When Merlin the next morning came again In the same pilgrim robe that he had worn While he sat waiting where the cherry-blossoms Outside the gate fell on him and around him, Grief came to Vivian at the sight of him; And like a flash of a swift ugly knife, A blinding fear came with it. "Are you going?" She said, more with her lips than with her voice; And he said, "I am going. Blaise and I Are going down together to the shore, And Blaise is coming back. For this one day Be good enough to spare him, for I like him. I tell you now, as once I told the King, That I can be no more than what I was, And I can say no more than I have said. Sometimes you told me that I spoke too long, And sent me off to wander. That was good. I go now for another wandering, And I pray God that all be well with you."
For long there was a whining in her ears Of distant wheels departing. When it ceased, She closed the gate again so quietly That Merlin could have heard no sound of it.
By Merlin's Rock, where Dagonet the fool Was given through many a dying afternoon To sit and meditate on human ways And ways divine, Gawaine and Bedivere Stood silent, gazing down on Camelot. The two had risen and were going home: "It hits me sore, Gawaine," said Bedivere, "To think on all the tumult and affliction Down there, and all the noise and preparation That hums of coming death, and, if my fears Be born of reason, of what's more than death. Wherefore, I say to you again, Gawaine,-- To you--that this late hour is not too late For you to change yourself and change the King; For though the King may love me with a love More tried, and older, and more sure, may be, Than for another, for such a time as this The friend who turns him to the world again Shall have a tongue more gracious and an eye More shrewd than mine. For such a time as this The King must have a glamour to persuade him."
"The King shall have a glamour, and anon," Gawaine said, and he shot death from his eyes; "If you were King, as Arthur is--or was-- And Lancelot had carried off your Queen, And killed a score or so of your best knights-- Not mentioning my two brothers, whom he slew Unarmored and unarmed--God save your wits! Two stewards with skewers could have done as much, And you and I might now be rotting for it."
