Merlin (Robinson)/Canto 6
VI
"No kings are coming on their hands and knees,Nor yet on horses or in chariots,To carry me away from you again,"Said Merlin, winding around Vivian's earA shred of her black hair. "King Arthur knowsThat I have done with kings, and that I speakNo more their crafty language. Once I knew it,But now the only language I have leftIs one that I must never let you hearToo long, or know too well. When towering deeds Once done shall only out of dust and wordsBe done again, the doer may then be waryLest in the complement of his new fabricThere be more words than dust."
"Why tell me so?"Said Vivian; and a singular thin laughCame after her thin question. "Do you thinkThat I'm so far away from historyThat I require, even of the wisest manWho ever said the wrong thing to a woman,So large a light on what I know already—When all I seek is here before me nowIn your new eyes that you have brought for meFrom Camelot? The eyes you took awayWere sad and old; and I could see in themA Merlin who remembered all the kings He ever saw, and wished himself, almost,Away from Vivian, to make other kings,And shake the world again in the old manner.I saw myself no bigger than a beetleFor several days, and wondered if your loveWere large enough to make me any largerWhen you came back. Am I a beetle still?"She stood up on her toes and held her cheekFor some time against his, and let him go.
"I fear the time has come for me to wanderA little in my prison-yard," he said.—"No, tell me everything that you have seenAnd heard and done, and seen done, and heard done,Since you deserted me. And tell me firstWhat the King thinks of me."—"The King believesThat you are almost what you are," he told her: "The beauty of all ages that are vanished,Reborn to be the wonder of one woman."—"I knew he hated me. What else of him?"—"And all that I have seen and heard and done,Which is not much, would make a weary telling;And all your part of it would be to sleep,And dream that Merlin had his beard again."—"Then tell me more about your good fool knight,Sir Dagonet. If Blaise were not half-madAlready with his pondering on the nameAnd shield of his unshielding nameless father,I'd make a fool of him. I'd call him Ajax;I'd have him shake his fist at thunder-storms,And dance a jig as long as there was lightning,And so till I forgot myself entirely.Not even your love may do so much as that."—"Thunder and lightning are no friends of mine," Said Merlin slowly, "more than they are yours;They bring me nearer to the elementsFrom which I came than I care now to be."—"You owe a service to those elements;For by their service you outwitted ageAnd made the world a kingdom of your will."—He touched her hand, smiling: "Whatever serviceOf mine awaits them will not be forgotten,"He said; and the smile faded on his face,—"Now of all graceless and ungrateful wizards—"But there she ceased, for she found in his eyesThe first of a new fear. "The wrong word rulesToday," she said; "and we'll have no more journeys."
Although he wandered rather more than everSince he had come again to BrittanyFrom Camelot, Merlin found eternally Before him a new loneliness that madeOf garden, park, and woodland, all alike,A desolation and a changelessnessDefying reason, without VivianBeside him, like a child with a black head,Or moving on before him, or somewhereSo near him that, although he saw it notWith eyes, he felt the picture of her beautyAnd shivered at the nearness of her being.Without her now there was no past or future,And a vague, soul-consuming premonitionHe found the only tenant of the present;He wondered, when she was away from him,If his avenging injured intellectMight shine with Arthur's kingdom a twin mirror,Fate's plaything, for new ages without eyesTo see therein themselves and their declension. Love made his hours a martyrdom without her;The world was like an empty house without her,Where Merlin was a prisoner of loveConfined within himself by too much freedom,Repeating an unending explorationOf many solitary silent rooms,And only in a way remembering nowThat once their very solitude and silenceHad by the magic of expectancyMade sure what now he doubted—though his doubts,Day after day, were founded on a shadow.
