spear to spear,     When Iseult shone enthroned by Guenevere,     Rose against rose, the highest adored on earth,     Imperial: yet with subtle notes of mirth     Would she bemock her praises, and bemoan     Her glory by that splendour overthrown     Which lightened from her sisters eyes elate;     Saying how by night a little light seems great,     But less than least of all things, very nought,     When dawn undoes the web that darkness wrought;     How like a tower of ivory well designed     By subtlest hand subserving subtlest mind,     Ivory with flower of rose incarnadined     And kindling with some God therein revealed,     A light for grief to look on and be healed,     Stood Guenevere: and all beholding her     Were heartstruck even as earth at midsummer     With burning wonder, hardly to be borne.     So was that amorous glorious lady born,     A fiery memory for all storied years:     Nor might men call her sisters crowned her peers,     Her sister queens, put all by her to scorn:     She had such eyes as are not made to mourn;     But in her own a gleaming ghost of tears     Shone, and their glance was slower than Gueneveres,     And fitfuller with fancies grown of grief;     Shamed as a Mayflower shames an autumn leaf     Full well she wist it could not choose but be     If in that others eyeshot standing she     Should lift her looks up ever: wherewithal     Like fires whose light fills heaven with festival     Flamed her eyes full on Tristrams; and he laughed     Answering, What wile of sweet child-hearted craft     That children forge for children, to beguile     Eyes known of them not witless of the wile     But fain to seem for sports sake self-deceived,     Wilt thou find out now not to be believed?     Or how shall I trust more than ouphe or elf     Thy truth to me-ward, who beliest thyself?     Nor elf nor ouphe or aught of airier kind,     Quoth she, though made of moonbeams moist and blind,     Is light if weighed with mans winged weightless mind.     Though thou keep somewise troth with me, God wot,     When thou didst wed, I doubt, thou thoughtest not     So charily to keep it. Nay, said he,     Yet am not I rebukable by thee     As Launcelot, erring, held me ere he wist     No mouth save thine of mine was ever kissed     Save as a sisters only, since we twain     Drank first the draught assigned our lips to drain     That Fate and Love with darkling hands commixt     Poured, and no power to part them came betwixt,     But eithers will, howbeit they seem at strife,     Was toward us one, as death itself and life     Are one sole doom toward all men, nor may one     Behold not darkness, who beholds the sun.     Ah, then, she said, what word is this men hear     Of Merlin, how some doom too strange to fear     Was cast but late about him oversea,     Sweet recreant, in thy bridal Brittany?     Is not his life sealed fast on him with sleep,     By witchcraft of his own and loves, to keep     Till earth be fire and ashes?     Surely, said     Her lover, not as one alive or dead     The great good wizard, well beloved and well     Predestinate of heaven that casts out hell     For guerdon gentler far than all mens fate,     Exempt alone of all predestinate,     Takes his strange rest at heart of slumberland,     More deep asleep in green Broceliande     Than shipwrecked sleepers in the soft green sea     Beneath the weight of wandering waves: but he     Hath for those roofing waters overhead     Above him always all the summer spread     Or all the winter wailing: or the sweet     Late leaves marked red with autumns burning feet,     Or withered with his weeping, round the seer     Rain, and he sees not, nor may heed or hear     The witness of the winter: but in spring     He hears above him all the winds on wing     Through the blue dawn between the brightening boughs,     And on shut eyes and slumber-smitten brows     Feels ambient change in the air and strengthening sun,     And knows the soul that was his soul at one     With the ardent worlds, and in the spirit of earth     His spirit of life reborn to mightier birth     And mixed with things of elder life than ours;     With cries of birds, and kindling lamps of flowers,     And sweep and song of winds, and fruitful light     Of sunbeams, and the far faint breath of night,     And waves and woods at morning: and in all,     Soft as at noon the slow seas rise and fall,     He hears in spirit a song that none but he     Hears from the mystic mouth of Nimue     Shed like a consecration; and his heart,     Hearing, is made for loves sake as a part     Of that far singing, and the life thereof     Part of that life that feeds the world with love:     Yea, heart in heart is molten, hers and his,     Into the worlds heart and the soul that is     Beyond or sense or vision; and their breath     Stirs the soft springs of deathless life and death,     Death that bears life, and change that brings forth seed     Of life to death and death to life indeed,     As blood recircling through the unsounded veins     Of earth and heaven with all their joys and pains.     Ah, that when love shall laugh no more nor weep     We too, we too might hear that song and sleep!     Yea, said Iseult, some joy it were to be     Lost in the suns light and the all-girdling sea,     Mixed with the winds and woodlands, and to bear     Part in the large life of the quickening air,     And the sweet earths, our mother: yet to pass     More fleet than mirrored faces from the glass     Out of all pain and all delight, so far     That love should seem but as the furthest star     Sunk deep in trembling heaven, scarce seen or known,     As a dead moon forgotten, once that shone     Where now the sun shines, nay, not all things yet,     Not all things always, dying, would I forget.     