steps Ascending, fill'd his double-dragon'd chair.

He glanced and saw the stately galleries, Dame, damsel, each thro' worship of their Queen

White-robed in honour of the stainless child, And some with scatter'd jewels, like a bank Of maiden snow mingled with sparks of fire. He looked but once, and vail'd his eyes again.

The sudden trumpet sounded as in a dream
To ears but half-awaked, then one low roll
Of Autumn thuuder, and the jousts began:
And ever the wind blew, and yellowing leaf
And gloom and gleam, and shower and shorn
plume

Went down it. Sighing weariedly, as one
Who sits and gazes on a faded fire,

When all the goodlier guests are past away,
Sat their great umpire, looking o'er the lists.
He saw the laws that ruled the tournament

Broken, but spake not; once, a knight cast down

Before his throne of arbitration cursed
The dead babe and the follies of the King;
And once the laces of a helmet crack'd,
And showed him, like a vermin in its hole,
Modred, a narrow face: anon he heard
The voice that billow'd round the barriers roar
An ocean-sounding welcome to one knight,
But newly enter'd, taller than the rest,
And armour'd all in forest green, whereon
There tript a hundred tiny silver deer,
And wearing but a holly-spray for crest,
With ever-scattering berries, and on shield
A spear, a harp, a bugle — Tristram — late
From overseas in Brittany return',
And marriage with a princess of that realm,
Isolt the White-Sir Tristram of the Woods
Whom Lancelot knew, had held sometime with

Then fell thick rain, plume droopt and mantle clung,

And pettish cries awoke, and the wan day
Went glooming down in wet and weariness:
But under her black brows a swarthy dame
Laugh'd shrilly, crying "Praise the patient
saints,

Our one white day of Innocence hath past,
Tho' somewhat draggled at the skirt. So be it.
The snowdrop only, flowering thro' the year,
Would make the world as blank as wintertide.
Come let us comfort their sad eyes, our
Queen's

And Lancelot's, at this night's solemnity
With all the kindlier colours of the field."

So dame and damsel glitter'd at the feast
Variously gay for he that tells the tale
Liken'd them, saying as when an hour of cold
Falls on the mountain in midsummer snows,
And all the purple slopes of mountain flowers
Pass under white, till the warm hour returns
With veer of wind, and all are flowers again;
So dame and damsel cast the simple white,
And glowing in all colours, the live grass,
Rose-campion, bluebell, kingcup, poppy, glanced
About the revels, and with mirth so loud
Beyond all use, that, half-amazed, the Queen,
And wroth at Tristram and the lawless jousts,
Brake up their sports, then slowly to her bower
Parted, and in her bosom pain was lord.

And little Dagonet on the morrow morn, High over all the yellowing Autumn-tide, Danced like a wither'd leaf before the hall. Then Tristram saying, "Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?"

Wheel'd round on either heel, Dagonet replied, "Belike for lack of wiser company; Or being fool, and seeing too much wit Makes the world rotten, why, belike I skip To know myself the wisest knight of all." 'Ay, fool," said Tristram, "but 'tis eating dry

To dance without a catch, a'oundelay

"Friend, did ye mark that fountain yesterday
Made to run wine? - but this had run itself
All out like a long life to a sour end
And them that round it sat with golden cups
To hand the wine to whomsoever came-
The twelve small damosels white as Innocence,
In honour of poor Innocence the babe,
Who left the gems which Innocence the Queen
Lent to the King, and Innocence the King
Gave for a prize — and one of those white slips
Handed her cup and piped, the pretty one,
Drink, drink, Sir Fool,' and thereupon
drank,

I

And thank the Lord I am King Arthur's fool. Swine, say ye? swine, goats, asses, rams and

geese

Troop'd round a Paynim harper once, who thrumm'd

On such a wire as musically as thou
Some such fine song- but never a king's fool."

And Tristram, "Then were swine, goats, asses,

geese

The wiser fools, seeing the Paynim bard
Had such a mastery of his mystery
That he could harp his wife up out of Hell."