For now to Merlin, in his paradise,Had come an unseen angel with a swordUnseen, the touch of which was a long fearFor longer sorrow that had never come,Yet might if he compelled it. He discovered, One golden day in autumn as he wandered,That he had made the radiance of two yearsA misty twilight when he might as wellHave had no mist between him and the sun,The sun being Vivian. On his coming thenTo find her all in green against a wallOf green and yellow leaves, and crumbling breadFor birds around the fountain while she sangAnd the birds ate the bread, he told himselfThat everything today was as it wasAt first, and for a minute he believed it."I'd have you always all in green out here,"He said, "if I had much to say about it."—She clapped her crumbs away and laughed at him:"I've covered up my bones with every colorThat I can carry on them without screaming,And you have liked them all—or made me think so."— "I must have liked them if you thought I did,"He answered, sighing; "but the sight of youToday as on the day I saw you first,All green, all wonderful" . . . He tore a leafTo pieces with a melancholy careThat made her smile.—"Why pause at 'wonderful'?You've hardly been yourself since you came backFrom Camelot, where that unpleasant KingSaid things that you have never said to me."—He looked upon her with a worn reproach:"The King said nothing that I keep from you."—"What is it then?" she asked, imploringly;"You man of moods and miracles, what is it?"—He shook his head and tore another leaf:"There is no need of asking what it is;Whatever you or I may choose to name it,The name of it is Fate, who played with me And gave me eyes to read of the unwrittenMore lines than I have read. I see no moreToday than yesterday, but I remember.My ways are not the ways of other men;My memories go forward. It was youWho said that we were not in tune with Time;It was not I who said it."—"But you knew it;What matter then who said it?"—"It was youWho said that Merlin was your punishmentFor being in tune with him and not with Time—With Time or with the world; and it was youWho said you were alone, even here with Merlin;It was not I who said it. It is IWho tell you now my inmost thoughts." He laughedAs if at hidden pain around his heart,But there was not much laughing in his eyes.
They walked, and for a season they were silent:"I shall know what you mean by that," she said,"When you have told me. Here's an oak you like,And here's a place that fits me wondrous wellTo sit in. You sit there. I've seen you thereBefore; and I have spoiled your noble thoughtsBy walking all my fingers up and downYour countenance, as if they were the feetOf a small animal with no great claws.Tell me a story now about the world,And the men in it, what they do in it,And why it is they do it all so badly."—"I've told you every story that I know,Almost," he said.—"O, don't begin like that."—"Well, once upon a time there was a King."—"That has a more commendable address;Go on, and tell me all about the King; I'll bet the King had warts or carbuncles,Or something wrong in his divine insides,To make him wish that Adam had died young."
Merlin observed her slowly with a frownOf saddened wonder. She laughed rather lightly,And at his heart he felt again the swordWhose touch was a long fear for longer sorrow."Well, once upon a time there was a king,"He said again, but now in a dry voiceThat wavered and betrayed a venturing.He paused, and would have hesitated longer,But something in him that was not himselfCompelled an utterance that his tongue obeyed,As an unwilling child obeys a fatherWho might be richer for obedienceIf he obeyed the child: "There was a king Who would have made his reign a monumentFor kings and peoples of the waiting agesTo reverence and remember, and to this endHe coveted and won, with no adoTo make a story of, a neighbor queenWho limed him with her smile and had of him,In token of their sin, what he found soonTo be a sort of mongrel son and nephew—And a most precious reptile in addition—To ornament his court and carry arms,And latterly to be the darker halfOf ruin. Also the king, who made of loveMore than he made of life and death together,Forgot the world and his example in itFor yet another woman—one of many—And this one he made Queen, albeit he knewThat her unsworn allegiance to the knight That he had loved the best of all his orderMust one day bring along the coming endOf love and honor and of everything;And with a kingdom builded on two pitsOf living sin,—so founded by the willOf one wise counsellor who loved the king,And loved the world and therefore made him kingTo be a mirror for it,—the king reigned wellFor certain years, awaiting a sure doom;For certain years he waved across the worldA royal banner with a Dragon on it;And men of every land fell worshippingThe Dragon as it were the living God,And not the living sin."
She rose at that,And after a calm yawn, she looked at Merlin: "Why all this new insistence upon sin?"She said; "I wonder if I understandThis king of yours, with all his pits and dragons;I know I do not like him." A thinner lightWas in her eyes than he had found in themSince he became the willing prisonerThat she had made of him; and on her mouthLay now a colder line of ironyThan all his fears or nightmares could have drawnBefore today: "What reason do you knowFor me to listen to this king of yours?What reading has a man of woman's days,Even though the man be Merlin and a prophet?"
"I know no call for you to love the king,"Said Merlin, driven ruinously alongBy the vindictive urging of his fate; "I know no call for you to love the king,Although you serve him, knowing not yet the kingYou serve. There is no man, or any woman,For whom the story of the living kingIs not the story of the living sin.I thought my story was the common one,For common recognition and regard."
