that outlives men dead.”

Then bade the king his knights assay
This mystery that before him lay
And mocked his might of manhood.  “Nay,”
Quoth she, “the man that takes away
   This burden laid on me must be
A knight of record clean and fair
As sunlight and the flowerful air,
By sire and mother born to bear
   A name to shame not me.”

Then forth strode Launcelot, and laid
The mighty-moulded hand that made
Strong knights reel back like birds affrayed
By storm that smote them as they strayed
   Against the hilt that yielded not.
Then Tristram, bright and sad and kind
As one that bore in noble mind
Love that made light as darkness blind,
   Fared even as Launcelot.

Then Lamoracke, with hardier cheer,
As one that held all hope and fear
Wherethrough the spirit of man may steer
In life and death less dark or dear,
   Laid hand thereon, and fared as they.
With half a smile his hand he drew
Back from the spell-bound thing, and threw
With half a glance his heart anew
   Toward no such blameless may.

Between Iseult and Guenevere
Sat one of name as high to hear,
But darklier doomed than they whose cheer
Foreshowed not yet the deadlier year
   That bids the queenliest head bow down,
The queen Morgause of Orkney: they
With scarce a flash of the eye could say
The very word of dawn, when day
   Gives earth and heaven their crown.

But bright and dark as night or noon
And lowering as a storm-flushed moon
When clouds and thwarting winds distune
The music of the midnight, soon
   To die from darkening star to star
And leave a silence in the skies
That yearns till dawn find voice and rise,
Shone strange as fate Morgause, with eyes
   That dwelt on days afar.

A glance that shot on Lamoracke
As from a storm-cloud bright and black.
Fire swift and blind as death’s own track
Turned fleet as flame on Arthur back
   From him whose hand forsook the hilt:
And one in blood and one in sin
Their hearts caught fire of pain within
And knew no goal for them to win
   But death that guerdons guilt.

Then Gawain, sweet of soul and gay
As April ere he dreams of May,
Strove, and prevailed not: then Sir Kay,
The snake-souled envier, vile as they
   That fawn and foam and lurk and lie,
Sire of the bastard band whose brood
Was alway found at servile feud
With honour, faint and false and lewd,
   Scarce grasped and put it by.

Then wept for woe the damsel bound
With iron and with anguish round,
That none to help her grief was found
Or loose the inextricably inwound
   Grim curse that girt her life with grief
And made a burden of her breath,
Harsh as the bitterness of death.
Then spake the king as one that saith
   Words bitterer even than brief.

“Methought the wide round world could bring
Before the face of queen or king
No knights more fit for fame to sing
Than fill this full Round Table’s ring
   With honour higher than pride of place:
But now my heart is wrung to know,
Damsel, that none whom fame can show
Finds grace to heal or help thy woe:
   God gives them not the grace.”

Then from the lowliest place thereby,
With heart-enkindled cheek and eye
Most like the star and kindling sky
That say the sundawn’s hour is high
   When rapture trembles through the sea,
Strode Balen in his poor array
Forth, and took heart of grace to pray
The damsel suffer even him to assay
   His power to set her free.

Nay, how should he avail, she said,
Averse with scorn-averted head,
Where these availed not? none had sped
Of all these mightier men that led
   The lists wherein he might not ride,
And how should less men speed?  But he,
With lordlier pride of courtesy,
Put forth his hand and set her free
   From pain and humbled pride.

But on the sword he gazed elate
With hope set higher than fear or fate,
Or doubt of darkling days in wait;
And when her thankful praise waxed great
   And craved of him the sword again,
He would not give it.  “Nay, for mine
It is till force may make it thine.”
A smile that shone as death may shine
   Spake toward him bale and bane.

Strange lightning flickered from her eyes.
“Gentle and good in knightliest guise
And meet for quest of strange emprise
Thou hast here approved thee: yet not wise
   To keep the sword from me, I wis.
For with it thou shalt surely slay
Of all that look upon the day
The man best loved of thee, and lay
   Thine own life down for his.”

“What chance God sends, that chance I take,”
He said.  Then soft and still she spake;
“I would but for thine only sake
Have back the sword of thee, and break
   The links of doom that bind thee round.
But seeing thou wilt not have it so,
My heart for thine is wrung with woe.”
“God’s will,” quoth he, “it is, we know,
   Wherewith our lives are bound.”

“Repent it must thou soon,” she said,
“Who wouldst not hear the rede I read
For thine and not for my sake, sped
In vain as waters heavenward shed
   From springs that falter and depart
Earthward.  God bids not thee believe
Truth, and the web thy life must weave
For even this sword to close and cleave
   Hangs heavy round my heart.”

So passed she mourning forth.  But he,
With heart of springing hope set free
As birds that breast and brave the sea,
Bade horse and arms and armour be
   Made straightway ready toward the fray.
Nor even might Arthur’s royal prayer
Withhold him, but with frank and fair
Thanksgiving and leave-taking there
   He turned him thence away.

III

As the east wind, when the morning’s breast
Gleams like a bird’s that leaves the nest,
A fledgeling halcyon’s bound on quest,
Drives wave on wave on wave to west
   Till all the sea be life and light,
So time’s mute breath, that brings to bloom
All flowers that strew the dead spring’s tomb,
Drives day on day on day to doom
   Till all man’s day be night.

Brief as the breaking of a wave
That hurls on man his thunderous grave
Ere fear find breath to cry or crave
Life that no chance may spare or save,
   The light of joy and glory shone
Even as in dreams where death seems dead
Round Balen’s hope-exalted head,
Shone, passed, and lightened as it fled
   The shadow of doom thereon.

For as he bound him thence to fare,
Before the stately presence there
A lady like a windflower fair,
Girt on with raiment strange and rare
   That rippled whispering round her, came.
Her clear cold eyes, all glassy grey,
Seemed lit not with the light of day
But touched with gleams that waned away
   Of quelled and fading flame.

Before the king she bowed and spake:
“King, for thine old faith’s plighted sake
To me the lady of the lake,
I come in trust of thee to take
   The guerdon of the gift I gave,
Thy sword Excalibur.”  And he
Made answer: “Be it whate’er it be,
If mine to give, I give it thee,
   Nor need is thine to crave.”

As when a gleam of wicked light
Turns half a low-lying water bright
That moans beneath the shivering night
With sense of evil sound and sight
   And whispering witchcraft’s bated breath,
Her wan face quickened as she said:
“This knight that won the sword—his head
I crave or hers that brought it.  Dead,
   Let these be one in death.”

“Not