And Tristram answered amorously, and said:     O heart that here art mine, O heavenliest head     That ever took mens worship here, which art     Mine, how shall death put out the fire at heart,     Quench in mens eyes the heads remembered light,     That time shall set but higher in more mens sight?     Think thou not much to die one earthly day,     Being made not in their mould who pass away     Nor who shall pass for ever.     Ah, she said,     What shall it profit me, being praised and dead?     What profit have the flowers of all mens praise?     What pleasure of our pleasure have the days     That pour on us delight of life and mirth?     What fruit of all our joy on earth has earth?     Nor am I, nay, my lover, am I one     To take such part in heavens enkindling sun     And in the inviolate air and sacred sea     As clothes with grace that wondrous Nimue?     For all her works are bounties, all her deeds     Blessings; her days are scrolls wherein love reads     The record of his mercies; heaven above     Hath not more heavenly holiness of love     Than earth beneath, wherever pass or pause     Her feet that move not save by loves own laws,     In gentleness of godlike wayfaring     To heal mens hearts as earth is healed by spring     Of all such woes as winter: what am I,     Love, that have strength but to desire and die,     That have but grace to love and do thee wrong,     What am I that my name should live so long,     Save as the star that crossed thy star-struck lot,     With hers whose light was life to Launcelot?     Life gave she him, and strength, and fame to be     For ever: I, what gift can I give thee?     Peril and sleepless watches, fearful breath     Of dread more bitter for my sake than death     When death came nigh to call me by my name,     Exile, rebuke, remorse, and, O, not shame.     Shame only, this I gave thee not, whom none     May give that worst thing ever, no, not one.     Of all that hate, all hateful hearts that see     Darkness for light and hate where love should be,     None for my shames sake may speak shame of thee.     And Tristram answering ere he kissed her smiled:     O very woman, god at once and child,     What ails thee to desire of me once more     The assurance that thou hadst in heart before?     For all this wild sweet waste of sweet vain breath,     Thou knowest I know thou hast given me life, not death.     The shadow of death, informed with shows of strife,     Was ere I won thee all I had of life.     Light war, light love, light living, dreams in sleep,     Joy slight and light, not glad enough to weep,     Filled up my foolish days with sound and shine,     Vision and gleam from strange mens cast on mine,     Reverberate light from eyes presaging thine     That shed but shadowy moonlight where thy face     Now sheds forth sunshine in the deep same place,     The deep live heart half dead and shallower then     Than summer fords which thwart not wandering men.     For how should I, signed sorrows from my birth,     Kiss dumb the loud red laughing lips of mirth?     Or how, sealed thine to be, love less than heaven on earth?     My heart in me was held at restless rest,     Presageful of some prize beyond its quest,     Prophetic still with promise, fain to find the best.     For one was fond and one was blithe and one     Fairer than all save twain whose peers are none;     For third on earth is none that heaven hath seen     To stand with Guenevere beside my queen.     Not Nimue, girt with blessing as a guard:     Not the soft lures and laughters of Ettarde:     Not she, that splendour girdled round with gloom,     Crowned as with iron darkness of the tomb,     And clothed with clouding conscience of a monstrous doom,     Whose blind incestuous love brought forth a fire     To burn her ere it burn its darkling sire,     Her mothers son, King Arthur: yet but late     We saw pass by that fair live shadow of fate,     The queen Morgause of Orkney, like a dream     That scares the night when moon and starry beam     Sicken and swoon before some sorcerers eyes     Whose wordless charms defile the saintly skies,     Bright still with fire and pulse of blood and breath,     Whom her own sons have doomed for shame to death.     Death, yea, quoth she, there is not said or heard     So oft aloud on earth so sure a word.     Death, and again death, and for each that saith     Ten tongues chime answer to the sound of death.     Good end God send us ever, so men pray.     But I, this end God send me, would I say,     To die not of division and a heart     Rent or with sword of severance cloven apart,     But only when thou diest and only where thou art,     O thou my soul and spirit and breath to me,     O light, life, love! yea, let this only be,     That dying I may praise God who gave me thee,     Let hap what will thereafter.     So that day     They communed, even till even was worn away,     Nor aught they said seemed strange or sad to say,     But sweet as nights dim dawn to weariness.     Nor loved they life or love for deaths sake less,     Nor feared they death for loves or lifes sake more     And on the sounding soft funereal shore     They, watching till the day should wholly die,     Saw the far sea sweep to the far grey sky,     Saw the long sands sweep to the long grey sea.     And night made one sweet mist of moor and lea,     And only far off shore the foam gave light.     And life in them sank silent as the night.