"Then let us have no more of it," she said;For we are not so common, I believe,That we need kings and pits and flags and dragonsTo make us know that we have let the worldGo by us. Have you missed the world so muchThat you must have it in with all its clotsAnd wounds and bristles on to make us happy—Like Blaise, with shouts and horns and seven menTriumphant with a most unlovely boar? Is there no other story in the worldThan this one of a man that you made kingTo be a moral for the speckled ages?You said once long ago, if you remember,'You are too strange a lady to fear specks';And it was you, you said, who feared them not.Why do you look at me as at a snakeAll coiled to spring at you and strike you dead?I am not going to spring at you, or bite you;I'm going home. And you, if you are kind,Will have no fear to wander for an hour.I'm sure the time has come for you to wander;And there may come a time for you to sayWhat most you think it is that we need hereTo make of this Broceliande a refugeWhere two disheartened sinners may forgetA world that has today no place for them." A melancholy wave of revelationBroke over Merlin like a rising sea,Long viewed unwillingly and long denied.He saw what he had seen, but would not feel,Till now the bitterness of what he feltWas in his throat, and all the coldness of itWas on him and around him like a floodOf lonelier memories than he had saidWere memories, although he knew them nowFor what they were—for what his eyes had seen,For what his ears had heard and what his heartHad felt, with him not knowing what it felt.But now he knew that his cold angel's nameWas Change, and that a mightier will than hisOr Vivian's had ordained that he be there.To Vivian he could not say anythingBut words that had no more of hope in them Than anguish had of peace: "I meant the world . . .I meant the world," he groaned; "not you—not me."
Again the frozen line of ironyWas on her mouth. He looked up once at it.And then away—too fearful of her eyesTo see what he could hear now in her laughThat melted slowly into what she said,Like snow in icy water: "This world of yoursWill surely be the end of us. And why not?I'm overmuch afraid we're part of it,—Or why do we build walls up all around us,With gates of iron that make us think the dayOf judgment's coming when they clang behind us?And yet you tell me that you fear no specks!With you I never cared for them enoughTo think of them. I was too strange a lady. And your return is now a speckled kingAnd something that you call a living sin—That's like an uninvited poor relationWho comes without a welcome, rather late,And on a foundered horse."
"Specks? What are specks?"He gazed at her in a forlorn wondermentThat made her say: "You said, 'I fear them not.''If I were king in Camelot,' you said,'I might fear more than specks.' Have you forgotten?Don't tell me, Merlin, you are growing old.Why don't you make somehow a queen of me,And give me half the world? I'd wager thrushesThat I should reign, with you to turn the wheel,As well as any king that ever was. The curse on me is that I cannot serveA ruler who forgets that he is king."
In his bewildered misery Merlin thenStared hard at Vivian's face, more like a slaveWho sought for common mercy than like Merlin:"You speak a language that was never mine,Or I have lost my wits. Why do you seizeThe flimsiest of opportunitiesTo make of what I said another thingThan love or reason could have let me say,Or let me fancy? Why do you keep the truthSo far away from me, when all your gatesWill open at your word and let me goTo some place where no fear or wearinessOf yours need ever dwell? Why does a woman,Made otherwise a miracle of love And loveliness, and of immortal beauty,Tear one word by the roots out of a thousand,And worry it, and torture it, and shake it,Like a small dog that has a rag to play with?What coil of an ingenious destinyIs this that makes of what I never meantA meaning as remote as hell from heaven?"
"I don't know," Vivian said reluctantly,And half as if in pain; "I'm going home.I'm going home and leave you here to wander.Pray take your kings and sins away somewhereAnd bury them, and bury the Queen in also.I know this king; he lives in Camelot,And I shall never like him. There are specksAlmost all over him. Long live the king,But not the king who lives in Camelot, With Modred, Lancelot, and Guinevere—And all four speckled like a merry nestOf addled eggs together. You made him KingBecause you loved the world and saw in himFrom infancy a mirror for the millions.The world will see itself in him, and thenThe world will say its prayers and wash its face,And build for some new king a new foundation.Long live the King! . . . But now I apprehendA time for me to shudder and grow oldAnd garrulous—and so become a frightFor Blaise to take out walking in warm weather—Should I give way to long consideringOf worlds you may have lost while prisoned hereWith me and my light mind. I contemplateAnother name for this forbidden place,And one more fitting. Tell me, if you find it, Some fitter name than Eden. We have hadA man and woman in it for some time,And now, it seems, we have a Tree of Knowledge."She looked up at the branches overheadAnd shrugged her shoulders. Then she went away;And what was left of Merlin's happiness,Like a disloyal phantom, followed her.
