Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/325

 A lean thing of no shape and many capers. I made them laugh, and I could laugh anon Myself to see them killing one another Because a woman with corn-colored hair Has pranked a man with horns. 'Twas but a flash Of chance, and Lancelot, the other day That saved this pleasing sinner from the fire That she may spread for thousands. Were she now The cinder the King willed, or were you now To see the King, the fire might yet go out; But the eternal will says otherwise. So be it; I'll assemble certain gold That I may say is mine and get myself Away from this accurst unhappy court, And in some quiet place where shepherd clowns And cowherds may have more respondent ears Than kings and kingdom-builders, I shall troll Old men to easy graves and be a child Again among the children of the earth. I'll have no more kings, even though I loved King Arthur, who is mad, as I could love No other man save Merlin, who is dead." "Not wholly dead, but old. Merlin is old." The wizard shivered as he spoke, and stared Away into the sunset where he saw Once more, as through a cracked and cloudy glass, A crumbling sky that held a crimson cloud Wherein there was a town of many towers All swayed and shaken, in a woman's hand This time, till out of it there spilled and flashed And tumbled, like loose jewels, town, towers, and walls, And there was nothing but a crumbling sky That made anon of black and red and ruin A wild and final rain on Camelot.