Merlin Part 2

IV

The tortured King--seeing Merlin wholly meshed In his defection, even to indifference, And all the while attended and exalted By some unfathomable obscurity Of divination, where the Grail, unseen, Broke yet the darkness where a king saw nothing-- Feared now the lady Vivian more than Fate; For now he knew that Modred, Lancelot, The Queen, the King, the Kingdom, and the World, Were less to Merlin, who had made him King, Than one small woman in Broceliande.

Whereas the lady Vivian, seeing Merlin Acclaimed and tempted and allured again To service in his old magnificence, Feared now King Arthur more than storms and robbers; For Merlin, though he knew himself immune To no least whispered little wish of hers That might afflict his ear with ecstasy, Had yet sufficient of his old command Of all around him to invest an eye With quiet lightning, and a spoken word With easy thunder, so accomplis.h.i.+ng A profit and a pastime for himself-- And for the lady Vivian, when her guile Outlived at intervals her graciousness; And this equipment of uncertainty, Which now had gone away with him to Britain With Dagonet, so plagued her memory That soon a phantom brood of goblin doubts Inhabited his absence, which had else Been empty waiting and a few brave fears, And a few more, she knew, that were not brave, Or long to be disowned, or manageable.

She thought of him as he had looked at her When first he had acquainted her alarm At sight of the King's letter with its import; And she remembered now his very words: "The King believes today as in his boyhood That I am Fate," he said; and when they parted She had not even asked him not to go; She might as well, she thought, have bid the wind Throw no more clouds across a lonely sky Between her and the moon,--so great he seemed In his oppressed solemnity, and she, In her excess of wrong imagining, So trivial in an hour, and, after all A creature of a smaller consequence Than kings to Merlin, who made kings and kingdoms And had them as a father; and so she feared King Arthur more than robbers while she waited For Merlin's promise to fulfil itself, And for the rest that was to follow after: "He said he would come back, and so he will.

He will because he must, and he is Merlin, The master of the world--or so he was; And he is coming back again to me Because he must and I am Vivian.

It's all as easy as two added numbers: Some day I'll hear him ringing at the gate, As he rang on that morning in the spring, Ten years ago; and I shall have him then For ever. He shall never go away Though kings come walking on their hands and knees To take him on their backs." When Merlin came, She told him that, and laughed; and he said strangely: "Be glad or sorry, but no kings are coming.

Not Arthur, surely; for now Arthur knows That I am less than Fate."

Ten years ago The King had heard, with unbelieving ears At first, what Merlin said would be the last Reiteration of his going down To find a living grave in Brittany: "Buried alive I told you I should be, By love made little and by woman shorn, Like Samson, of my glory; and the time Is now at hand. I follow in the morning Where I am led. I see behind me now The last of crossways, and I see before me A straight and final highway to the end Of all my divination. You are King, And in your kingdom I am what I was.

Wherever I have warned you, see as far As I have seen; for I have shown the worst There is to see. Require no more of me, For I can be no more than what I was."

So, on the morrow, the King said farewell; And he was never more to Merlin's eye The King than at that hour; for Merlin knew How much was going out of Arthur's life With him, as he went southward to the sea.

Over the waves and into Brittany Went Merlin, to Broceliande. Gay birds Were singing high to greet him all along A broad and sanded woodland avenue That led him on forever, so he thought, Until at last there was an end of it; And at the end there was a gate of iron, Wrought heavily and invidiously barred.

He pulled a cord that rang somewhere a bell Of many echoes, and sat down to rest, Outside the keeper's house, upon a bench Of carven stone that might for centuries Have waited there in silence to receive him.

The birds were singing still; leaves flashed and swung Before him in the sunlight; a soft breeze Made intermittent whisperings around him Of love and fate and danger, and faint waves Of many sweetly-stinging fragile odors Broke lightly as they touched him; cherry-boughs Above him snowed white petals down upon him, And under their slow falling Merlin smiled Contentedly, as one who contemplates No longer fear, confusion, or regret, May smile at ruin or at revelation.

A stately fellow with a forest air Now hailed him from within, with searching words And curious looks, till Merlin's glowing eye Transfixed him and he flinched: "My compliments And homage to the lady Vivian.

Say Merlin from King Arthur's Court is here, A pilgrim and a stranger in appearance, Though in effect her friend and humble servant.

Convey to her my speech as I have said it, Without abbreviation or delay, And so deserve my grat.i.tude forever."

