Part 3

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.”

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 layest on me; For her I slew and sinned not, she Was dire in all men’s eyes as death, Or none were lother found than I By 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 reef Hurls, and is hurled back like a leaf Storm-shrivelled, and its rage of grief Speaks all the loud broad sea in brief, And quells the hearkening hearts of men, Or as the crash of overfalls Down under blue smooth water brawls Like jarring steel on ruining walls, So rang their meeting then.

As wave on wave shocks, and confounds The bounding bulk whereon it bounds And breaks and shattering seaward sounds As crying of the old sea’s wolves and hounds That moan and ravin and rage and wail, So steed on steed encountering sheer Shocked, and the strength of Launceor’s spear Shivered on Balen’s shield, and fear Bade hope within him quail.

But Balen’s spear through Launceor’s shield Clove as a ploughshare cleaves the field And pierced the hauberk triple-steeled, That horse with horseman stricken reeled, And as a storm-breached rock falls, fell. And Balen turned his horse again And wist not yet his foe lay slain, And saw him dead that sought his bane And wrought and fared not well.

Suddenly, while he gazed and stood, And mused in many-minded mood If life or death were evil or good, Forth of a covert of a wood That skirted half the moorland lea Fast rode a maiden flower-like white Full toward that fair wild place of fight, Anhungered of the woful sight God gave her there to see.

And seeing the man there fallen and dead, She cried against the sun that shed Light 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 sky And 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 sought To win from her the sword she thought To die on, dying by Launceor’s side. Again her wakening wail outbroke As wildly, sword in hand, she woke And struck one swift and bitter stroke That healed her, and she died.

And sorrowing for their strange love’s sake Rode Balen forth by lawn and lake, By moor and moss and briar and brake, And in his heart their sorrow spake Whose lips were dumb as death, and said Mute words of presage blind and vain As rain-stars blurred and marred by rain To wanderers on a moonless main Where night and day seem dead.

Then toward a sunbright wildwood side He looked and saw beneath it ride A knight whose arms afar espied By note of name and proof of pride Bare 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 away All 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 love Brake forth within him as a fire, And deep delight in deep desire Of far-flown days whose full-souled quire Rang round from the air above.