The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems. William Morris

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СКАЧАТЬ him, love. Why did your long lips cleave

       In such strange way unto my fingers then?

       So eagerly glad to kiss, so loath to leave

       When you rose up? Why among helmed men

      Could I always tell you by your long strong arms,

       And sway like an angel's in your saddle there?

       Why sicken'd I so often with alarms

       Over the tilt-yard? Why were you more fair

      Than aspens in the autumn at their best?

       Why did you fill all lands with your great fame,

       So that Breuse even, as he rode, fear'd lest

       At turning of the way your shield should flame?

      Was it nought then, my agony and strife?

       When as day passed by day, year after year,

       I found I could not live a righteous life!

       Didst ever think queens held their truth for dear?

      O, but your lips say: Yea, but she was cold

       Sometimes, always uncertain as the spring;

       When I was sad she would be overbold,

       Longing for kisses. When war-bells did ring,

      The back-toll'd bells of noisy Camelot.

       'Now, Lord God, listen! listen, Guenevere,

       Though I am weak just now, I think there's not

       A man who dares to say: You hated her,

      And left her moaning while you fought your fill

       In the daisied meadows! lo you her thin hand,

       That on the carven stone can not keep still,

       Because she loves me against God's command,

      Has often been quite wet with tear on tear,

       Tears Launcelot keeps somewhere, surely not

       In his own heart, perhaps in Heaven, where

       He will not be these ages.' 'Launcelot!

      Loud lips, wrung heart! I say when the bells rang,

       The noisy back-toll'd bells of Camelot,

       There were two spots on earth, the thrushes sang

       In the lonely gardens where my love was not,

      Where I was almost weeping; I dared not

       Weep quite in those days, lest one maid should say,

       In tittering whispers: Where is Launcelot

       To wipe with some kerchief those tears away?

      Another answer sharply with brows knit,

       And warning hand up, scarcely lower though:

       You speak too loud, see you, she heareth it,

       This tigress fair has claws, as I well know,

      As Launcelot knows too, the poor knight! well-a-day!

       Why met he not with Iseult from the West,

       Or better still, Iseult of Brittany?

       Perchance indeed quite ladyless were best.

      Alas, my maids, you loved not overmuch

       Queen Guenevere, uncertain as sunshine

       In March; forgive me! for my sin being such,

       About my whole life, all my deeds did twine,

      Made me quite wicked; as I found out then,

       I think; in the lonely palace where each morn

       We went, my maids and I, to say prayers when

       They sang mass in the chapel on the lawn.

      And every morn I scarce could pray at all,

       For Launcelot's red-golden hair would play,

       Instead of sunlight, on the painted wall,

       Mingled with dreams of what the priest did say;

      Grim curses out of Peter and of Paul;

       Judging of strange sins in Leviticus;

       Another sort of writing on the wall,

       Scored deep across the painted heads of us.

      Christ sitting with the woman at the well,

       And Mary Magdalen repenting there,

       Her dimmed eyes scorch'd and red at sight of hell

       So hardly 'scaped, no gold light on her hair.

      And if the priest said anything that seemed

       To touch upon the sin they said we did,

       (This in their teeth) they looked as if they deem'd

       That I was spying what thoughts might be hid

      Under green-cover'd bosoms, heaving quick

       Beneath quick thoughts; while they grew red with shame,

       And gazed down at their feet: while I felt sick,

       And almost shriek'd if one should call my name.

      The thrushes sang in the lone garden there:

       But where you were the birds were scared I trow:

       Clanging of arms about pavilions fair,

       Mixed with the knights' laughs; there, as I well know,

      Rode Launcelot, the king of all the band,

       And scowling Gauwaine, like the night in day,

       And handsome Gareth, with his great white hand

       Curl'd round the helm-crest, ere he join'd the fray;

      And merry Dinadan with sharp dark face,

       All true knights loved to see; and in the fight

       Great Tristram, and though helmed you could trace

       In all his bearing the frank noble knight;

      And by him Palomydes, helmet СКАЧАТЬ