Joyous Gard

A little time, O Love, a little light,A little hour for ease before the night.Sweet Love, that art so bitter; foolish Love,Whom wise men know for wiser, and thy doveMore subtle than the serpent; for thy sakeThese pray thee for a little beam to break,A little grace to help them, lest men thinkThy servants have but hours like tears to drink.O Love, a little comfort, lest they fearTo serve as these have served thee who stand here.For these are thine, thy servants these, that standHere nigh the limit of the wild north land,At margin of the grey great eastern sea,Dense-islanded with peaks and reefs, that seeNo life but of the fleet wings fair and freeWhich cleave the mist and sunlight all day longWith sleepless flight and cries more glad than song.Strange ways of life have led them hither, hereTo win fleet respite from desire and fear,

With armistice from sorrow; strange and sweetWays trodden by forlorn and casual feetTill kindlier chance woke toward them kindly willIn happier hearts of lovers, and their illFound rest, as healing surely might it not,By gift and kingly grace of LauncelotAt gracious bidding given of Guenevere.For in the trembling twilight of this yearEre April sprang from hope to certitudeTwo hearts of friends fast linked had fallen at feudAs they rode forth on hawking, by the signWhich gave his new bride's brother GanhardineTo know the truth of Tristram's dealing, howFaith kept of him against his marriage vowKept virginal his bride-bed night and morn;Whereat, as wroth his blood should suffer scorn,Came Ganhardine to Tristram, saying, 'Behold,We have loved thee, and for love we have shown of oldScorn hast thou shown us: wherefore is thy brideNot thine indeed, a stranger at thy side,Contemned? what evil hath she done, to beMocked with mouth-marriage and despised of thee,Shamed, set at nought, rejected?' But there cameOn Tristram's brow and eye the shadow and flameConfused of wrath and wonder, ere he spake,Saying, 'Hath she bid thee for thy sister's sakePlead with me, who believed of her in heartMore nobly than to deem such piteous partShould find so fair a player? or whence hast thouOf us this knowledge?' 'Nay,' said he, 'but now,

Riding beneath these whitethorns overhead,There fell a flower into her girdlesteadWhich laughing she shook out, and smiling said—"Lo, what large leave the wind hath given this stray,To lie more near my heart than till this dayAught ever since my mother lulled me layOr even my lord came ever;" whence I wotWe are all thy scorn, a race regarded notNor held as worth communion of thine own,Except in her be found some fault aloneTo blemish our alliance.' Then repliedTristram, 'Nor blame nor scorn may touch my bride,Albeit unknown of love she live, and beWorth a man worthier than her love thought me.Faith only, faith withheld me, faith forbadeThe blameless grace wherewith love's grace makes gladAll lives linked else in wedlock; not that lessI loved the sweet light of her loveliness,But that my love toward faith was more: and thou,Albeit thine heart be keen against me now,Couldst thou behold my very lady, thenNo more of thee than of all other menShould this my faith be held a faithless fault.'And ere that day their hawking came to halt,Being sore of him entreated for a sign,He sware to bring his brother GanhardineTo sight of that strange Iseult: and thereonForth soon for Cornwall are these brethren gone,

Even to that royal pleasance where the huntRang ever of old with Tristram's horn in frontBlithe as the queen's horse bounded at his side:And first of all her dames forth pranced in prideThat day before them, with a ringing reinAll golden-glad, the king's false bride Brangwain,The queen's true handmaid ever: and on herGlancing, 'Be called for all time truth-teller,O Tristram, of all true men's tongues alive,'Quoth Ganhardine; 'for may my soul so thriveAs yet mine eye drank never sight like this.''Ay?' Tristram said, 'and she thou look'st on isSo great in grace of goodliness, that thouHast less thought left of wrath against me now,Seeing but my lady's handmaid? Nay, behold;See'st thou no light more golden than of goldShine where she moves in midst of all, aboveAll, past all price or praise or prayer of love?Lo, this is she.' But as one mazed with wineStood, stunned in spirit and stricken, Ganhardine,And gazed out hard against them: and his heartAs with a sword was cloven, and rent apartAs with strong fangs of fire; and scarce he spake,Saying how his life for even a handmaid's sakeWas made a flame within him. And the knightBade him, being known of none that stood in sight,Bear to Brangwain his ring, that she unseenMight give in token privily to the queenAnd send swift word where under moon or sunThey twain might yet be no more twain but one.

