Part 4

She looked up at him till his way was lost Again in the familiar wilderness Of night that love made for him in her eyes, And there he wandered as he said he would; He wandered also in his prison-yard, And, when he found her coming after him, Beguiled her with her own admonishing And frowned upon her with a fierce reproof That many a time in the old world outside Had set the mark of silence on strong men-- Whereat she laughed, not always wholly sure, Nor always wholly glad, that he who played So lightly was the wizard of her dreams: "No matter--if only Merlin keep the world Away," she thought. "Our lyres have many strings, But he must know them all, for he is Merlin."-- And so for years, till ten of them were gone,-- Ten years, ten seasons, or ten flying ages-- Fate made Broceliande a paradise, By none invaded, until Dagonet, Like a discordant, awkward bird of doom, Flew in with Arthur's message. For the King, In sorrow cleaving to simplicity, And having in his love a quick remembrance Of Merlin's old affection for the fellow, Had for this vain, reluctant enterprise Appointed him--the knight who made men laugh, And was a fool because he played the fool.

"The King believes today, as in his boyhood, That I am Fate; and I can do no more Than show again what in his heart he knows," Said Merlin to himself and Vivian: "This time I go because I made him King, Thereby to be a mirror for the world; This time I go, but never after this, For I can be no more than what I was, And I can do no more than I have done." He took her slowly in his arms and felt Her body throbbing like a bird against him: "This time I go; I go because I must."

And in the morning, when he rode away With Dagonet and Blaise through the same gate That once had clanged as if to shut for ever, She had not even asked him not to go; For it was then that in his lonely gaze Of helpless love and sad authority She found the gleam of his imprisoned power That Fate withheld; and, pitying herself, She pitied the fond Merlin she had changed, And saw the Merlin who had changed the world.

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 ear A shred of her black hair. "King Arthur knows That I have done with kings, and that I speak No more their crafty language. Once I knew it, But now the only language I have left Is one that I must never let you hear Too long, or know too well. When towering deeds Once done shall only out of dust and words Be done again, the doer may then be wary Lest in the complement of his new fabric There be more words than dust."

"Why tell me so?" Said Vivian; and a singular thin laugh Came after her thin question. "Do you think That I'm so far away from history That I require, even of the wisest man Who 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 now In your new eyes that you have brought for me From Camelot? The eyes you took away Were sad and old; and I could see in them A 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 beetle For several days, and wondered if your love Were large enough to make me any larger When you came back. Am I a beetle still?" She stood up on her toes and held her cheek For some time against his, and let him go.

"I fear the time has come for me to wander A little in my prison-yard," he said.-- "No, tell me everything that you have seen And heard and done, and seen done, and heard done, Since you deserted me. And tell me first What the King thinks of me."--"The King believes That 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-mad Already with his pondering on the name And 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 elements From which I came than I care now to be."-- "You owe a service to those elements; For by their service you outwitted age And made the world a kingdom of your will."-- He touched her hand, smiling: "Whatever service Of 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 eyes The first of a new fear. "The wrong word rules Today," she said; "and we'll have no more journeys."

