Tristram (Robinson)/Canto 8

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

VIII

Albeit the sun was high, the breath of morningWas in the trees where Tristram stood aloneWith happiness, watching a bright summer seaThat like a field of heaving steel and silverFlashed there below him, and as harmlesslyAs if an ocean had no darker work To do than flash, and was to bear thereafterNo other freight than light. Joy sang in himTill he could sing for joy, and would have done so,Had not the lowly fear that humbles princesConstrained him and so hindered him from givingA little too much to those who served and feared him,And willingly would listen; wherefore, turningAway from the white music the waves made,He lost himself again in a small forest,Admiring the new miracle of the leaves,And hearing, if one bird sang, as many as ten.Now he could see once more the walls and towersOf Joyous Gard over the tops of oaksBefore him; and while he stared at their appearance,A cold familiar fear of the unrealSeized him and held him fixed, like one awaitingSome blast of magic that would shake them downTo dust, and all within them, and Isolt.He saw the night-like hair and the white armsAnd the wet-shining eyes that half asleepHad laughed at him again before he left them,Still shining and still sleepy; and for the whileHe saw them, he saw neither towers nor walls; And for a moment while he could see nothing,He was not large enough to hold his heart.But soon he smiled, seeing where nothing yetHad crashed or vanished, or was like to fail him,And moved along slowly around the placeTo a green field that like a sea of landLay flecked and shadowed by the summer windThat swept it, saying nothing of how soonOr late the trampling feet of men and horsesWould make a sorry shambles of it all,And for another queen. He wandered on,And the green grass was music as he walked—Until beyond it there were trees again,And through them was the sea, still silver-white,And flashing as before. Wherever he looked,He saw dark eyes and hair and a white faceThat was not white, but was the color of love;Or that was near enough to being a name,He thought—or might have thought, had he been thinking—For that which had no name. To think at allWould be a more perfidious insolenceTo fate, he felt, than to forget the sunThat shone this morning down on Joyous Gard, Where now there was all joy. He felt it shining,And throughout time and space he felt it singing;He felt and heard it moving on the grassBehind him, and among the moving treesAround him, and along the foaming shore,And in the ocean where he splashed and swamLike a triumphant and almighty fish,Relinquishing the last concern of earth,Save one that followed him. Below the wavesThere were dark laughing eyes and faintly seenPhantasmal flashings and white witcheries,Like those of a dim nixie to be trustedNever to drown him, or not willingly,Nor to deceive him. For the time it takesFor joy to think of death and to forget it,He thought of himself drowned. But when his headCame up and above water, and he was blindAt first with many a shaft of laughing fire,All shot from somewhere out of violet eyes,He had thought long enough. Some day or otherHe might think more of it, but for some timeHe was to live not thinking of his end,Or thinking of it he was not to live. On shore again, he wished all mortal choice,If choice there was, might come only to that.Whatever it was that filled life high and full,It was not time. So he had told IsoltUnder the stars; and so he told himselfUnder the trees, and was believing itWith all his might and main. Something on himHad fallen, in all appearance, that fell notOn men that for one reason or anotherWere to fill life with time. He stretched his arms,Laughing to be alive; and over his headLeaves in the wind that gave them a gay voiceFlickered and ticked with laughter, saying to him,“Tristram, it is for you to stay or go.You will not go. If you leave all there isThat fate calls yours—one jewel of a lustreMore than of earth and of all else on earth,Glowing in more than gold—the gods that liveIn trees will tell the others, and there shall beNo place prepared in heaven or hell for oneWho failed in seeing until too late to see,That for the sake of living it was his lifeAnd all there was of life that he was leaving. Probably you will not live very longIf you stay here; and the gods who live in treesCare little how long man lives.” He laughed againTo think of that, and heard the leaves and wavesLaughing to think of that. Like a man lostIn paradise, and before his time to die,He wandered inland, much at ease with fate,And in precarious content secure.