And that same night, under the stars that rolledOver their warm deep wildwood nights of oldWhose hours for grains of sand shed sparks of fire,Such way was made anew for their desireBy secret wile of sickness feigned, to keepThe king far off her vigils or her sleep,That in the queen's pavilion midway setBy glimmering moondawn were those lovers met,And Ganhardine of Brangwain gat him grace.And in some passionate soft interspaceBetween two swells of passion, when their lipsBreathed, and made room for such brief speech as slipsFrom tongues athirst with draughts of amorous wineThat leaves them thirstier than the salt sea's brine,Was counsel taken how to fly, and whereFind covert from the wild world's ravening airThat hunts with storm the feet of nights and daysThrough strange thwart lines of life and flowerless ways.Then said Iseult: 'Lo, now the chance is hereForeshown me late by word of Guenevere,To give me comfort of thy rumoured wrong,My traitor Tristram, when report was strongOf me forsaken and thine heart estranged:Nor should her sweet soul toward me yet be changedNor all her love lie barren, if mine handCrave harvest of it from the flowering land.See therefore if this counsel please thee not,That we take horse in haste for Camelot

And seek that friendship of her plighted trothWhich love shall be full fain to lend, nor lothShall my love be to take it.' So next nightThe multitudinous stars laughed round their flight,Fulfilling far with laughter made of lightThe encircling deeps of heaven: and in brief spaceAt Camelot their long love gat them graceOf those fair twain whose heads men's praise impearledAs love's two lordliest lovers in the world:And thence as guests for harbourage past they forthTo win this noblest hold of all the north.Far by wild ways and many days they rode,Till clear across June's kingliest sunset glowedThe great round girth of goodly wall that showedWhere for one clear sweet season's length should beTheir place of strength to rest in, fain and free,By the utmost margin of the loud lone sea.And now, O Love, what comfort? God most high,Whose life is as a flower's to live and die,Whose light is everlasting: Lord, whose breathSpeaks music through the deathless lips of deathWhereto time's heart rings answer: Bard, whom timeHears, and is vanquished with a wandering rhymeThat once thy lips made fragrant: Seer, whose soothJoy knows not well, but sorrow knows for truth,Being priestess of thy soothsayings: Love, what graceShall these twain find at last before thy face?

This many a year they have served thee, and deserved,If ever man might yet of all that served,Since the first heartbeat bade the first man's kneeBend, and his mouth take music, praising thee,Some comfort; and some honey indeed of thineThou hast mixed for these with life's most bitter wine,Commending to their passionate lips a draughtNo deadlier than thy chosen of old have quaffedAnd blessed thine hand, their cupbearer's: for notOn all men comes the grace that seals their lotAs holier in thy sight, for all these feudsThat rend it, than the light-souled multitude's,Nor thwarted of thine hand nor blessed; but theseShall see no twilight, Love, nor fade at ease,Grey-grown and careless of desired delight,But lie down tired and sleep before the night.These shall not live till time or change may chillOr doubt divide or shame subdue their will,Or fear or slow repentance work them wrong,Or love die first: these shall not live so long.Death shall not take them drained of dear true lifeAlready, sick or stagnant from the strife,Quenched: not with dry-drawn veins and lingering breathShall these through crumbling hours crouch down to death.Swift, with one strong clean leap, ere life's pulse tire,Most like the leap of lions or of fire,