Although he wandered rather more than ever Since he had come again to Brittany From Camelot, Merlin found eternally Before him a new loneliness that made Of garden, park, and woodland, all alike, A desolation and a changelessness Defying reason, without Vivian Beside him, like a child with a black head, Or moving on before him, or somewhere So near him that, although he saw it not With eyes, he felt the picture of her beauty And shivered at the nearness of her being. Without her now there was no past or future, And a vague, soul-consuming premonition He found the only tenant of the present; He wondered, when she was away from him, If his avenging injured intellect Might shine with Arthur's kingdom a twin mirror, Fate's plaything, for new ages without eyes To 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 love Confined within himself by too much freedom, Repeating an unending exploration Of many solitary silent rooms, And only in a way remembering now That once their very solitude and silence Had by the magic of expectancy Made 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 sword Unseen, the touch of which was a long fear For 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 years A misty twilight when he might as well Have had no mist between him and the sun, The sun being Vivian. On his coming then To find her all in green against a wall Of green and yellow leaves, and crumbling bread For birds around the fountain while she sang And the birds ate the bread, he told himself That everything today was as it was At 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 color That 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 you Today as on the day I saw you first, All green, all wonderful" ... He tore a leaf To pieces with a melancholy care That made her smile.--"Why pause at 'wonderful'? You've hardly been yourself since you came back From Camelot, where that unpleasant King Said 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 unwritten More lines than I have read. I see no more Today than yesterday, but I remember. My ways are not the ways of other men; My memories go forward. It was you Who 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 you Who said that Merlin was your punishment For being in tune with him and not with Time-- With Time or with the world; and it was you Who said you were alone, even here with Merlin; It was not I who said it. It is I Who tell you now my inmost thoughts." He laughed As 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 well To sit in. You sit there. I've seen you there Before; and I have spoiled your noble thoughts By walking all my fingers up and down Your countenance, as if they were the feet Of 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 frown Of saddened wonder. She laughed rather lightly, And at his heart he felt again the sword Whose 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 voice That wavered and betrayed a venturing. He paused, and would have hesitated longer, But something in him that was not himself Compelled an utterance that his tongue obeyed, As an unwilling child obeys a father Who might be richer for obedience If he obeyed the child: "There was a king Who would have made his reign a monument For kings and peoples of the waiting ages To reverence and remember, and to this end He coveted and won, with no ado To make a story of, a neighbor queen Who limed him with her smile and had of him, In token of their sin, what he found soon To 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 half Of ruin. Also the king, who made of love More than he made of life and death together, Forgot the world and his example in it For yet another woman--one of many-- And this one he made Queen, albeit he knew That her unsworn allegiance to the knight That he had loved the best of all his order Must one day bring along the coming end Of love and honor and of everything; And with a kingdom builded on two pits Of living sin,--so founded by the will Of one wise counsellor who loved the king, And loved the world and therefore made him king To be a mirror for it,--the king reigned well For certain years, awaiting a sure doom; For certain years he waved across the world A royal banner with a Dragon on it; And men of every land fell worshipping The 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 understand This king of yours, with all his pits and dragons; I know I do not like him." A thinner light Was in her eyes than he had found in them Since he became the willing prisoner That she had made of him; and on her mouth Lay now a colder line of irony Than all his fears or nightmares could have drawn Before today: "What reason do you know For 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 along By the vindictive urging of his fate; "I know no call for you to love the king, Although you serve him, knowing not yet the king You serve. There is no man, or any woman, For whom the story of the living king Is 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 dragons To make us know that we have let the world Go by us. Have you missed the world so much That you must have it in with all its clots And wounds and bristles on to make us happy-- Like Blaise, with shouts and horns and seven men Triumphant with a most unlovely boar? Is there no other story in the world Than this one of a man that you made king To 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 snake All 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 say What most you think it is that we need here To make of this Broceliande a refuge Where two disheartened sinners may forget A world that has today no place for them." A melancholy wave of revelation Broke 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 felt Was in his throat, and all the coldness of it Was on him and around him like a flood Of lonelier memories than he had said Were memories, although he knew them now For what they were--for what his eyes had seen, For what his ears had heard and what his heart Had felt, with him not knowing what it felt. But now he knew that his cold angel's name Was Change, and that a mightier will than his Or Vivian's had ordained that he be there. To Vivian he could not say anything But 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 irony Was on her mouth. He looked up once at it. And then away--too fearful of her eyes To see what he could hear now in her laugh That melted slowly into what she said, Like snow in icy water: "This world of yours Will 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 day Of 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 enough To think of them. I was too strange a lady. And your return is now a speckled king And something that you call a living sin-- That's like an uninvited poor relation Who comes without a welcome, rather late, And on a foundered horse."

"Specks? What are specks?" He gazed at her in a forlorn wonderment That 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 thrushes That 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 serve A ruler who forgets that he is king."

