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Page 1 of 11912 · PDF PAGE 18
… two score of men in life And one fair babe, Sir Palamede Resolves one last heroic strife, Attempts forlorn a desperate deed. At dead of night, a moonless night, A night of winter storm, they sail In dancing dragons to the fight With man and sea, with ghoul and gale. Whom God shall spare, ride, ride! (so springs The iron order). Let him fly On honour’s steed with honour’s wings To warn the king, lest honour die! Then to the fury of the blast Their fury adds a dreadful sting : The fatal die is surely cast. To save the king—to save the king ! Hai…
1912 · PDF PAGE 102
…he 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 Who hath loosed man’s hope to grasp at God's! How his head…
1912 · PDF PAGE 98
92 How weak Sir Palamedes grows! We hear no more of bouts and blows! His weapons are his ten good toes! He that was Arthur's peer, good knight Proven in many a foughten fight, Flees like a felon in the night! Ay! this thy quest is past the ken Of thee and of all mortal men, Sir Palamede the Saracen !
1912 · PDF PAGE 86
80 White as a corpse, 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 49
…l A mossy mound where dainty grains Of gilded corn their beauty spill To tempt the quarry to the range Of Palamede his archer skill. All night he sits, with ardour strange And hope new-fledged. A gambler born Aye thinks the luck one day must change, Though sense and skill he laughs to scorn. So now there rush a thousand rats In sable silence on the corn. They sport their square or shovel hats, A squeaking, tooth-bare brotherhood, Innumerable as summer gnats 43
1912 · PDF PAGE 31
…rships at the gilded East. Ay! thither ride! The dawn beyond Must run the quarry of his quest. He rode as he were wood or fond, Until at night behoves him rest. —He saw the gilding far behind Out on the hills toward the West! With aimless fury hot and blind He flung himon a Viking ship. He slew the rover, and inclined 25
1912 · PDF PAGE 94
…ade him mount. From dale to dell They sank and soared. Last to the light Of the great sun himself they flew, Piercing the borders of the night, Passing the irremeable blue. Far into space beyond the stars At last they came. And there he knew All the blind reasonable bars Broken, and all the emotions stilled, And all the stains and all the scars Left him; so like a child he thrilled With utmost knowledge; all his soul, With perfect sense and sight fulfilled,
1912 · PDF PAGE 87
…og. 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, Shrieks : “ How the air is sweet and pure! Give me the entrails of a frog And I will teach thee! Lo! the lure F 81
1912 · PDF PAGE 14
…ors pour In thousands on the fenceless foe; The sunset stains their hideous war With crimson bars of after-glow. He winds his horn : the night-stars leap To light ; upspring the sisters seven ; While answering flames illume the deep, The blue pavilions blaze to heaven. Silent and stern the northward way They ride; alone before his men Staggers through black to rose and grey Sir Palamede the Saracen.