Sheer death shall bound upon them: one pang past,The first keen sense of him shall be their last,Their last shall be no sense of any fear,More than their life had sense of anguish here.Weeks and light months had fled at swallow's speedSince here their first hour sowed for them the seedOf many sweet as rest or hope could be;Since on the blown beach of a glad new seaWherein strange rocks like fighting men stand scarredThey saw the strength and help of Joyous Gard.Within the full deep glorious tower that standsBetween the wild sea and the broad wild landsLove led and gave them quiet: and they drewLife like a God's life in each wind that blew,And took their rest, and triumphed. Day by dayThe mighty moorlands and the sea-walls grey,The brown bright waters of green fells that singOne song to rocks and flowers and birds on wing,Beheld the joy and glory that they had,Passing, and how the whole world made them glad,And their great love was mixed with all things great,As life being lovely, and yet being strong like fate.For when the sun sprang on the sudden seaTheir eyes sprang eastward, and the day to beWas lit in them untimely: such delightThey took yet of the clear cold breath and lightThat goes before the morning, and such graceWas deathless in them through their whole life's space

As dies in many with their dawn that diesAnd leaves in pulseless hearts and flameless eyesNo light to lighten and no tear to weepFor youth's high joy that time has cast on sleep.Yea, this old grace and height of joy they had,To lose no jot of all that made them gladAnd filled their springs of spirit with such fireThat all delight fed in them all desire;And no whit less than in their first keen primeThe spring's breath blew through all their summer time,And in their skies would sunlike Love confuseClear April colours with hot August hues,And in their hearts one light of sun and moonReigned, and the morning died not of the noon:Such might of life was in them, and so highTheir heart of love rose higher than fate could fly.And many a large delight of hawk and houndThe great glad land that knows no bourne or bound,Save the wind's own and the outer sea-bank's, gaveTheir days for comfort; many a long blithe waveBuoyed their blithe bark between the bare bald rocks,Deep, steep, and still, save for the swift free flocksUnshepherded, uncompassed, unconfined,That when blown foam keeps all the loud air blindMix with the wind's their triumph, and partakeThe joy of blasts that ravin, waves that break,All round and all below their mustering wings,A clanging cloud that round the cliff's edge clings

On each bleak bluff breaking the strenuous tidesThat rings reverberate mirth when storm bestridesThe subject night in thunder: many a noonThey took the moorland's or the bright sea's boonWith all their hearts into their spirit of sense,Rejoicing, where the sudden dells grew denseWith sharp thick flight of hillside birds, or whereOn some strait rock's ledge in the intense mute airErect against the cliff's sheer sunlit whiteBlue as the clear north heaven, clothed warm with light,Stood neck to bended neck and wing to wingWith heads fast hidden under, close as clingFlowers on one flowering almond-branch in spring,Three herons deep asleep against the sun,Each with one bright foot downward poised, and oneWing-hidden hard by the bright head, and allStill as fair shapes fixed on some wondrous wallOf minster-aisle or cloister-close or hallTo take even time's eye prisoner with delight.Or, satisfied with joy of sound and sight,They sat and communed of things past: what stateKing Arthur, yet unwarred upon by fate,Held high in hall at Camelot, like oneWhose lordly life was as the mounting sunThat climbs and pauses on the point of noon,Sovereign: how royal rang the tourney's tuneThrough Tristram's three days' triumph, spear to spear,When Iseult shone enthroned by Guenevere,

Rose against rose, the highest adored on earth,Imperial: yet with subtle notes of mirthWould she bemock her praises, and bemoanHer glory by that splendour overthrownWhich lightened from her sister's eyes elate;Saying how by night a little light seems great,But less than least of all things, very nought,When dawn undoes the web that darkness wrought;How like a tower of ivory well designedBy subtlest hand subserving subtlest mind,Ivory with flower of rose incarnadinedAnd kindling with some God therein revealed,A light for grief to look on and be healed,Stood Guenevere: and all beholding herWere heartstruck even as earth at midsummerWith burning wonder, hardly to be borne.So was that amorous glorious lady born,A fiery memory for all storied years:Nor might men call her sisters crowned her peers,Her sister queens, put all by her to scorn:She had such eyes as are not made to mourn;But in her own a gleaming ghost of tearsShone, and their glance was slower than Guenevere's,And fitfuller with fancies grown of grief;Shamed as a Mayflower shames an autumn leafFull well she wist it could not choose but beIf in that other's eyeshot standing sheShould lift her looks up ever: wherewithalLike fires whose light fills heaven with festival

