Madison Cawein - Accolon of Gaul, with Other Poems

As if each echo, which that wild horn's blast
Waked from its sleep, – the quietude had cast
Tender as mercy on it, – in a band
Rose moving sounds of gladness hand in hand,
Came twelve fair damsels, sunny in sovereign white,
From that red woodland gliding. These each knight
Graced with obeisance and "Our lord," said one,
"Tenders ye courtesy until the dawn;
The Earl Sir Damas; well in his wide keep,
Seen thither with due worship, ye shall sleep."
And then they came o'erwearied to a hall,
An owlet-haunted pile, whose weedy wall
Towered based on crags rough, windy turrets high;
An old, gaunt giant-castle 'gainst a sky
Wherein the moon hung foam-faced, large and full.
Down on dank sea-foundations broke the dull,
Weird monotone of ocean, and wide rolled
The watery wilderness that was as old
As loud, defying headlands stretching out
Beneath still stars with a voluminous shout
Of wreck and wrath forever. Here the two
Were feasted fairly and with worship due
All errant knights, and then a damsel led
Each knight with flaring lamp unto his bed
Down separate corridores of that great keep;
And soon they rested in a heavy sleep.

And then King Arthur woke, and woke mid groans
Of dolorous knights; and 'round him lay the bones
Of many woful champions mouldering;
And he could hear the open ocean ring
Wild wasted waves above. And so he thought
"It is some nightmare weighing me, distraught
By that long hunt;" and then he sought to shake
The horror off and to himself awake;
But still he heard sad groans and whispering sighs,
And deep in iron-ribbéd cells the eyes
Of pale, cadaverous knights shone fixed on him
Unhappy; and he felt his senses swim
With foulness of that cell, and, "What are ye?
Ghosts of chained champions or a company
Of phantoms, bodiless fiends? If speak ye can,
Speak, in God's name! for I am here – a man!"
Then groaned the shaggy throat of one who lay
A dusky nightmare dying day by day,
Yet once of comely mien and strong withal
And greatly gracious; but, now hunger-tall,
With scrawny beard and faded hands and cheeks:
"Sir knight," said he, "know that the wretch who speaks
Is but an one of twenty knights here shamed
Of him who lords this castle, Damas named,
Who mews us here for slow starvation keen;
Around you fade the bones of some eighteen
Tried knights of Britain; and God grant that soon
My hunger-lengthened ghost will see the moon,
Beyond the vileness of this prisonment!"
With that he sighed and round the dungeon went
A rustling sigh, like saddened sin, and so
Another dim, thin voice complained their woe: —

"He doth enchain us with this common end,
That he find one who will his prowess bend
To the attainment of his livelihood.
A younger brother, Ontzlake, hath he; good
And courteous, withal most noble, whom
This Damas hates – yea, ever seeks his doom;
Denying him to their estate all right
Save that he holds by main of arms and might.
And thro' puissance hath he some fat fields
And one rich manor sumptuous, where he yields
Belated knights host's hospitality.
Then bold is Ontzlake, Damas cowardly.
For Ontzlake would decide by sword and lance
Body for body this inheritance;
But Damas dotes on life so courageless;
Thus on all knights perforce lays coward's stress
To fight for him or starve. For ye must know
That in his country he is hated so
That no helm here is who will take the fight;
Thus fortunes it our plight is such a plight."
Quoth he and ceased. And wondering at the tale
The King was thoughtful, and each faded, pale,
Poor countenance still conned him when he spake:
"And what reward if one this battle take?"
"Deliverance for all if of us one
Consent to be his party's champion.
But treachery and he are so close kin
We loathe the part as some misshapen sin,
And here would rather dally on to death
Than serving falseness save and slave our breath."