Then Dagonet, turning on the ball of his foot,

"And whither harp'st thou thine? down! and thyself

Down! and two more: a helpful harper thou, That harpest downward! Dost thou know the

star

We call the harp of Arthur up in heaven? "

And Tristram, " Ay, Sir Fool, for when our

King

Was victor wellnigh day by day, the knights,
Glorying in each new glory, set his name
High on all hills, and in the signs of heaven."

And Dagonet answer'd, "Ay, and when the land

Was free'd and the Queen false, ye set yourself
To babble about him, all to show your wit-
And whether he were king by courtesy,
Or king by right-and so went harping down
The black king's highway, got so far, and
grew

So witty that ye play'd at ducks and drakes
With Arthur's vows on the great lake of fire.
Tuwhoo! do ye see it? do ye see the star?"

And Dagonet, "Nay, nor will: I see it and hear.

It makes a silent music up in heaven,
And I, and Arthur and the angels hear,
And then we skip." "Lo, fool," he said, "ye

And down the city Dagonet danced away.
But thro the slowly-mellowing avenues
And solitary passes of the wood

Rode Tristram toward Lyonesse and the west.
Before him fled the face of Queen Isolt
With ruby-circled neck, but evermore

Past, as a rustle or twitter in the wood

Made dull his inner, keen his outer eye

He loved her also, wedded easily,
But left her all as easily, and return'd.
The black-blue Irish hair and Irish eyes

Had drawn him home - what marvel? then he laid

His brows upon the drifted leaf and dream'd.

He seem'd to pace the strand of Brittany
Between Isolt of Britain and his bride,
And show'd them both the ruby-chain, and
both

Began to struggle for it, till his Queen
Grasp it so hard, that all her hand was red.
Then cried the Breton, "Look, her hand is
These be no rubies, this is frozen blood,
red!

And melts within her hand - her hand is hot
With ill desires, but this I gave thee, look,
Is all as cool and white as any flower."
Follow'd a rush of eagle's wings, and then
A whimpering of the spirit of the child,
Because the twain had spoll'd her carcanet.

He dream'd; but Arthur with a hundred spears

Rode far, till o'er the illimitable reed,

flew.

Her warrior Tristram, spake not any word,
But bode his hour, devising wretchedness.

And now that desert lodge to Tristram lookt
So sweet, that halting, in he past, and sank
Down on a drift of foliage random-blown;
But could not rest for musing how to smooth
And sleek his marriage over to the Queen.
Perchance in lone Tintagil far from all
The tonguesters of the court she had not heard.
But then what folly had sent him overseas
After she left him lonely here? a name?
Was it the name of one in Brittany,
"Isolt
Isolt, the daughter of the King?
Of the white hands" they call'd her: the

sweet name

Allured him first, and then the maid herself, Who served him well with those white hands of hers,

The wide-wing'd sunset of the misty marsh
Glared on a huge machicolated tower

That stood with open doors, whereout was roll'd

A roar of riot, as from men secure

Amid their marshes, ruffians at their ease
Among their harlot-brides, an evil song.

'Lo there," said one of Arthur's youth, for

there,

High on a grim dead tree before the tower,
A goodly brother of The Table Round
Swung by the neck: and on the boughs a shield
Showing a shower of blood in a field noir
And therebeside a horn, inflamed the knights
At that dishonour done the gilded spur,
Till each would clash the shield, and blow the
horn.

But Arthur waved them back: alone he rode..
Then at the dry harsh roar of the great horn,
That sent the face of all the marsh aloft
An ever upward-rushing storm and cloud
Of shriek and plume, the Red Knight heard,.
and all,

Even to tipmost lance and topmost helm,
In blood-red armour sallying, howl'd to the
King,

"The teeth of Hell flay bare and gnash thee flat!

Lo! art thou not that eunuch-hearted King Who fain had clipt free manhood from the world

The woman-worshipper? Yea, God's curse, and

I!

Slain was the brother of my paramour
By a knight of thine, and I that heard her
whine

And snivel, being eunuch-hearted too,
Sware by the scorpion-worm that twists in hell,
And stings itself to everlasting death,