1912 · PDF PAGE 84
…f the sky; Wide is the sweep of the cold plain Where good Sir Palamede doth lie, Keen on the Beast-slot once again. All day he rode; all night he lay With eyes wide open to the stars, Seeking in many a secret way The key to unlock his prison bars. Beneath him, hark! the marvel sounds! The Beast that questeth horribly. As if a thirty couple hounds Are in his belly 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 (…
1912 · PDF PAGE 60
…his lonely stance abide: Making their holiday, they joke The melancholy ass: they throw Their clattering coppers in his poke. So day and night they come and go, But never comes the Questing Beast, Nor doth that laughing people know
1912 · PDF PAGE 10
…ivered nerve, nor muscle stirred; While round them flapped insatiate The fell, abominable bird. But coldest horror drave the light From knightly eyes. How pale thy bloom, Thy blood, O brow whereon the night Sits like a serpent on a tomb! For Palamede those eyes beheld The iron image of his own ; On those dead brows a fate he spelled To strike a Gorgon into stone. He knew his father. Still he sate, Nor quivered nerve, nor muscle stirred ; While round them flapped insatiate The fell, abominable bird. The knight approves the justice done, And pays…
1912 · PDF PAGE 16
10 But day by day the foes increase, Though day by day their thousands fall: Laughs the unshaken fortalice ; The good knights laugh no more at all. Grimmer than heathen hordes can scowl, The spectre hunger rages there; He passes like a midnight owl, Hooting his heraldry, despair. The knights and squires of Palamede Stalk pale and lean through court and hall; Though sharp and swift the archers speed Their yardlong arrows from the wall. Their numbers thin; their strength decays; Their fate is written plain to read. These are the dread deciduous d…
1912 · PDF PAGE 97
…as I, the cause? Nay, the brain reels beneath its swell Of pompous thoughts. Enough to tell That He is known Unknowable!” Thus did that knightly Saracen In Cantabrig’s miasmal fen Lecture to many learned men. So clamorous was their applause— “His mind” (said they) “is free of flaws: The Veil of God is thin as gauze! ”— That almost they had dulled or drowned The laughter (in its belly bound) Of that dread Beast he had not found. Nathless—although he would away— They forced the lack-luck knight to stay And lecture many a weary day. Verily, almost…
1912 · PDF PAGE 20
…wrath of gales, Fill the dread armoury of sense. Nor shines the sun; nor moon, nor star Their subtle light at all display ; Nor day, nor night, dispute the scaur: All’s one intolerable grey. Black Ilyns, grey rocks, white hills of snow! No flower, no colour: life is not. This is no way for men to go From Severn-mouth to Camelot. Despair, the world upon his speed, Drive (like a lion from his den Whom hunger hunts) the man at need, Sir Palamede the Saracen.
1912 · PDF PAGE 59
…hen doth he muse thereat morose, When in one wild cascade of light The pageant breaks, and thunder roars: Down flaps the loathly wing of night. He sees the lonely Breton shores Lapped in the levin: then his eyes See how she shrieking soars and soars Into the starless, stormy skies. Well! well! this lesson will he learn, How music’s mellowing artifice May bid the breast of nature burn And call the gods from star and shrine. So now his sounding courses turn To find an instrument divine Whereon he may pursue his quest. How glitter green his gleefu…
1912 · PDF PAGE 118
…r perisheth, So all sin died. And in that place All they did know the Beauteous Breath And taste the Goodly Gift of Grace. Then fell the night. Above the baying Of the great Beast, that 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 tho…
1912 · PDF PAGE 109
A boy’s laugh and a maiden’s glance Are sweet as paramours ! Stay! is there naught some wanton wight May do to excite the glamoured knight? Yea! the song takes a sea-wild swell ; The dance moves in a mystic web; Strange lights abound and terrible; The life that flowed is out at ebb. The lights are gone; the night is come; The lads and lasses 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 th…
1912 · PDF PAGE 4
ARGUMENT i, Sir Palamede, the Saracen knight, riding on the shore of Syria, findeth his father’s corpse, around which an albatross circleth. He approveth the vengeance of his peers. ii, On the shore of Arabia he findeth his mother in the embrace of a loathly negro beneath blue pavilions. Her he slayeth, and burneth all that encampment. iii, Sir Palamede is besieged in his castle by Severn mouth, and his wife and son are slain, iv. Hearing that his fall is to be but the prelude to an attack on Camelot, he maketh a desperate night sortie, and wil…
1912 · PDF PAGE 6
SIR PALAMEDES, THE SARACEN KNIGHT xxv, Upon the Pacific Ocean, he, thinking that It is not-Self, throweth himself into the sea. But the Beast setteth him ashore. xxvi. Rowed by Kanakas to Japan, he praiseth the stability of Fuji-Yama. But, an earthquake arising, the pilgrims are swallowed up. xxvii. Upon the Yang-tze-kiang he contemplateth immortal change. Yet, perceiving that the changes themselves constitute stability, he is again baulked, and biddeth his men bear him to Egypt. xxviii. In an Egyptian temple he hath performed the Bloody Sacrif…