Flamed her eyes full on Tristram's; and he laughedAnswering, 'What wile of sweet child-hearted craftThat children forge for children, to beguileEyes known of them not witless of the wileBut fain to seem for sport's sake self-deceived,Wilt thou find out now not to be believed?Or how shall I trust more than ouphe or elfThy truth to me-ward, who beliest thyself?''Nor elf nor ouphe or aught of airier kind,'Quoth she, 'though made of moonbeams moist and blind,Is light if weighed with man's winged weightless mind.Though thou keep somewise troth with me, God wot,When thou didst wed, I doubt, thou thoughtest notSo charily to keep it.' 'Nay,' said he,'Yet am not I rebukable by theeAs Launcelot, erring, held me ere he wistNo mouth save thine of mine was ever kissedSave as a sister's only, since we twainDrank first the draught assigned our lips to drainThat Fate and Love with darkling hands commixtPoured, and no power to part them came betwixt,But either's will, howbeit they seem at strife,Was toward us one, as death itself and lifeAre one sole doom toward all men, nor may oneBehold not darkness, who beholds the sun.''Ah, then,' she said, 'what word is this men hearOf Merlin, how some doom too strange to fearWas cast but late about him oversea,Sweet recreant, in thy bridal Brittany?

Is not his life sealed fast on him with sleep,By witchcraft of his own and love's, to keepTill earth be fire and ashes?''Surely,' saidHer lover, 'not as one alive or deadThe great good wizard, well beloved and wellPredestinate of heaven that casts out hellFor guerdon gentler far than all men's fate,Exempt alone of all predestinate,Takes his strange rest at heart of slumberland,More deep asleep in green BroceliandeThan shipwrecked sleepers in the soft green seaBeneath the weight of wandering waves: but heHath for those roofing waters overheadAbove him always all the summer spreadOr all the winter wailing: or the sweetLate leaves marked red with autumn's burning feet,Or withered with his weeping, round the seerRain, and he sees not, nor may heed or hearThe witness of the winter: but in springHe hears above him all the winds on wingThrough the blue dawn between the brightening boughs,And on shut eyes and slumber-smitten browsFeels ambient change in the air and strengthening sun,And knows the soul that was his soul at oneWith the ardent world's, and in the spirit of earthHis spirit of life reborn to mightier birthAnd mixed with things of elder life than ours;With cries of birds, and kindling lamps of flowers,

And sweep and song of winds, and fruitful lightOf sunbeams, and the far faint breath of night,And waves and woods at morning: and in all,Soft as at noon the slow sea's rise and fall,He hears in spirit a song that none but heHears from the mystic mouth of NimueShed like a consecration; and his heart,Hearing, is made for love's sake as a partOf that far singing, and the life thereofPart of that life that feeds the world with love:Yea, heart in heart is molten, hers and his,Into the world's heart and the soul that isBeyond or sense or vision; and their breathStirs the soft springs of deathless life and death,Death that bears life, and change that brings forth seedOf life to death and death to life indeed,As blood recircling through the unsounded veinsOf earth and heaven with all their joys and pains.Ah, that when love shall laugh no more nor weepWe too, we too might hear that song and sleep!''Yea,' said Iseult, 'some joy it were to beLost in the sun's light and the all-girdling sea,Mixed with the winds and woodlands, and to bearPart in the large life of the quickening air,And the sweet earth's, our mother: yet to passMore fleet than mirrored faces from the glassOut of all pain and all delight, so farThat love should seem but as the furthest starSunk deep in trembling heaven, scarce seen or known,

