Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/318

 To stiller places and there see, for once, What hangs on this pernicious expedition The King in his insane forgetfulness Would undertake with you to drum him on? Are you as mad as he and Lancelot Made ravening into one man twice as mad As either? Is the kingdom, of the world, Now rocking, to go down in sound and blood And ashes and sick ruin, and for the sake Of three men and a woman? If it be so, God's mercy for the world he made, I say, And say again to Dagonet. Sir Fool, Your throne is empty, and you may as well Sit on it and be ruler of the world From now till supper-time." Sir Dagonet, Appearing, made reply to Bedivere's Dry welcome with a famished look of pain, On which he built a smile : "If I were King, You, Bedivere, should be my counsellor; And we should have no more wars over women. I'll sit me down and meditate on that." Gawaine, for all his anger, laughed a little, And clapped the fool's lean shoulder; for he loved him And was with Arthur when he made him knight. Then Dagonet said on to Bedivere, As if his tongue would make a jest of sorrow: "Sometime I'll tell you what I might have done Had I been Lancelot and you King Arthur Each having in himself the vicious essence That now lives in the other and makes war. When all men are like you and me, my lord, When all are rational or rickety, There may be no more war. But what's here now?