Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/384

 LANCELOT

While you go south to find the fires of God.

Since we came back again to Camelot

From our immortal Quest—I came back first—

No man has known you for the man you were

Before you saw whatever 't was you saw,

To make so little of kings and queens and friends

Thereafter. Modred? Agravaine? My brothers?

And what if they be brothers? What are brothers,

If they be not our friends, your friends and mine?

You turn away, and my words are no mark

On you affection or your memory?

So be it then,if so it is to be.

God save you, Lancelot; for by Saint Stephen,

You are no more than man to save yourself."

"Gawaine, I do not say that you are wrong,

Or that you are ill-seasoned in your lightness;

You say that all you know is what you saw,

And on your own averment you saw nothing.

Your spoken word, Gawaine, I have not weighed

In those unhappy scales of inference

That have no beam but one made out of hates

And fears, and venomous conjecturings;

Your tongue is not the sword that urges me

Now out of Camelot. Two other swords

There are that are awake, and in their scabbards

Are parching for the blood of Lancelot.

Yet I go not away for fear of them,

But for a sharper care. You say the truth,

But not when you contend the fires of God

Are my one fear,—for there is one fear more.

Therefore I go. Gawaine, I wish you well."

"Well-wishing in a way is well enough;

So, in a way, is caution; so, in a way,