with mine honour this may be;
Ask all save this thou wilt,” quoth he,
“And have thy full desire.”  But she
Made answer: “Nought will I of thee,
   Nought if not this.”  Then Balen turned,
And saw the sorceress hard beside
By whose fell craft his mother died:
Three years he had sought her, and here espied
   His heart against her yearned.

“Ill be thou met,” he said, “whose ire
Would slake with blood thy soul’s desire:
By thee my mother died in fire;
Die thou by me a death less dire.”
   Sharp flashed his sword forth, fleet as flame,
And shore away her sorcerous head.
“Alas for shame,” the high king said,
“That one found once my friend lies dead;
   Alas for all our shame!

“Thou shouldst have here forborne her; yea,
Were all the wrongs that bid men slay
Thine, heaped too high for wrath to weigh,
Not here before my face today
   Was thine the right to wreak thy wrong.”
Still stood he then as one that found
His rose of hope by storm discrowned,
And all the joy that girt him round
   Brief as a broken song.

Yet ere he passed he turned and spake:
“King, only for thy nobler sake
Than aught of power man’s power may take
Or pride of place that pride may break
   I bid the lordlier man in thee,
That lives within the king, give ear.
This justice done before thee here
On one that hell’s own heart holds dear,
   Needs might not this but be.

“Albeit, for all that pride would prove,
My heart be wrung to lose thy love,
It yet repents me not hereof:
So many an eagle and many a dove,
   So many a knight, so many a may,
This water-snake of poisonous tongue
To death by words and wiles hath stung,
That her their slayer, from hell’s lake sprung,
   I did not ill to slay.”

“Yea,” said the king, “too high of heart
To stand before a king thou art;
Yet irks it me to bid thee part
And take thy penance for thy part,
   That God may put upon thy pride.”
Then Balen took the severed head
And toward his hostry turned and sped
As one that knew not quick from dead
   Nor good from evil tide.

He bade his squire before him stand
And take that sanguine spoil in hand
And bear it far by shore and strand
Till all in glad Northumberland
   That loved him, seeing it, all might know
His deadliest foe was dead, and hear
How free from prison as from fear
He dwelt in trust of the answering year
   To bring him weal for woe.

“And tell them, now I take my way
To meet in battle, if I may,
King Ryons of North Wales, and slay
That king of kernes whose fiery sway
   Doth all the marches dire despite
That serve King Arthur: so shall he
Again be gracious lord to me,
And I that leave thee meet with thee
   Once more in Arthur’s sight.”

So spake he ere they parted, nor
Took shame or fear to counsellor,
As one whom none laid ambush for;
And wist not how Sir Launceor,
   The wild king’s son of Ireland, hot
And high in wrath to know that one
Stood higher in fame before the sun,
Even Balen, since the sword was won,
   Drew nigh from Camelot.

For thence, in heat of hate and pride,
As one that man might bid not bide,
He craved the high king’s grace to ride
On quest of Balen far and wide
   And wreak the wrong his wrath had wrought.
“Yea,” Arthur said, “for such despite
Was done me never in my sight
As this thine hand shall now requite
   If trust avail us aught.”

But ere he passed, in eager mood
To feed his hate with bitter food,
Before the king’s face Merlin stood
And heard his tale of ill and good,
   Of Balen, and the sword achieved,
And whence it smote as heaven’s red ire
That direful dame of doom as dire;
And how the king’s wrath turned to fire
   The grief wherewith he grieved.

And darkening as he gave it ear,
The still face of the sacred seer
Waxed wan with wrath and not with fear,
And ever changed its cloudier cheer
   Till all his face was very night.
“This damosel that brought the sword,”
He said, “before the king my lord,
And all these knights about his board,
   Hath done them all despite.

“The falsest damosel she is
That works men ill on earth, I wis,
And all her mind is toward but this,
To kill as with a lying kiss
   Truth, and the life of noble trust.
A brother hath she,—see but now
The flame of shame that brands her brow!—
A true man, pure as faith’s own vow,
   Whose honour knows not rust.

“This good knight found within her bower
A felon and her paramour,
And slew him in his shameful hour,
As right gave might and righteous power
   To hands that wreaked so foul a wrong.
Then, for the hate her heart put on,
She sought by ways where death had gone
The lady Lyle of Avalon,
   Whose crafts are strange and strong.

“The sorceress, one with her in thought,
Gave her that sword of magic, wrought
By charms whereof sweet heaven sees nought,
That hither girt on her she brought
   To be by doom her brother’s bane.
And grief it is to think how he
That won it, being of heart so free
And perfect found in chivalry,
   Shall by that sword lie slain.

Great pity it is and strange despite
That one whose eyes are stars to light
Honour, and shine as heaven’s own height,
Should perish, being the goodliest knight
   That even the all-glorious north has borne.
Nor shall my lord the king behold
A lordlier friend of mightier mould
Than Balen, though his tale be told
   Ere noon fulfil his morn.”

IV

As morning hears before it run
The music of the mounting sun,
And laughs to watch his trophies won
From darkness, and her hosts undone,
   And all the night become a breath,
Nor dreams that fear should hear and flee
The summer menace of the sea,
So hears our hope what life may be,
   And knows it not for death.

Each day that slays its hours and dies
Weeps, laughs, and lightens on our eyes,
And sees and hears not: smiles and sighs
As flowers ephemeral fall and rise
   About its birth, about its way,
And pass as love and sorrow pass,
As shadows flashing down a glass,
As dew-flowers blowing in flowerless grass,
   As hope from yesterday.

The blossom of the sunny dew
That now the stronger sun strikes through
Fades off the blade whereon it blew
No fleetlier than the flowers that grew
   On hope’s green stem in life’s fierce light.
Nor might the glory soon to sit
Awhile on Balen’s crest alit
Outshine the shadow of doom on it
   Or stay death’s wings from flight.

Dawn on a golden moorland side
By holt and heath saw Balen ride
And Launceor after, pricked with pride
And stung with spurring envy: wide
   And far he had ridden athwart strange lands
And sought amiss the man he found
And cried on, till the stormy sound
Rang as a rallying trumpet round
   That fires men’s hearts and hands.

Abide he bade him: nor was need
To bid when Balen wheeled his steed
Fiercely, less fain by word than deed
To bid his envier evil speed,
   And cried, “What wilt thou with me?”  Loud
Rang Launceor’s vehement answer: “Knight,
To avenge on thee the dire despite
Thou hast done us all in Arthur’s sight
   I stand toward Arthur vowed.”

“Ay?” Balen said: “albeit I see
I needs must deal in strife with thee,
Light is the wyte thou