Security, the friendly mask of changeAt which we smile, not seeing what smiles behind it,For days and nights, and for more days and nights,And so for more and more, was unmolestedThrough a long vigil over Joyous Gard;And no dark thunder coming from the west,Or lightning, shook security, or seared it,Or touched those walls and towers with even a flickSignificant of irruption or invasion.He who had laughed at what the laughing treesHad said, may have laughed well.

When one day Tristram, having heSummer was going,When one day Tristram, having heard pleasantly Isolt’s half-hearted and by now less frequentReversion to the inveterate whether or notOf her deserting him in time to save him,Or of his vanishing, said, stroking herAs if she were some admirable cat,“Whenever I set myself to count the poundsOf beauty you have for your not having them,—Through fear for me, perhaps,—I could affirmThat your disturbance has a virtue in it,Which I had not foreseen. Were you too happy,Your face might round itself like a full fruit,And all those evanescent little planesAnd changes that are like celestial trapsTo catch and hold and lose the flying lightsAnd unseen shadows that make loveliness,Might go—or rather might not be left the same;Although if I saw you deformed and twisted,You would still be the same.”

Who forgets nothing if we give h“Dear child of thought,Who forgets nothing if we give him time,”She said, “if you saw me deformed and twisted,You might sail back to Brittany so fast That all the little fishes would be frightened.Never persuade yourself that you believeOr need believe, so boundlessly as that.You will be happier if you leave to meThe love of someone else’s imperfections.I know—but never mind that. It will not come.We are not for the fireside, or for old ageIn any retreat of ancient stateliness.If that were so, then this would not be so.Yet when this fragment of your longer lifeHas come and gone, it will have come and gone.There is no doubt of that; and unseen yearsMay tell your memory more of me than loveMay let you know today. After those yearsIn Cornwall, where my fire of life burned lowerThan you have ever known, I can say this.Mine is a light that will go out sometime,Tristram. I am not going to be old.There is a little watchman in my heartWho is always telling me what time it is.I’ll say this once to you, and never but once,To tell you better why harm, for my poor sake,Must not be yours. I could believe it best— If I could say it—to say it was all over.There is your world outside, all fame and banners,And it was never mine to take from you.You must not let me take your world awayFrom you, after all this. Love is not that.Before you are much older, I supposeYou will go back to Brittany, where Isolt—That other Isolt—will think, and some day know.Women are not so bitter if once they know,And if the other is dead. Now forget that,And kiss me as if we were to live for ever.Perhaps we shall, somewhere.”

And shivered, and they were silShe smiled at himAnd shivered, and they were silent for a while.Then she said, “Do not say it. You’ll only sayThat if I lost my ears and had no hair,And I had whelks and moles all over my face,Your love would be the same as it is now—So let’s believe, and leave it. And if not that,Your love would find new benefits and rewardsIn losing all for me—while yet there’s timeNot to lose all. If you think only of me, You may forget how far a king’s arm reaches,And what reprisals he may buy with goldAnd golden promises.”

Be damned,” he said, “a“May the kings allBe damned,” he said, “and their reprisals also.If this that you have hidden from me so wellHides truth within it—and may God say no!—I shall have one more right, if more be needed,Never to let you go while I’m alive.Tell me you said it only to be sureThere was no truth in it.”

And only smiled again, shakinShe said no more,And only smiled again, shaking her head,While in her calm and shining eyes he foundAnother last look; and it was not like oneThat he had seen before and had rememberedEver since that cold moonlight on those stairs,And those cold waves below. But though the wayShe looked at him this time, and all she toldSo silently, and all she did not tell,Was not forgotten, security remained Unchanging, and a friendly sentinel;And neither, as with a hush of understanding,Save with unwilling eyes now and again,Said more of shadows; and while autumn came,Tristram would see no cloud, or a cloud coming,Between them and the sun. Whether it rainedOr not, the sun was always shining there,Or wheresoever the hour might find him riding,Or sailing home with singing fishermen,Or losing himself in forage of new scenes,Alone, for the sheer joy of being aloneAnd seeing Isolt behind him with BrangwaineAnd Gouvernail, and with almost a townOf Lancelot’s men and women to attend them.

