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Page 1 of 31912 · PDF PAGE 109
…sink, awaiting Some climax—oh, how tense and dumb The expectant hush intoxicating! Hush! the heart’s beat! Across the moor Some dreadful god rides fast, be sure ! The listening Palamede bites through His thin white lips—what hoofs are those? Are they the Quest? How still and blue The sky is! Hush—God knows—God knows ! Then on a sudden in the midst of them Is a swart god, from hoof to girdle a goat, Upon his brow the twelve-star diadem And the King’s Collar fastened on his throat. Thrill upon thrill courseth through Palamede. Life, life, pure li…
1912 · PDF PAGE 102
XXXVII Sir Paramens is sick to death! The staring eyen, the haggard face! God grant to him the Beauteous Breath! God send the Goodly Gift of Grace! There is a white cave by the sea Wherein the knight is hid away. Just ere the night falls, spieth he The sun’s last shaft flicker astray. All day is dark. There, there he mourns His wasted years, his purpose faint. A million whips, a million scorns Make the knight flinch, and stain the saint. For now! what hath he left? He feeds On limpets and wild roots. What odds? There is no need a mortal needs W…
1912 · PDF PAGE 83
…ng stone So fierce a questing barked and brayed, It turned his laughter to a groan. His vow forgot, his task undone, His soul whipped in God’s bitter school! (He moaned a mighty malison !) The perfect knight? The perfect fool! “Now, by God’s wounds!” quoth he, “my strength Is burnt out to a pest of pains. Let me fling off my curse at length In old Chaldea’s starry plains! Thou blesséd Jesus, foully nailed Unto the cruel Calvary tree, Look on my soul’s poor fort assailed By all the hosts of devilry ! Is there no medicine but death That shall ava…
1912 · PDF PAGE 115
…h he) ; “ For surely in some sore distress May be Sir Palamede.” Then they Rose as one man in glad liesse To honour that great health. ‘“God’s way Is not as man’s” (quoth Lancelot). “Yet, may God send him back this day, His quest achieved, to Camelot!” “ Amen!” they cried, and raised the bow! ; When—the wind rose, a blast as hot 109
1912 · PDF PAGE 95
… “Ts not—at last |!—achieved and ended? Why taste I not the Bounteous Breath, Receive the Goodly Gift of Grace? Now, kind king-eagle (by God’s death !), Restore me to mine ancient place! I am advantaged nothing then!” Then swooped he from the Byss of Space, And set the knight amid the fen. “God!” quoth Sir Palamede, “that I Who have won nine should fail at ten! I set my all upon the die: There is no further trick to try. Call thrice accurséd above men Sir Palamede the Saracen!”
1912 · PDF PAGE 87
XXXI From God's sweet air Sir Palamede Hath come unto a demon bog, A city where but rats may breed In sewer-stench and fetid fog. Within its heart pale phantoms crawl. Breathless with foolish haste they jog And jostle, all for naught! They scrawl Vain things all night that they disown Ere day. They call and bawl and squall Hoarse cries; they moan, they groan. A stone Hath better sense! And these among A cabbage-headed god they own, With wandering eye and jabbering tongue. He, rotting in that grimy sewer And charnel-house of death and dung, Shri…
1912 · PDF PAGE 108
…t weight of shining armour! Here’s a posy, here’s a garland, here’s a chain of daisies! Here’s a charmer! There’s a charmer ! Praise the God that crazes men, the God that raises All our lives to ecstasy !” Sir Palamedes was too wise To mock their gentle wooing; He smiles into their sparkling eyes While they his armour are undoing. “ For who” (quoth he) “ may say that this Is not the mystery I miss?” Soon he is gathered in the dance, And smothered in the flowers.
1912 · PDF PAGE 84
…y questeth he. Beneath him? Heareth he aright? He leaps to’s feet—a wonder shews: Steep dips a stairway from the light To what obscurity God knows. Still never a tremor shakes his soul (God praise thee, knight of adamant }) ; He plunges to that gruesome goal Firm as an old bull-elephant!
1912 · PDF PAGE 82
… dumb men talk. He casts out devils with a word; Circleth his wand, and dead men rise. No such a wonder hath been heard Since Christ our God’s sweet sacrifice. “Now, by the glad blood of our Lord!” Quoth Palamede, “ my heart is light. I am the chosen harpsichord Whereon God playeth ; the perfect knight,
1912 · PDF PAGE 32
26 The seamen to his stinging whip. Accurs’d of God, despising men, Thy reckless oars in ocean dip, Sir Palamede the Saracen!
