Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/262

 With armor an inch thick, as we all know You are, when you're not sermonizing at us. As for the King, I say the King, no doubt, Is angry, sorry, and all sorts of things, For Lancelot, and for his easy Queen, Whom he took knowing she'd thrown sparks already On that same piece of tinder, Lancelot, Who fetched her with him from Leodogran Because the King God save poor human reason! Would prove to Merlin, who knew everything Worth knowing in those days, that he was wrong. I'll drink now and be quiet, but, by God, I'll have to tell you, Brother Bedivere, Once more, to make you listen properly, That crowns and orders, and high palaces, And all the manifold ingredients Of this good solid kingdom, where we sit And spit now at each other with our eyes, Will not go rolling down to hell just yet Because a pretty woman is a fool. And here's Kay coming with his fiddle face As long now as two fiddles. Sit ye down, Sir Man, and tell us everything you know Of Merlin or his ghost without a beard. What mostly is it?" Sir Kay, the seneschal, Sat wearily while he gazed upon the two : "To you it mostly is, if I err not, That what you hear of Merlin's coming back Is nothing more or less than heavy truth. But ask me nothing of the Queen, I say, For I know nothing. All I know of her Is what her eyes have told the silences That now attend her; and that her estate