Love must have wings to fly away from love,And to fly back again. So Tristram’s love,And Tristram with it, flew, for the sake of flying,Far as it would; and if he fared aloneThrough mist and rain, there were two violet eyesThat made of mist and rain a pleasant fire,Warming him as he went. If on the seaThat fell and rose interminably around him, His manful avocation was to feignEscape from blue-black waves of Irish hair,There were no other waves worth mentioning.And if allured by unfamiliar scenesAnd distances, he found himself astray,Or comfortably lost, there was no redThat any western sky might show so fairBeyond the world as one that was still on it,A red that mixed itself alive with white,Never the same way twice. It mantled nowFairer than phantom flame in a white faceThat was itself a phantom, and yet so realThat seeing it fade and smile and fade again,He trembled, wondering still and still assuredThat not far off, and always waiting for himIn Joyous Gard, while he saw pictures of herThat were almost Isolt alive to see,There was Isolt alive that he could feelWhen his hands touched her, and find musicalWhen his heart listened. There were other womenWho murmured peradventure for men’s earsTo hear, yet while his own were not engagedOr implicated they were ghosts of women, Dumb in a hell of men that had no ears,For all they were to him—albeit his loveOf everything, where everything was Isolt,Would not have had that so.

His hours, he yielded to the setHaving outwalkedHis hours, he yielded to the setting sun,And soon enhancing for the eyes of manWith gold of earth, and with his exaltation,The distant gold of heaven, he borrowed a horseFor a journey, never alone, through falling shadowsAnd falling leaves. Back to the walls and towersHe went that now held heaven and all but GodTo welcome him with wild and happy eyesAnd dark hair waving over them, and a flameOf red that in the firelight was immersedIn burning white, white fire and red together,And her white arms to hold him while she askedWhere he had been, what insects he had seen,And who was king of Salem. Leaves and flowers,Wild roses for Isolt, encumbered him,But were no bulk or burden as on he rode,Singing, and seeing always in the firelight He should find shining at his journey’s end—Isolt, always Isolt. She was not there,He fancied, smiling; she had never been there,Save in a dream of his; the towers and wallsOf Joyous Gard were only a dream of his;But heaven had let him dream for a whole summer,And he was dreaming still as he rode throughThe silent gate, where there were silent menWho looked at him as if he were a stranger,Whose tongue was none of theirs. Troubled and vexed,He felt the stillness of a differenceIn their attention, as for some defectOr lapse of his that he could not remember;And saying a word about a stranger’s horse,He passed them on his way to the still doorWhere joy so often entered and came out.A wonted sense of welcome failing him,He summoned it from the twilight on the stairsAnd half began to sing with a dry throatThat held no song. He entered the same roomWhere first Isolt had found him waiting for her,And where, since then, he had so often foundIsolt, waiting for him. She was not there— And that was strange. She was not always there,But it was strange that she was not there now.He stared about him, wondering that one room,Holding so many things that he had seen,And seen again, should hold at the same timeSo much of silence. What had happened there?Where were those arms, and the dark happy eyes,Always half wet with joy at sight of him?He made himself insist that he could smileWhile helpless drops of fear came out of him,And he asked of his heart that beat so hardWhy he should be afraid. It was no markIn his experience to be found afraid,But he could find no name warmer than fearFor the cold sickness that was in him now,Although he named it only to disown it.“A woman may not be always in one place,”He thought, and said, “Isolt!” She was not there.He saw the chimney, and saw no fire was there—And that was strange. It was not always there,But there or not there, it should be there now.“And all fires are not lighted at one time,”He thought, and said, “Isolt!” There was no sound In this room, or the next room, or the next;There was no sound anywhere in the whole house—Except the pounding of his heart, which feltTo him as if it were the whole of him.He was afraid, and done with all disowning,And perilously was not afraid of that.“Is not one here who dares to answer me?”He muttered slowly, but he could not move—Not even when he believed that he heard somethingAlive behind the heavy velvet curtainWhere he had heard Isolt, so long agoThat now it seemed that she might never have come,If now she were not gone. For a gasp of timeThat only fooled him to a surer knowingThat this was not Isolt, he told himselfIt was—like a man dying who lies to lifeFor the last empty joy of a last lie.The sound he heard was not the mouse-like noiseThat mice and women make. Be what it might,He scarcely heard it; and not heeding it,He stood alone with his hands hanging clenched,More like a man of bronze than a man breathing,Until he shook and would have swayed and fallen Had he not stumbled heavily to a couchThat filled a corner filled already with shadows.Sitting inert upon the edge of it,He sent a searching gaze all over the room,Seeing everything but the one thing he stroveTo see; and last he stared upon the floorBefore him, where lay scattered some wild flowers,Wild roses for Isolt, and saw them thereAs if they were a thousand miles away.Then he looked up again, turning his faceEnough to see in the same room with him,Rigid and silent, like a friend ordainedTo strike again a friend already stricken,Gawaine from Camelot. Tristram arose,Propping himself with pride and courtesy,And stood there waiting for Gawaine to tell himAs much as he might tell.