As a dead moon forgotten, once that shoneWhere now the sun shines—nay, not all things yet,Not all things always, dying, would I forget.'And Tristram answered amorously, and said:'O heart that here art mine, O heavenliest headThat ever took men's worship here, which artMine, how shall death put out the fire at heart,Quench in men's eyes the head's remembered light,That time shall set but higher in more men's sight?Think thou not much to die one earthly day,Being made not in their mould who pass awayNor who shall pass for ever.''Ah,' she said,'What shall it profit me, being praised and dead?What profit have the flowers of all men's praise?What pleasure of our pleasure have the daysThat pour on us delight of life and mirth?What fruit of all our joy on earth has earth?Nor am I—nay, my lover, am I oneTo take such part in heaven's enkindling sunAnd in the inviolate air and sacred seaAs clothes with grace that wondrous Nimue?For all her works are bounties, all her deedsBlessings; her days are scrolls wherein love readsThe record of his mercies; heaven aboveHath not more heavenly holiness of loveThan earth beneath, wherever pass or pauseHer feet that move not save by love's own laws,In gentleness of godlike wayfaringTo heal men's hearts as earth is healed by spring

Of all such woes as winter: what am I,Love, that have strength but to desire and die,That have but grace to love and do thee wrong,What am I that my name should live so long,Save as the star that crossed thy star-struck lot,With hers whose light was life to Launcelot?Life gave she him, and strength, and fame to beFor ever: I, what gift can I give thee?Peril and sleepless watches, fearful breathOf dread more bitter for my sake than deathWhen death came nigh to call me by my name,Exile, rebuke, remorse, and—O, not shame.Shame only, this I gave thee not, whom noneMay give that worst thing ever—no, not one.Of all that hate, all hateful hearts that seeDarkness for light and hate where love should be,None for my shame's sake may speak shame of thee.'And Tristram answering ere he kissed her smiled:'O very woman, god at once and child,What ails thee to desire of me once moreThe assurance that thou hadst in heart before?For all this wild sweet waste of sweet vain breath,Thou knowest I know thou hast given me life, not death.The shadow of death, informed with shows of strife,Was ere I won thee all I had of life.Light war, light love, light living, dreams in sleep,Joy slight and light, not glad enough to weep,Filled up my foolish days with sound and shine,Vision and gleam from strange men's cast on mine,Reverberate light from eyes presaging thine

That shed but shadowy moonlight where thy faceNow sheds forth sunshine in the deep same place,The deep live heart half dead and shallower thenThan summer fords which thwart not wandering men.For how should I, signed sorrow's from my birth,Kiss dumb the loud red laughing lips of mirth?Or how, sealed thine to be, love less than heaven on earth?My heart in me was held at restless rest,Presageful of some prize beyond its quest,Prophetic still with promise, fain to find the best.For one was fond and one was blithe and oneFairer than all save twain whose peers are none;For third on earth is none that heaven hath seenTo stand with Guenevere beside my queen.Not Nimue, girt with blessing as a guard:Not the soft lures and laughters of Ettarde:Not she, that splendour girdled round with gloom,Crowned as with iron darkness of the tomb,And clothed with clouding conscience of a monstrous doom,Whose blind incestuous love brought forth a fireTo burn her ere it burn its darkling sire,Her mother's son, King Arthur: yet but lateWe saw pass by that fair live shadow of fate,The queen Morgause of Orkney, like a dreamThat scares the night when moon and starry beamSicken and swoon before some sorcerer's eyesWhose wordless charms defile the saintly skies,Bright still with fire and pulse of blood and breath,Whom her own sons have doomed for shame to death.'

'Death—yea,' quoth she, 'there is not said or heardSo oft aloud on earth so sure a word.Death, and again death, and for each that saithTen tongues chime answer to the sound of death.Good end God send us ever—so men pray.But I—this end God send me, would I say,To die not of division and a heartRent or with sword of severance cloven apart,But only when thou diest and only where thou art,O thou my soul and spirit and breath to me,O light, life, love! yea, let this only be,That dying I may praise God who gave me thee,Let hap what will thereafter.'So that dayThey communed, even till even was worn away,Nor aught they said seemed strange or sad to say,But sweet as night's dim dawn to weariness.Nor loved they life or love for death's sake less,Nor feared they death for love's or life's sake moreAnd on the sounding soft funereal shoreThey, watching till the day should wholly die,Saw the far sea sweep to the far grey sky,Saw the long sands sweep to the long grey sea.And night made one sweet mist of moor and lea,And only far off shore the foam gave light.And life in them sank silent as the night.