Witness their flowery welcome.Bound are they To speak no evil.Truly save for fears,My fears for thee,so rich a fellowship Would make me wholly blest:thou one of them,Be one indeed:consider them,and all Their bearing in their common bond of love,No more of hatred than in Heaven itself,No more of jealousy than in Paradise.'
So Balan warned,and went;Balin remained:
Who--for but three brief moons had glanced away From being knighted till he smote the thrall,And faded from the presence into years Of exile--now would strictlier set himself To learn what Arthur meant by courtesy,Manhood,and knighthood;wherefore hovered round Lancelot,but when he marked his high sweet smile In passing,and a transitory word Make knight or churl or child or damsel seem From being smiled at happier in themselves--Sighed,as a boy lame-born beneath a height,That glooms his valley,sighs to see the peak Sun-flushed,or touch at night the northern star;For one from out his village lately climed And brought report of azure lands and fair,Far seen to left and right;and he himself Hath hardly scaled with help a hundred feet Up from the base:so Balin marvelling oft How far beyond him Lancelot seemed to move,Groaned,and at times would mutter,'These be gifts,Born with the blood,not learnable,divine,Beyond my reach.Well had I foughten--well--In those fierce wars,struck hard--and had I crowned With my slain self the heaps of whom I slew--So--better!--But this worship of the Queen,That honour too wherein she holds him--this,This was the sunshine that hath given the man A growth,a name that branches o'er the rest,And strength against all odds,and what the King So prizes--overprizes--gentleness.
Her likewise would I worship an I might.
I never can be close with her,as he That brought her hither.Shall I pray the King To let me bear some token of his Queen Whereon to gaze,remembering her--forget My heats and violences?live afresh?
What,if the Queen disdained to grant it!nay Being so stately-gentle,would she make My darkness blackness?and with how sweet grace She greeted my return!Bold will I be--Some goodly cognizance of Guinevere,In lieu of this rough beast upon my shield,Langued gules,and toothed with grinning savagery.'
And Arthur,when Sir Balin sought him,said 'What wilt thou bear?'Balin was bold,and asked To bear her own crown-royal upon shield,Whereat she smiled and turned her to the King,Who answered 'Thou shalt put the crown to use.
The crown is but the shadow of the King,And this a shadow's shadow,let him have it,So this will help him of his violences!'
'No shadow'said Sir Balin 'O my Queen,But light to me!no shadow,O my King,But golden earnest of a gentler life!'
So Balin bare the crown,and all the knights Approved him,and the Queen,and all the world Made music,and he felt his being move In music with his Order,and the King.
The nightingale,full-toned in middle May,Hath ever and anon a note so thin It seems another voice in other groves;Thus,after some quick burst of sudden wrath,The music in him seemed to change,and grow Faint and far-off.
And once he saw the thrall His passion half had gauntleted to death,That causer of his banishment and shame,Smile at him,as he deemed,presumptuously:
His arm half rose to strike again,but fell:
The memory of that cognizance on shield Weighted it down,but in himself he moaned:
'Too high this mount of Camelot for me:
These high-set courtesies are not for me.
Shall I not rather prove the worse for these?
Fierier and stormier from restraining,break Into some madness even before the Queen?'
Thus,as a hearth lit in a mountain home,And glancing on the window,when the gloom Of twilight deepens round it,seems a flame That rages in the woodland far below,So when his moods were darkened,court and King And all the kindly warmth of Arthur's hall Shadowed an angry distance:yet he strove To learn the graces of their Table,fought Hard with himself,and seemed at length in peace.
Then chanced,one morning,that Sir Balin sat Close-bowered in that garden nigh the hall.
A walk of roses ran from door to door;
A walk of lilies crost it to the bower:
And down that range of roses the great Queen Came with slow steps,the morning on her face;And all in shadow from the counter door Sir Lancelot as to meet her,then at once,As if he saw not,glanced aside,and paced The long white walk of lilies toward the bower.
Followed the Queen;Sir Balin heard her 'Prince,Art thou so little loyal to thy Queen,As pass without good morrow to thy Queen?'
To whom Sir Lancelot with his eyes on earth,'Fain would I still be loyal to the Queen.'
'Yea so'she said 'but so to pass me by--
So loyal scarce is loyal to thyself,Whom all men rate the king of courtesy.
Let be:ye stand,fair lord,as in a dream.'
Then Lancelot with his hand among the flowers 'Yea--for a dream.Last night methought I saw That maiden Saint who stands with lily in hand In yonder shrine.All round her prest the dark,And all the light upon her silver face Flowed from the spiritual lily that she held.
Lo!these her emblems drew mine eyes--away:
For see,how perfect-pure!As light a flush As hardly tints the blossom of the quince Would mar their charm of stainless maidenhood.'
'Sweeter to me'she said 'this garden rose Deep-hued and many-folded!sweeter still The wild-wood hyacinth and the bloom of May.
Prince,we have ridden before among the flowers In those fair days--not all as cool as these,Though season-earlier.Art thou sad?or sick?
Our noble King will send thee his own leech--Sick?or for any matter angered at me?'
Then Lancelot lifted his large eyes;they dwelt Deep-tranced on hers,and could not fall:her hue Changed at his gaze:so turning side by side They past,and Balin started from his bower.
'Queen?subject?but I see not what I see.
Damsel and lover?hear not what I hear.
My father hath begotten me in his wrath.