"But Merlin?" the man stammered; "Merlin? Merlin?"-- "One Merlin is enough. I know no other.

Now go you to the lady Vivian And bring to me her word, for I am weary."

Still smiling at the cherry-blossoms falling Down on him and around him in the sunlight, He waited, never moving, never glancing This way or that, until his messenger Came jingling into vision, weighed with keys, And inly shaken with much wondering At this great wizard's coming unannounced And unattended. When the way was open The stately messenger, now bowing low In reverence and awe, bade Merlin enter; And Merlin, having entered, heard the gate Clang back behind him; and he swore no gate Like that had ever clanged in Camelot, Or any other place if not in h.e.l.l.

"I may be dead; and this good fellow here, With all his keys," he thought, "may be the Devil,-- Though I were loath to say so, for the keys Would make him rather more akin to Peter; And that's fair reasoning for this fair weather."

"The lady Vivian says you are most welcome,"

Said now the stately-favored servitor, "And are to follow me. She said, 'Say Merlin-- A pilgrim and a stranger in appearance, Though in effect my friend and humble servant-- Is welcome for himself, and for the sound Of his great name that echoes everywhere.'"-- "I like you and I like your memory,"

Said Merlin, curiously, "but not your gate.

Why forge for this elysian wilderness A thing so vicious with unholy noise?"-- "There's a way out of every wilderness For those who dare or care enough to find it,"

The guide said: and they moved along together, Down shaded ways, through open ways with hedgerows.

And into shade again more deep than ever, But edged anon with rays of broken suns.h.i.+ne In which a fountain, raining crystal music, Made faery magic of it through green leaf.a.ge, Till Merlin's eyes were dim with preparation For sight now of the lady Vivian.

He saw at first a bit of living green That might have been a part of all the green Around the tinkling fountain where she gazed Upon the circling pool as if her thoughts Were not so much on Merlin--whose advance Betrayed through his enormity of hair The cheeks and eyes of youth--as on the fishes.

But soon she turned and found him, now alone, And held him while her beauty and her grace Made pa.s.sing trash of empires, and his eyes Told hers of what a splendid emptiness Her tedious world had been without him in it Whose love and service were to be her school, Her triumph, and her history: "This is Merlin,"

She thought; "and I shall dream of him no more.

And he has come, he thinks, to frighten me With beards and robes and his immortal fame; Or is it I who think so? I know not.

I'm frightened, sure enough, but if I show it, I'll be no more the Vivian for whose love He tossed away his glory, or the Vivian Who saw no man alive to make her love him Till she saw Merlin once in Camelot, And seeing him, saw no other. In an age That has no plan for me that I can read Without him, shall he tell me what I am, And why I am, I wonder?" While she thought, And feared the man whom her perverse negation Must overcome somehow to soothe her fancy, She smiled and welcomed him; and so they stood, Each finding in the other's eyes a gleam Of what eternity had hidden there.

"Are you always all in green, as you are now?"

Said Merlin, more employed with her complexion, Where blood and olive made wild harmony With eyes and wayward hair that were too dark For peace if they were not subordinated; "If so you are, then so you make yourself A danger in a world of many dangers.

If I were young, G.o.d knows if I were safe Concerning you in green, like a slim cedar, As you are now, to say my life was mine: Were you to say to me that I should end it, Longevity for me were jeopardized.

Have you your green on always and all over?"

"Come here, and I will tell you about that,"

Said Vivian, leading Merlin with a laugh To an arbored seat where they made opposites: "If you are Merlin--and I know you are, For I remember you in Camelot,-- You know that I am Vivian, as I am; And if I go in green, why, let me go so, And say at once why you have come to me Cloaked over like a monk, and with a beard As long as Jeremiah's. I don't like it.

I'll never like a man with hair like that While I can feed a carp with little frogs.

I'm rather sure to hate you if you keep it, And when I hate a man I poison him."

"You've never fed a carp with little frogs,"

Said Merlin; "I can see it in your eyes."-- "I might then, if I haven't," said the lady; "For I'm a savage, and I love no man As I have seen him yet. I'm here alone, With some three hundred others, all of whom Are ready, I dare say, to die for me; I'm cruel and I'm cold, and I like snakes; And some have said my mother was a fairy, Though I believe it not."

"Why not believe it?"