In his bewildered misery Merlin then Stared hard at Vivian's face, more like a slave Who sought for common mercy than like Merlin: "You speak a language that was never mine, Or I have lost my wits. Why do you seize The flimsiest of opportunities To make of what I said another thing Than love or reason could have let me say, Or let me fancy? Why do you keep the truth So far away from me, when all your gates Will open at your word and let me go To some place where no fear or weariness Of 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 destiny Is this that makes of what I never meant A 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 somewhere And bury them, and bury the Queen in also. I know this king; he lives in Camelot, And I shall never like him. There are specks Almost 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 nest Of addled eggs together. You made him King Because you loved the world and saw in him From infancy a mirror for the millions. The world will see itself in him, and then The 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 apprehend A time for me to shudder and grow old And garrulous--and so become a fright For Blaise to take out walking in warm weather-- Should I give way to long considering Of worlds you may have lost while prisoned here With me and my light mind. I contemplate Another name for this forbidden place, And one more fitting. Tell me, if you find it, Some fitter name than Eden. We have had A man and woman in it for some time, And now, it seems, we have a Tree of Knowledge." She looked up at the branches overhead And 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 thrust And twisted in his heart, as if the end Were coming next, but the cold angel passed Invisibly and left him desolate, With misty brow and eyes. "The man who sees May see too far, and he may see too late The path he takes unseen," he told himself When he found thought again. "The man who sees May 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 die An item of inhospitable dust That love and hate alike must hide away; Or there may still be charted for his feet A dimmer faring, where the touch of time Were like the passing of a twilight moth From flower to flower into oblivion, If there were not somewhere a barren end Of moths and flowers, and glimmering far away Beyond a desert where the flowerless days Are told in slow defeats and agonies, The guiding of a nameless light that once Had made him see too much--and has by now Revealed in death, to the undying child Of Lancelot, the Grail. For this pure light Has 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 man Who saw too much, and was to drive himself From paradise, play too lightly or too long Among the moths and flowers, he finds at last There is a dim way out; and he shall grope Where pleasant shadows lead him to the plain That has no shadow save his own behind him. And there, with no complaint, nor much regret, Shall he plod on, with death between him now And the far light that guides him, till he falls And has an empty thought of empty rest; Then Fate will put a mattock in his hands And lash him while he digs himself the grave That is to be the pallet and the shroud Of his poor blundering bones. The man who saw Too much must have an eye to see at last Where Fate has marked the clay; and he shall delve, Although his hand may slacken, and his knees May 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 long Grips hard now on my shoulder. Time has won. Tomorrow I shall say to Vivian That 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 change And imminent farewell. To Vivian's ear There came for many days no other story Than Merlin's iteration of his love And his departure from Broceliande, Where Merlin still remained. In Vivian's eye, There was a quiet kindness, and at times A smoky flash of incredulity That faded into pain. Was this the Merlin-- This incarnation of idolatry And all but supplicating deference-- This bowed and reverential contradiction Of all her dreams and her realities-- Was this the Merlin who for years and years Before she found him had so made her love him That 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 sent One spring day to come ringing at her gate, Bewildering her love with happy terror That later was to be all happiness? Was this the Merlin who had made the world Half over, and then left it with a laugh To be the youngest, oldest, weirdest, gayest, And wisest, and sometimes the foolishest Of all the men of her consideration? Was this the man who had made other men As ordinary as arithmetic? Was this man Merlin who came now so slowly Towards the fountain where she stood again In shimmering green? Trembling, he took her hands And 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 word Not said; and she found in his eyes a light As patient as a candle in a window That looks upon the sea and is a mark For ships that have gone down. "Tomorrow," he said; "Tomorrow I shall go away again To Camelot; and I shall see the King Once more; and I may come to you again Once more; and I shall go away again For ever. There is now no more than that For 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 me As 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 embrace And held her there, but when he kissed her lips They 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.