"May God deliver you for mercy, sirs!"
And right anon an iron noise he hears
Of chains clanked loose and bars jarred rusty back,
The heavy gate croak open; and the black
Of that rank cell astonished was with light,
That danced fantastic with the frantic night.
One high torch sidewise worried by the gust
Sunned that lorn den of hunger, death and rust,
And one tall damsel vaguely vestured, fair
With shadowy hair, poised on the rocky stair.
And laughing on the King, "What cheer?" said she;
"God's life! the keep stinks vilely! and to see
So noble knights endungeoned hollowing here
Doth pain me sore with pity – but, what cheer?"

"Thou mockest us; for me the sorriest
Since I was suckled; and of any quest
To me the most imperiling and strange. —
But what wouldst thou?" said Arthur. She, "A change
I offer thee, through thee to these with thee,
And thou but grant me in love's courtesy
To fight for Damas and his livelihood.
And if thou wilt not – look! thou seest this brood
Of lean and dwindled bellies specter-eyed,
Keen knights erst who refused me? – so decide."
Then thought the King of the sweet sky, the breeze
That blew delirious over waves and trees;
Thick fields of grasses and the sunny earth
Whose beating heat filled the red heart with mirth,
And made the world one sovereign pleasure house
Where king and serf might revel and carouse;
Then of the hunt on autumn-plaintive hills;
Lone forest chapels by their radiant rills:
His palace rich at Caerlleon upon Usk,
And Camelot's loud halls that thro' the dusk
Blazed far and bloomed a rose of revelry;
Or in the misty morning shadowy
Loomed grave for audience. And then he thought
Of his Round Table and that Grael wide sought
In haunted holds on demon-sinful shore;
Then marveled of what wars would rise and roar
With dragon heads unconquered and devour
This realm of Britain and pluck up that flower
Of chivalry whence ripened his renown:
And then the reign of some besotted crown,
A bandit king of lust, idolatry —
And with that thought for tears he could not see:
Then of his greatest champions, King Ban's son,
And Galahad and Tristram, Accolon:
And then, ah God! of his dear Guenevere,
And with that thought – to starve and moulder here? —
For, being unfriend to Arthur and his court,
Well wist he this grim Earl would bless that sport
Of fortune which had fortuned him so well
To have to starve his sovereign in a cell. —
In the entombing rock where ground the deep;
And all the life shut in his limbs did leap
Thro' eager veins and sinews fierce and red,
Stung on to action, and he rose and said:
"That which thou askest is right hard, but, lo!
To rot here harder; I will fight his foe.
But, mark, I have no weapons and no mail,
No steed against that other to avail."

"Fear not for that; and thou shalt lack none, sire."
And so she led the path: her torch's fire
Scaring wild spidery shadows at each stride
From cob-webbed coignes of scowling passes wide,
That labyrinthed the rock foundation strong
Of that ungainly fortress bleak of wrong.
At length they came to a nail-studded door,
Which she unlocked with one harsh key she bore
Mid many keys bunched at her girdle; thence
They issued on a terraced eminence.
Beneath the sea broke sounding; and the King
Breathed open air that had the smell and sting
Of brine morn-vigored and blue-billowed foam;
For in the East the second dawning's gloam,
Since that unlucky chase, was freaked with streaks
Red as the ripe stripes of an apple's cheeks.
And so within that larger light of dawn
It seemed to Arthur now that he had known
This maiden at his court, and so he asked.
But she, well-tutored, her real person masked,
And answered falsely; "Nay, deceive thee not;
Thou saw'st me ne'er at Arthur's court, I wot.
For here it likes me best to sing and spin
And work the hangings my sire's halls within:
No courts or tournaments or gallants brave
To flatter me and love! for me – the wave,
The forest, field and sky; the calm, the storm;
My garth wherein I walk to think; the charm
Of uplands redolent at bounteous noon
And full of sunlight; night's free stars and moon;
White ships that pass some several every year;
These lonesome towers and those wild mews to hear."
"An owlet maid!" the King laughed. But, untrue
Was she, and of false Morgane's treasonous crew,
Who worked vile wiles ev'n to the slaying of
The King, half-brother, whom she did not love.
And presently she brought him where in state
This swarthy Damas with mailed cowards sate…