He said; and then the look o“I have come too late.”He said; and then the look of Tristram vanquishedAnd routed the battalion of brave wordsThat he had mustered. “And for that I’m sorry.Mark is abroad again, and has been free For just how long the devil himself may know.The Queen was by the shore, under some trees,Where she would sit for hours alone sometimes,Watching the ocean—or so Brangwaine says—Alone and happy. Your wits will see the rest.They carried her off with them in a small boat,And now she’s on a ship that sails to Cornwall.I do not know a land that has a lawWhereby a man may follow a king’s shipFor the king’s wife, and have a form of welcomeBetter than battle. You are not trimmed for that.Forgive me—we did all we could. I am here,And here too late. If I were you, I fancy,I should tear one more leaf out of my book,And let the next new page be its own story.”

Each word of Gawaine’s, falling like a blowDealt viciously by one unseen, fell slowly,And with a not premeditated aim,So accurate and unfailing in its proofThat when the last had fallen—without reply,And without time to summon will or reason,Tristram, the loud accredited strong warrior, Tristram, the learned Nimrod among hunters,Tristram, the loved of women, the harp-player,Tristram, the doom of his prophetic mother,Dropped like a log; and silent on the floor,With wild flowers lying around him on the floor—Wild roses for Isolt—lay like a log.

Gawaine, Brangwaine, and Gouvernail all waitedBy the couch where they had laid him, but no wordsOf any resigned allegiance to a fateThat ruled all men acknowledging its rewards,And its ingratitudes and visitations,Were on his tongue to say; and in his eyesThere was no kind of light that any one thereHad seen in them before. After long time,He stared at Brangwaine, and his lips moved once,Trying to speak, but he said nothing then;And he said nothing that was heard that nightBy man or woman.

When Gawaine, less oThere was a week gone byWhen Gawaine, less obscured at each day’s endIn his confusions, and far less at homeThan ever, saw fit to feel that his return Was urging him away. His presence thereWas no contagious good that he could see,And he felt lonely and unnecessary.There was no Tristram left that he remembered;Brangwaine, whenever she saw him, did not see him;And Gouvernail, to one who had always livedFor life, was only gloom looking for death,And no right company for Gawaine. Brangwaine,He learned, was going away with him tomorrow,As far as Camelot, and he sighed to say so,Seeing how fair she was. “Brangwaine, Gawaine, . . .A deal of music in this world is wasted,”He thought, “because a woman cries and kills it.They’ve taken away Isolt, Tristram is mad,Or dead, or God knows what’s the name of it,And all because a woman had eyes and ears,And beauty enough to strike him dumb with it.Why must a man, where there are loaves and fishes,See only as far as one crumb on his table?Why must he make one morsel of a lifetime?Here is no place for me. If this be love,May I live all alone out on a rock,And starve out there with only the sea to drink, And only myself to eat. If this be love,May I wear blinkers always, or better yet,Go blindfold through the perils of this world,Which I have always liked, and so, God help me,Be led to safety like a hooded horseThrough sparks and unseen fire. If this be love,May I grow merry and old and amiableOn hate. I’ll fix on someone who admires me,And sting him, and then hate him all my days.‘Gawaine, Brangwaine,’—what else is that than song?If I were a musician, and had leisure,I’d surely some day make a tune of it.‘Brangwaine, Gawaine.’” He frowned upon events,And sighed again that men were not alike.“‘Gawaine, Brangwaine,’” Brangwaine was fair to see,And life, while he could sing, was not very long,And woe not his annoyed him.

