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Lancelot by Edwin Arlington Robinson
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- Written by AndEl
Lancelot
by Edwin Arlington Robinson
(1869 - 1935)
Gawaine, aware again of Lancelot In the King’s garden, coughed and followed him; Whereat he turned and stood with folded arms And weary-waiting eyes, cold and half-closed— Hard eyes, where doubts at war with memories Fanned a sad wrath. “Why frown upon a friend? Few live that have too many,” Gawaine said, And wished unsaid, so thinly came the light Between the narrowing lids at which he gazed. “And who of us are they that name their friends?” Lancelot said. “They live that have not any. Why do they live, Gawaine? Ask why, and answer.” |
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Two men of an elected eminence, They stood for a time silent. Then Gawaine, Acknowledging the ghost of what was gone, Put out his hand: “Rather, I say, why ask? If I be not the friend of Lancelot, May I be nailed alive along the ground And emmets eat me dead. If I be not The friend of Lancelot, may I be fried With other liars in the pans of hell. What item otherwise of immolation Your Darkness may invent, be it mine to endure And yours to gloat on. For the time between, Consider this thing you see that is my hand. If once, it has been yours a thousand times; Why not again? Gawaine has never lied To Lancelot; and this, of all wrong days— This day before the day when you go south To God knows what accomplishment of exile— Were surely an ill day for lies to find An issue or a cause or an occasion. King Ban your father and King Lot my father, Were they alive, would shake their heads in sorrow To see us as we are, and I shake mine In wonder. Will you take my hand, or no? Strong as I am, I do not hold it out For ever and on air. You see—my hand.” Lancelot gave his hand there to Gawaine, Who took it, held it, and then let it go, Chagrined with its indifference. “Yes, Gawaine, I go tomorrow, and I wish you well; |
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You and your brothers, Gareth, Gaheris,— |
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“Gawaine, I do not say that you are wrong, |
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“Well-wishing in a way is well enough; |
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Still with a frown that had no faith in it, |
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“Praise Adam, you are mellowing at last! |
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The joyless evanescence of a smile, |
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With all her poise, To Gawaine’s undeceived urbanity She was less queen than woman for the nonce, And in her eyes there was a flickering Of a still fear that would not be veiled wholly With any mask of mannered nonchalance. “What has he done? Madam, attend your nephew; And learn from him, in your incertitude, That this inordinate man Lancelot, This engine of renown, this hewer down daily Of potent men by scores in our late warfare, Has now inside his head a foreign fever That urges him away to the last edge Of everything, there to efface himself In ecstasy, and so be done with us. Hereafter, peradventure certain birds Will perch in meditation on his bones, Quite as if they were some poor sailor’s bones, Or felon’s jettisoned, or fisherman’s, Or fowler’s bones, or Mark of Cornwall’s bones. In fine, this flower of men that was our comrade Shall be for us no more, from this day on, Than a much remembered Frenchman far away. Magnanimously I leave you now to prize Your final sight of him; and leaving you, I leave the sun to shine for him alone, Whiles I grope on to gloom. Madam, farewell; And you, contrarious Lancelot, farewell.” |
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