Said Merlin; "I believe it. I believe Also that you divine, as I had wished, In my surviving ornament of office A needless imposition on your wits, If not yet on the scope of your regard.

Even so, you cannot say how old I am, Or yet how young. I'm willing cheerfully To fight, left-handed, h.e.l.l's three headed hound If you but whistle him up from where he lives; I'm cheerful and I'm fierce, and I've made kings; And some have said my father was the Devil, Though I believe it not. Whatever I am, I have not lived in Time until to-day."

A moment's worth of wisdom there escaped him, But Vivian seized it, and it was not lost.

Embroidering doom with many levities, Till now the fountain's crystal silver, fading, Became a splash and a mere chilliness, They mocked their fate with easy pleasantries That were too false and small to be forgotten, And with ingenious insincerities That had no repet.i.tion or revival.

At last the lady Vivian arose, And with a crying of how late it was Took Merlin's hand and led him like a child Along a dusky way between tall cones Of tight green cedars: "Am I like one of these?

You said I was, though I deny it wholly."-- "Very," said Merlin, to his bearded lips Uplifting her small fingers.--"O, that hair!"

She moaned, as if in sorrow: "Must it be?

Must every prophet and important wizard Be clouded so that nothing but his nose And eyes, and intimations of his ears, Are there to make us know him when we see him?

Praise heaven I'm not a prophet! Are you glad?"--

He did not say that he was glad or sorry; For suddenly came flas.h.i.+ng into vision A thing that was a manor and a palace, With walls and roofs that had a flaming sky Behind them, like a sky that he remembered, And one that had from his rock-sheltered haunt Above the roofs of his forsaken city Made flame as if all Camelot were on fire.

The glow brought with it a brief memory Of Arthur as he left him, and the pain That fought in Arthur's eyes for losing him, And must have overflowed when he had vanished.

But now the eyes that looked hard into his Were Vivian's, not the King's; and he could see, Or so he thought, a shade of sorrow in them.

She took his two hands: "You are sad," she said.-- He smiled: "Your western lights bring memories Of Camelot. We all have memories-- Prophets, and women who are like slim cedars; But you are wrong to say that I am sad."-- "Would you go back to Camelot?" she asked, Her fingers tightening. Merlin shook his head.

"Then listen while I tell you that I'm glad,"

She purred, as if a.s.sured that he would listen: "At your first warning, much too long ago, Of this quaint pilgrimage of yours to see 'The fairest and most orgulous of ladies'-- No language for a prophet, I am sure-- Said I, 'When this great Merlin comes to me, My task and avocation for some time Will be to make him willing, if I can, To teach and feed me with an ounce of wisdom.'

For I have eaten to an empty sh.e.l.l, After a weary feast of observation Among the glories of a tinsel world That had for me no glory till you came, A life that is no life. Would you go back To Camelot?"--Merlin shook his head again, And the two smiled together in the sunset.

They moved along in silence to the door, Where Merlin said: "Of your three hundred here There is but one I know, and him I favor; I mean the stately one who shakes the keys Of that most evil sounding gate of yours, Which has a clang as if it shut forever."-- "If there be need, I'll shut the gate myself,"

She said. "And you like Blaise? Then you shall have him.

He was not born to serve, but serve he must, It seems, and be enamoured of my shadow.

He cherishes the taint of some high folly That haunts him with a name he cannot know, And I could fear his wits are paying for it.

Forgive his tongue, and humor it a little."-- "I knew another one whose name was Blaise,"

He said; and she said lightly, "Well, what of it?"-- "And he was nigh the learnedest of hermits; His home was far away from everywhere, And he was all alone there when he died."-- "Now be a pleasant Merlin," Vivian said, Patting his arm, "and have no more of that; For I'll not hear of dead men far away, Or dead men anywhere this afternoon.

There'll be a trifle in the way of supper This evening, but the dead shall not have any.

Blaise and this man will tell you all there is For you to know. Then you'll know everything."

She laughed, and vanished like a humming-bird.

V

The sun went down, and the dark after it Starred Merlin's new abode with many a sconced And many a moving candle, in whose light The prisoned wizard, mirrored in amazement, Saw fronting him a stranger, falcon-eyed, Firm-featured, of a negligible age, And fair enough to look upon, he fancied, Though not a warrior born, nor more a courtier.