With all his men, and BrangwainGawaine wentWith all his men, and Brangwaine, the next day;And Tristram, like a statue that was moving,Still haunted Joyous Gard, where Gouvernail,Disconsolate, and half scared out of sorrow,Followed and feared, and waited for a sound Of more than Yes or No. So for a monthHe waited, hearing nothing of life without,Barring a word from Camelot of IsoltIn Cornwall, and alive. He told Tristram,And Tristram said, “Alive!” Saying no more,He watched the waves with eyes where GouvernailSaw not what he would see in them. The lightThat had been Tristram was gone out of them,And Tristram was not there, even when he spoke,Saying at last, “This is not good for you,Gouvernail. You are not my friend for this.Go back to Brittany and forget all this.”Gouvernail’s ears were glad and his heart dancedTo hear so many words, but long days passedAnd went before he heard so many again.Then came a letter which a stranger brought,Who, seeing it held by Tristram, rode away,Saying his work was done. With avid handsAnd eyes half blind with hope, he tore it open,To make whatever he would of words like these:

“Greeting, Sir Tristram, Prince of Lyonesse.It was a joy to share with you a house Where I was once. That was a pleasant house,Say what you will of it; and it was pleasantOf me to make you safe and comfortable,Say what you will of that. This will be sentFor your distinguished and abused attentionFrom my domain, here in this land of Gore,Which is my land, and is a pleasant land,As you may say of it yourself sometime.More to the salt and essence, there’s a ladyAlive in Cornwall—or she was alive—Who is alone and sore bestead, I fear me,Amort for love of you. If you go soon—Too soon you cannot go, if you would see her—And are not burned alive, or flayed alive,Or otherwise hindered or invalidated,You may behold once more that Irish hair,And those same Irish eyes that once engagedAnd occupied you to your desperation.I cannot answer on more authorityThan hope for your reception or return,But you, being orgulous and full as an eggOf fate, may find a way through fire and steelTo see that face again. Were I a man, And were I thus apprised as to the lady,I should anon be rowelling my good horse,And on my way to Cornwall. Peace be with you,And may no evil await or overtake you.Farewell, Sir Tristram, Prince of Lyonesse.”

Too sorely stricken already to feel stings,Tristram, with Morgan’s letter crushed and wrinkled,Sat unresponsive, seeing, wherever he gazed,Foam breaking, and dark stairs, and two dark eyes,Frightened and wild again as when they left himThat night when he left them. When he would seeNo more of them, he said to Gouvernail,“Tomorrow I shall go for a far journey,And may go farther still. So, Gouvernail,Go back to Brittany and forget all this,And tell them there that they were not forgotten.Nothing that I can send or say to herWill do much good. And if I lied to her,She might remember me—only for that.Tell her that I meant always to be kind—And that’s a little to tell. Say there was moreThan I was, or am yet, to be between us—And that’s a little to say to her. But say it.” “Sometime I will, Tristram, but not tomorrow.Tomorrow I go with you, unless you kill me,”Gouvernail said, “and that would be a littleFor you to do. I have seen in and out,And I’m as wise today as when my motherWas glad because I cried that I was born.Your mother was not, you say. Well, perhaps not.”