1912 · PDF PAGE 116
…ast tore down the tapestry That hid the door. All ashen-hued The knights laid hand to sword. But he (Sir Palamedes) in the gap Was found—God knoweth—bitterly Weeping. Cried Arthur: “Strange the hap! My knight, my dearest knight, my friend ! What gift had Fortune in her lap Like thee? Embrace me!” “ Rather rend Your garments, if you love me, sire!” (Quod he). “Iam come unto the end. All mine intent and my desire, My quest, mine oath—all, all is done. Burn them with me in fatal fire! For I have failed. All ways, each one I strove in, mocked me. I…
1912 · PDF PAGE 118
…t was the bass To all the harps of Heaven a-playing, There came a solemn voice (not one But was upon his knees in praying And glorifying God). The Son Of God Himself—men thought—spoke then. “ Arise! brave soldier, thou hast won The quest not given to mortal men. Arise! Sir Palamede Adept, Christian, and no more Saracen ! On wake or sleeping, wise, inept, Still thou didst seek. Those foolish ways On which thy folly stumbled, leapt, All led to the one goal. Now praise Thy Lord that He hath brought thee through To win the quest!” The good knight l…
1912 · PDF PAGE 106
…nd rode upon That knight. His lance-head fairly struck The barred strength of his morion, And rolled the stranger in the muck. “ Now, by God’s death!” quoth Palamede, His sword at work, “I will not leave So much of thee as God might feed His sparrows with. As I believe The sweet Christ’s mercy shall avail, So will I not have aught for thee ; Since every bone of thee may rail Against me, crying treachery.
1912 · PDF PAGE 110
…ng in his ear he had. Nay! he saw all. He saw the Curse That wrapped in ruin the World primeval. He saw the unborn Universe, And all its gods coeval. He saw, and was, all things at once In Him that is ; he was the stars, The moons, the meteors, the suns, All in one net of triune bars; Inextricably one, inevitably one, Immeasurable, immutable, immense Beyond all the wonder that his soul had won By sense, in spite of sense, and beyond sense. “Praise God!” quoth Palamede, “ by this I attain the uttermost of bliss. . . . God’s wounds! but that I ne…
1912 · PDF PAGE 11
God’s angel, standing sinister, Unfurls this scroll—a sable stain : “Who wins the spur shall ply the spur Upon his proper heart and brain.” He gave the sign of malison On traitor knights and perjured men ; And ever by the sea rode on Sir Palamede the Saracen.
1912 · PDF PAGE 43
While such a questing there resounds As God had loosed the very Pit, Or as a thirty couple hounds Are in its belly as it bounds! Full sick at heart, I ween, was then The loyal knight, the weak of wit, The butt of lewd and puny men, Sir Palamede the Saracen. 37
1912 · PDF PAGE 30
…gil cold and wandering bold, Disdaining song and dalliance soft, Seeking one purpose to behold, And holding ever that aloft, Nor fearing God, nor heeding men. So thus his hermit habit doffed Sir Palamede the Saracen.
1912 · PDF PAGE 86
…, the hero hails The dawn, that night of fear still shaking His body. All death’s doubt assails Him. Was it sleep or was it waking? “ By God, I care not, I!” (quod he). “Or wake or sleep, or live or dead, I will pursue this mystery. So help me Grace of Godlihead!” Ay! with thy wasted limbs pursue That subtle Beast home to his den! Who knows but thou mayst win athrough, Sir Palamede the Saracen?
1912 · PDF PAGE 36
… brazen towers, and here The sculptured rocks, the marble shrine Where to a tall black stone they rear The altars due to the divine. The God they deem in sensual joy Absorbed, and silken dalliance: To please his leisure hours a boy Compels an elephant to dance. So majesty to ridicule Is turned. To other climes and men Makes off that strong, persistent fool Sir Palamede the Saracen.
1912 · PDF PAGE 41
XIII Sir PALAMEDE is come anon Into a blue delicious bay. A mountain towers thereupon, Wherein some fiend of ages gone Is whelmed by God, yet from his breast Spits up the flame, and ashes grey. Hereby Sir Palamede his quest Pursues withouten let or rest. Seeing the evil mountain be, Remembering all his evil years, He knows the Questing Beast runs free— Author of Evil, then, is he! Whereat immediate resounds The noise he hath sought so long: appears There quest a thirty couple hounds Within its belly as it bounds. Lifting his eyes, he sees at la…