Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/259

 Like one whose late-flown shaft of argument Had glanced and fallen afield innocuously, He turned upon his host a sudden eye That met from Lamorak's an even shaft Of native and unused authority; And each man held the other till at length Each turned away, shutting his heavy jaws Again together, prisoning thus two tongues That might forget and might not be forgiven. Then Bedivere, to find a plain way out, Said, "Lamorak, let us drink to some one here, And end this dryness. Who shall it be the King, The Queen, or Lancelot?" "Merlin," Lamorak growled; And then there were more wrinkles round his eyes Than Bedivere had said were possible. "There's no refusal in me now for that," The guest replied; "so, 'Merlin' let it be. We've not yet seen him, but if he be here, And even if he should not be here, say 'Merlin.' " They drank to the unseen from two new tankards, And fell straightway to sighing for the past, And what was yet before them. Silence laid A cogent finger on the lips of each Impatient veteran, whose hard hands lay clenched And restless on his midriff, until words Were stronger than strong Lamorak: "Bedivere," Began the solid host, "you may as well Say now as at another time hereafter That all your certainties have bruises on 'em, And all your pestilent asseverations Will never make a man a salamander Who's born, as we are told, so fire won't bite him, Or a slippery queen a nun who counts and burns