He felt the sword of his cold angel thrustAnd twisted in his heart, as if the endWere coming next, but the cold angel passedInvisibly and left him desolate,With misty brow and eyes. "The man who seesMay see too far, and he may see too lateThe path he takes unseen," he told himselfWhen he found thought again. "The man who seesMay go on seeing till the immortal flame That lights and lures him folds him in its heart,And leaves of what there was of him to dieAn item of inhospitable dustThat love and hate alike must hide away;Or there may still be charted for his feetA dimmer faring, where the touch of timeWere like the passing of a twilight moth From flower to flower into oblivion,If there were not somewhere a barren endOf moths and flowers, and glimmering far awayBeyond a desert where the flowerless daysAre told in slow defeats and agonies,The guiding of a nameless light that onceHad made him see too much—and has by nowRevealed in death, to the undying childOf Lancelot, the Grail. For this pure lightHas many rays to throw, for many men To follow; and the wise are not all pure,Nor are the pure all wise who follow it.There are more rays than men. But let the manWho saw too much, and was to drive himselfFrom paradise, play too lightly or too longAmong the moths and flowers, he finds at lastThere is a dim way out; and he shall gropeWhere pleasant shadows lead him to the plainThat has no shadow save his own behind him.And there, with no complaint, nor much regret,Shall he plod on, with death between him nowAnd the far light that guides him, till he fallsAnd has an empty thought of empty rest;Then Fate will put a mattock in his handsAnd lash him while he digs himself the graveThat is to be the pallet and the shroudOf his poor blundering bones. The man who saw Too much must have an eye to see at lastWhere Fate has marked the clay; and he shall delve,Although his hand may slacken, and his kneesMay rock without a method as he toils;For there's a delving that is to be done—If not for God, for man. I see the light,But I shall fall before I come to it;For I am old. I was young yesterday.Time's hand that I have held away so longGrips hard now on my shoulder. Time has won.Tomorrow I shall say to VivianThat I am old and gaunt and garrulous,And tell her one more story: I am old."
There were long hours for Merlin after that,And much long wandering in his prison-yard,Where now the progress of each heavy step Confirmed a stillness of impending changeAnd imminent farewell. To Vivian's earThere came for many days no other storyThan Merlin's iteration of his loveAnd his departure from Broceliande,Where Merlin still remained. In Vivian's eye,There was a quiet kindness, and at timesA smoky flash of incredulityThat faded into pain. Was this the Merlin—This incarnation of idolatryAnd all but supplicating deference—This bowed and reverential contradictionOf all her dreams and her realities—Was this the Merlin who for years and yearsBefore she found him had so made her love himThat kings and princes, thrones and diadems,And honorable men who drowned themselves For love, were less to her than melon-shells?Was this the Merlin whom her fate had sentOne spring day to come ringing at her gate,Bewildering her love with happy terrorThat later was to be all happiness?Was this the Merlin who had made the worldHalf over, and then left it with a laughTo be the youngest, oldest, weirdest, gayest,And wisest, and sometimes the foolishestOf all the men of her consideration?Was this the man who had made other menAs ordinary as arithmetic?Was this man Merlin who came now so slowlyTowards the fountain where she stood againIn shimmering green? Trembling, he took her handsAnd pressed them fondly, one upon the other,Between his:
"I was wrong that other day,For I have one more story. I am old."He waited like one hungry for the wordNot said; and she found in his eyes a lightAs patient as a candle in a windowThat looks upon the sea and is a markFor ships that have gone down. "Tomorrow," he said;"Tomorrow I shall go away againTo Camelot; and I shall see the KingOnce more; and I may come to you againOnce more; and I shall go away againFor ever. There is now no more than thatFor me to do; and I shall do no more.I saw too much when I saw Camelot;And I saw farther backward into Time,And forward, than a man may see and live,When I made Arthur king. I saw too far, But not so far as this. Fate played with meAs I have played with Time; and Time, like me,Being less than Fate, will have on me his vengeance.On Fate there is no vengeance, even for God."He drew her slowly into his embraceAnd held her there, but when he kissed her lipsThey were as cold as leaves and had no answer;For Time had given him then, to prove his words,A frozen moment of a woman's life.
When Merlin the next morning came againIn the same pilgrim robe that he had wornWhile he sat waiting where the cherry-blossomsOutside 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 IAre going down together to the shore,And Blaise is coming back. For this one dayBe 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 earsOf distant wheels departing. When it ceased,She closed the gate again so quietlyThat Merlin could have heard no sound of it.