IV
As morning hears before it runThe music of the mounting sun,And laughs to watch his trophies wonFrom darkness, and her hosts undone,And all the night become a breath,Nor dreams that fear should hear and fleeThe 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 diesWeeps, laughs, and lightens on our eyes,And sees and hears not: smiles and sighsAs flowers ephemeral fall and riseAbout 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 dewThat now the stronger sun strikes throughFades off the blade whereon it blewNo fleetlier than the flowers that grewOn hope’s green stem in life’s fierce light.Nor might the glory soon to sitAwhile on Balen’s crest alitOutshine the shadow of doom on itOr stay death’s wings from flight.
Dawn on a golden moorland sideBy holt and heath saw Balen rideAnd Launceor after, pricked with prideAnd stung with spurring envy: wideAnd far he had ridden athwart strange landsAnd sought amiss the man he foundAnd cried on, till the stormy soundRang as a rallying trumpet roundThat fires men’s hearts and hands.
Abide he bade him: nor was needTo bid when Balen wheeled his steedFiercely, less fain by word than deedTo bid his envier evil speed,And cried, “What wilt thou with me?” LoudRang Launceor’s vehement answer: “Knight,To avenge on thee the dire despiteThou hast done us all in Arthur’s sightI stand toward Arthur vowed.”
“Ay?” Balen said: “albeit I seeI needs must deal in strife with thee,Light is the wyte thou layest on me;For her I slew and sinned not, sheWas dire in all men’s eyes as death,Or none were lother found than IBy me to bid a woman die:As lief were loyal men to lie,Or scorn what honour saith.”
As the arched wave’s weight against the reefHurls, and is hurled back like a leafStorm-shrivelled, and its rage of griefSpeaks all the loud broad sea in brief,And quells the hearkening hearts of men,Or as the crash of overfallsDown under blue smooth water brawlsLike jarring steel on ruining walls,So rang their meeting then.
As wave on wave shocks, and confoundsThe bounding bulk whereon it boundsAnd breaks and shattering seaward soundsAs crying of the old sea’s wolves and houndsThat moan and ravin and rage and wail,So steed on steed encountering sheerShocked, and the strength of Launceor’s spearShivered on Balen’s shield, and fearBade hope within him quail.
But Balen’s spear through Launceor’s shieldClove as a ploughshare cleaves the fieldAnd pierced the hauberk triple-steeled,That horse with horseman stricken reeled,And as a storm-breached rock falls, fell.And Balen turned his horse againAnd wist not yet his foe lay slain,And saw him dead that sought his baneAnd wrought and fared not well.
Suddenly, while he gazed and stood,And mused in many-minded moodIf life or death were evil or good,Forth of a covert of a woodThat skirted half the moorland leaFast rode a maiden flower-like whiteFull toward that fair wild place of fight,Anhungered of the woful sightGod gave her there to see.
And seeing the man there fallen and dead,She cried against the sun that shedLight on the living world, and said,“O Balen, slayer whose hand is red,Two bodies and one heart thou hast slain,Two hearts within one body: aye,Two souls thou hast lost; by thee they die,Cast out of sight of earth and skyAnd all that made them fain.”
And from the dead his sword she caught,And fell in trance that wist of nought,Swooning: but softly Balen soughtTo win from her the sword she thoughtTo die on, dying by Launceor’s side.Again her wakening wail outbrokeAs wildly, sword in hand, she wokeAnd struck one swift and bitter strokeThat healed her, and she died.
And sorrowing for their strange love’s sakeRode Balen forth by lawn and lake,By moor and moss and briar and brake,And in his heart their sorrow spakeWhose lips were dumb as death, and saidMute words of presage blind and vainAs rain-stars blurred and marred by rainTo wanderers on a moonless mainWhere night and day seem dead.
Then toward a sunbright wildwood sideHe looked and saw beneath it rideA knight whose arms afar espiedBy note of name and proof of prideBare witness of his brother born,His brother Balan, hard at hand,Twin flower of bright Northumberland,Twin sea-bird of their loud sea-strand,Twin song-bird of their morn.
Ah then from Balen passed awayAll dread of night, all doubt of day,All care what life or death might say,All thought of all worse months than May:Only the might of joy in loveBrake forth within him as a fire,And deep delight in deep desireOf far-flown days whose full-souled quireRang round from the air above.
From choral earth and quiring airRang memories winged like songs that bearSweet gifts for spirit and sense to share:For no man’s life knows love more fairAnd fruitful of memorial thingsThan this the deep dear love that breaksWith sense of life on life, and makesThe sundawn sunnier as it wakesWhere morning round it rings.
“O brother, O my brother!” criedEach upon each, and cast asideTheir helms unbraced that might not hideFrom sight of memory single-eyedThe likeness graven of face and face,And kissed and wept upon each otherFor joy and pity of either brother,And love engrafted by sire and mother,God’s natural gift of grace.
And each with each took counsel meetFor comfort, making sorrow sweet,And grief a goodly thing to greet:And word from word leapt light and fleetTill all the venturous tale was told,And how in Balen’s hope it layTo meet the wild Welsh king and slay,And win from Arthur back for payThe grace he gave of old.
“And thither will not thou with meAnd win as great a grace for thee?”“That will I well,” quoth Balan: “weWill cleave together, bound and free,As brethren should, being twain and one.”But ere they parted thence there cameA creature withered as with flame,A dwarf mismade in nature’s shame,Between them and the sun.
And riding fleet as fire may glideHe found the dead lie side by side,And wailed and rent his hair and cried,“Who hath done this deed?” And Balen eyedThe strange thing loathfully, and said,“The knight I slew, who found him fainAnd keen to slay me: seeing him slain,The maid I sought to save in vain,Self-stricken, here lies dead.
“Sore grief was mine to see her die,And for her true faith’s sake shall ILove, and with love of heart more high,All women better till I die.”“Alas,” the dwarf said, “ill for theeIn evil hour this deed was done:For now the quest shall be begunAgainst thee, from the dawning sunEven to the sunset sea.
“From shore to mountain, dawn to night,The kinsfolk of this great dead knightWill chase thee to thy death.” A lightOf swift blithe scorn flashed answer brightAs fire from Balen’s eye. “For that,Small fear shall fret my heart,” quoth he:“But that my lord the king should beFor this dead man’s sake wroth with me,Weep might it well thereat.”
Then murmuring passed the dwarf away,And toward the knights in fair arrayCame riding eastward up the wayFrom where the flower-soft lowlands layA king whose name the sweet south-westHeld high in honour, and the landThat bowed beneath his gentle handWore on its wild bright northern strandTintagel for a crest.
And Balen hailed with homage dueKing Mark of Cornwall, when he knewThe pennon that before him flew:And for those lovers dead and trueThe king made moan to hear their doom;And for their sorrow’s sake he swareTo seek in all the marches thereThe church that man might find most fairAnd build therein their tomb.