A native humor resting in his long And solemn jaws now stirred, and Merlin smiled To see himself in purple, touched with gold, And fledged with snowy lace.--The careful Blaise, Having drawn some time before from Merlin's wallet The sable raiment of a royal scholar, Had eyed it with a long mistrust and said: "The lady Vivian would be vexed, I fear, To meet you vested in these learned weeds Of gravity and death; for she abhors Mortality in all its hues and emblems-- Black wear, long argument, and all the cold And solemn things that appertain to graves."-- And Merlin, listening, to himself had said, "This fellow has a freedom, yet I like him;"

And then aloud: "I trust you. Deck me out, However, with a temperate regard For what your candid eye may find in me Of inward coloring. Let them reap my beard, Moreover, with a sort of reverence, For I shall never look on it again.

And though your lady frown her face away To think of me in black, for G.o.d's indulgence, Array me not in scarlet or in yellow."-- And so it came to pa.s.s that Merlin sat At ease in purple, even though his chin Reproached him as he pinched it, and seemed yet A little fearful of its nakedness.

He might have sat and scanned himself for ever Had not the careful Blaise, regarding him, Remarked again that in his proper judgment, And on the valid word of his attendants, No more was to be done. "Then do no more,"

Said Merlin, with a last look at his chin; "Never do more when there's no more to do, And you may shun thereby the bitter taste Of many disillusions and regrets.

G.o.d's pity on us that our words have wings And leave our deeds to crawl so far below them; For we have all two heights, we men who dream, Whether we lead or follow, rule or serve."-- "G.o.d's pity on us anyhow," Blaise answered, "Or most of us. Meanwhile, I have to say, As long as you are here, and I'm alive, Your summons will a.s.sure the loyalty Of all my diligence and expedition.

The gong that you hear singing in the distance Was rung for your attention and your presence."-- "I wonder at this fellow, yet I like him,"

Said Merlin; and he rose to follow him.

The lady Vivian in a fragile sheath Of crimson, dimmed and veiled ineffably By the flame-shaken gloom wherein she sat, And twinkled if she moved, heard Merlin coming, And smiled as if to make herself believe Her joy was all a triumph; yet her blood Confessed a tingling of more wonderment Than all her five and twenty worldly years Of waiting for this triumph could remember; And when she knew and felt the slower tread Of his unseen advance among the shadows To the small haven of uncertain light That held her in it as a torch-lit shoal Might hold a smooth red fish, her listening skin Responded with a creeping underneath it, And a crinkling that was incident alike To darkness, love, and mice. When he was there, She looked up at him in a whirl of mirth And wonder, as in childhood she had gazed Wide-eyed on royal mountebanks who made So brief a s.h.i.+ft of the impossible That kings and queens would laugh and shake themselves; Then rising slowly on her little feet, Like a slim creature lifted, she thrust out Her two small hands as if to push him back-- Whereon he seized them. "Go away," she said; "I never saw you in my life before."-- "You say the truth," he answered; "when I met Myself an hour ago, my words were yours.

G.o.d made the man you see for you to like, If possible. If otherwise, turn down These two prodigious and remorseless thumbs And leave your lions to annihilate him."--

"I have no other lion than yourself,"

She said; "and since you cannot eat yourself, Pray do a lonely woman, who is, you say, More like a tree than any other thing In your discrimination, the large honor Of sharing with her a small kind of supper."-- "Yes, you are like a tree,--or like a flower; More like a flower to-night." He bowed his head And kissed the ten small fingers he was holding, As calmly as if each had been a son; Although his heart was leaping and his eyes Had sight for nothing save a swimming crimson Between two glimmering arms. "More like a flower To-night," he said, as now he scanned again The immemorial meaning of her face And drew it nearer to his eyes. It seemed A flower of wonder with a crimson stem Came leaning slowly and regretfully To meet his will--a flower of change and peril That had a clinging blossom of warm olive Half stifled with a tyranny of black, And held the wayward fragrance of a rose Made woman by delirious alchemy.

She raised her face and yoked his willing neck With half her weight; and with hot lips that left The world with only philosophy For Merlin or for Anaxagoras, Called his to meet them and in one long hush Of capture to surrender and make hers The last of anything that might remain Of what were now their beardless wizardry.

Then slowly she began to push herself Away, and slowly Merlin let her go As far from him as his outreaching hands Could hold her fingers while his eyes had all The beauty of the woodland and the world Before him in the firelight, like a nymph Of cities, or a queen a little weary Of inland stillness and immortal trees.

"Are you to let me go again sometime,"