Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/382



, aware again of Lancelot In the King's garden, coughed and followed him; Whereat he turned and stood with folded arms And weary-waiting eyes, cold and half-closed— Hard eyes, where doubts at war with memories Fanned a sad wrath. "Why frown upon a friend? Few live that have too many," Gawaine said, And wished unsaid, so thinly came the light Between the narrowing lids at which he gazed. "And who of us are they that name their friends?" Lancelot said. "They live that have not any. Why do they live, Gawaine? Ask why, and answer."

Two men of an elected eminence, They stood for a time silent. Then Gawaine, Acknowledging the ghost of what was gone, Put out his hand: "Rather, I say, why ask? If I be not the friend of Lancelot, May I be nailed alive along the ground And emmets eat me dead. If I be not The friend of Lancelot, may I be fried With other liars in the pans of hell. What item otherwise of immolation Your Darkness may invent, be it mine to endure And yours to gloat on. For the time between, Consider this thing you see that is my hand. If once, it has been yours a thousand times;