King Ban: A Fragment

These three held flight upon the leaning landsAt undern, past the skirt of misty campsSewn thick from Benwick to the outer march—King Ban, and, riding wrist by wrist, Ellayne,And caught up with his coloured swathing-bandsAcross her arm, a hindrance in the reins,A bauble slipt between the bridle-ties,The three months' trouble that was Launcelot.For Claudas leant upon the land, and smoteThis way and that way, as a pestilenceMoves with vague patience in the unclean heatThis way and that way; so the Gaulish warSmote, moving in the marches. Then King BanShut in one girdled waist of narrow stonesHis gold and all his men, and set on themA name, the name of perfect men at need,And over them a seneschal, the manMost inward and entailed upon his soul,That next his will and in his pulses movedAs the close blood and purpose of his heart,And laid the place between his hands, and rodeNorth to the wild rims of distempered seaThat, crossed to Logres, his face might look red [sic]The face of Arthur, and therein light bloodEven to the eyes and to the circled hairFor shame of failure in so near a need,Failure in service of so near a man.Because that time King Arthur would not ride,But lay and let his hands weaken to whiteAmong the stray gold of a lady's head.His hands unwedded: neither could bring helpTo Ban that helped to rend his land for himFrom the steel wrist of spoilers, but the timeA sleep like yellow mould had overgrown,A pleasure sweet and sick as marsh-flowers.Therefore about his marches rode King BanWith eyes that fell between his hands to countThe golden inches of the saddle-rim,Strange with rare stones; and in his face there roseA doubt that burnt it with red pain and fearAll over it, and plucked upon his heart,The old weak heart that loss had eaten through,Remembering how the seneschal went backAt coming out from Claudas in his tent:And how they bound together, chin by chin,Whispered and wagged, and made lean room for words,And a sharp mutter fed the ears of them.And he went in and set no thought thereonTo waste; fear had not heart to fear indeed,The king being old, since any fear in suchIs as a wound upon the fleshly senseThat drains a parcel of his time thereout,Therefore he would not fear that as it fellThis thing should fall. For Claudas the keen thiefFor some thin rounds and wretched stamps of goldHad bought the tower and men and seneschal,Body and breath and blood, yea, soul and shame.They knew not this, at halt upon a hill.Only surmise was dull upon the senseAnd thin conjecture sickened in the speech;So they fell silent, riding in the bills.There on a little terrace the good kingReined, and looked out. Far back the white lands lay;The wind went in them like a broken man,Lamely; the mist had set a bitter lipTo the rimmed river, and the moon burnt blank.But outward from the castle of King BanThere blew a sound of trouble, and there clombA fire that thrust an arm across the air,Shook a rent skirt of dragging flame, and blanchedThe grey flats to such cruel white as shoneIron against the shadow of the skyBlurred out with its blind stars; for as the seaGathers to lengthen a bleached edge of foamWhole weights of windy water, and the greenBrine flares and hisses as the heap makes up,Till the gaunt wave writhes, trying to breathe,Then turns, and all the whited rims of steelLean over, and the hollowed round roars inAnd smites the pebble forward in the mud,And grinds the shingle in cool whirls of white,Clashed through and crossed with blank assault of foam,Filled with hard thunder and drenched dregs of sand—So leant and leapt the many-mouthèd fire,So curled upon the walls, dipt, crawled, smote, clung,Caught like a beast that catches on the flesh,Waxed hoar with sick default, shivered across,Choked out, a snake unfed.Thereat King BanTrembled for pain in all his blood, and deathUnder the heart caught him and made his breathWince, as a worm does, wounded in the head;And fear began upon his flesh, and shookThe chaste and inly sufferance of itAlmost to ruin; a small fire and keenEating in muscle and nerve and hinge of jointPerilous way; so bitter was the blowMade on his sense by treason and sharp loss.Then he fell weeping tears, with blood in them,Like that red sweat that stained GethsemaneWith witness, when the deadly kiss had putShame on the mouth of Judas; and he cried,Crying on God, and made out words and said:Fair lord, sweet lord, most pleasant to all men,To me so pleasant in clean days of mineThat now are rained upon with heavy rain,Soiled with grey grime and with the dusty years,Because in all those tourneys and hot thingsI had to do with, in all riding timesAnd noise of work, and on smooth holidaysSitting to see the smiting of hard spears,And spur-smiting of steeds and wrath of men,And gracious measure of the rounded game,I held you in true honour and kept whiteThe hands of my allegiance as a maid's,Being whole of faith and perfect in the will.Therefore I pray you, O God marvellous,See me how I am stricken among men,And how the lip I fed with plenteousnessAnd cooled with wine of liberal courtesyTurns a snake's life to poison me and clings—·····