Queen Guinevere had fled the court,and sat There in the holy house at Almesbury Weeping,none with her save a little maid,A novice:one low light betwixt them burned Blurred by the creeping mist,for all abroad,Beneath a moon unseen albeit at full,The white mist,like a face-cloth to the face,Clung to the dead earth,and the land was still.
For hither had she fled,her cause of flight Sir Modred;he that like a subtle beast Lay couchant with his eyes upon the throne,Ready to spring,waiting a chance:for this He chilled the popular praises of the King With silent smiles of slow disparagement;And tampered with the Lords of the White Horse,Heathen,the brood by Hengist left;and sought To make disruption in the Table Round Of Arthur,and to splinter it into feuds Serving his traitorous end;and all his aims Were sharpened by strong hate for Lancelot.
For thus it chanced one morn when all the court,Green-suited,but with plumes that mocked the may,Had been,their wont,a-maying and returned,That Modred still in green,all ear and eye,Climbed to the high top of the garden-wall To spy some secret scandal if he might,And saw the Queen who sat betwixt her best Enid,and lissome Vivien,of her court The wiliest and the worst;and more than this He saw not,for Sir Lancelot passing by Spied where he couched,and as the gardener's hand Picks from the colewort a green caterpillar,So from the high wall and the flowering grove Of grasses Lancelot plucked him by the heel,And cast him as a worm upon the way;But when he knew the Prince though marred with dust,He,reverencing king's blood in a bad man,Made such excuses as he might,and these Full knightly without scorn;for in those days No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in scorn;But,if a man were halt or hunched,in him By those whom God had made full-limbed and tall,Scorn was allowed as part of his defect,And he was answered softly by the King And all his Table.So Sir Lancelot holp To raise the Prince,who rising twice or thrice Full sharply smote his knees,and smiled,and went:
But,ever after,the small violence done Rankled in him and ruffled all his heart,As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long A little bitter pool about a stone On the bare coast.
But when Sir Lancelot told This matter to the Queen,at first she laughed Lightly,to think of Modred's dusty fall,Then shuddered,as the village wife who cries 'I shudder,some one steps across my grave;'
Then laughed again,but faintlier,for indeed She half-foresaw that he,the subtle beast,Would track her guilt until he found,and hers Would be for evermore a name of scorn.
Henceforward rarely could she front in hall,Or elsewhere,Modred's narrow foxy face,Heart-hiding smile,and gray persistent eye:
Henceforward too,the Powers that tend the soul,To help it from the death that cannot die,And save it even in extremes,began To vex and plague her.Many a time for hours,Beside the placid breathings of the King,In the dead night,grim faces came and went Before her,or a vague spiritual fear--Like to some doubtful noise of creaking doors,Heard by the watcher in a haunted house,That keeps the rust of murder on the walls--Held her awake:or if she slept,she dreamed An awful dream;for then she seemed to stand On some vast plain before a setting sun,And from the sun there swiftly made at her A ghastly something,and its shadow flew Before it,till it touched her,and she turned--When lo!her own,that broadening from her feet,And blackening,swallowed all the land,and in it Far cities burnt,and with a cry she woke.
And all this trouble did not pass but grew;
Till even the clear face of the guileless King,And trustful courtesies of household life,Became her bane;and at the last she said,'O Lancelot,get thee hence to thine own land,For if thou tarry we shall meet again,And if we meet again,some evil chance Will make the smouldering scandal break and blaze Before the people,and our lord the King.'
And Lancelot ever promised,but remained,And still they met and met.Again she said,'O Lancelot,if thou love me get thee hence.'
And then they were agreed upon a night (When the good King should not be there)to meet And part for ever.Vivien,lurking,heard.
She told Sir Modred.Passion-pale they met And greeted.Hands in hands,and eye to eye,Low on the border of her couch they sat Stammering and staring.It was their last hour,A madness of farewells.And Modred brought His creatures to the basement of the tower For testimony;and crying with full voice 'Traitor,come out,ye are trapt at last,'aroused Lancelot,who rushing outward lionlike Leapt on him,and hurled him headlong,and he fell Stunned,and his creatures took and bare him off,And all was still:then she,'The end is come,And I am shamed for ever;'and he said,'Mine be the shame;mine was the sin:but rise,And fly to my strong castle overseas:
There will I hide thee,till my life shall end,There hold thee with my life against the world.'
She answered,'Lancelot,wilt thou hold me so?
Nay,friend,for we have taken our farewells.
Would God that thou couldst hide me from myself!
Mine is the shame,for I was wife,and thou Unwedded:yet rise now,and let us fly,For I will draw me into sanctuary,And bide my doom.'So Lancelot got her horse,Set her thereon,and mounted on his own,And then they rode to the divided way,There kissed,and parted weeping:for he past,Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen,Back to his land;but she to Almesbury Fled all night long by glimmering waste and weald,And heard the Spirits of the waste and weald Moan as she fled,or thought she heard them moan:
And in herself she moaned 'Too late,too late!'
Till in the cold wind that foreruns the morn,A blot in heaven,the Raven,flying high,Croaked,and she thought,'He spies a field of death;For now the Heathen of the Northern Sea,Lured by the crimes and frailties of the court,Begin to slay the folk,and spoil the land.'
