Page:Tristram of Lyonesse and other poems (IA tristramoflyonesswinrich).pdf/44

 And scarce in April was our king's as then, And goodliest was he of all flowering men, And of what graft as yet himself knew not; But cold as rains in autumn was King Lot And grey-grown out of season: so there sprang Swift love between them, and all spring through sang Light in their joyous hearing; for none knew The bitter bond of blood between them two, Twain fathers but one mother, till too late The sacred mouth of Merlin set forth fate And brake the secret seal on Arthur's birth, And showed his ruin and his rule on earth Inextricable, and light on lives to be. For surely, though time slay us, yet shall we Have such high name and lordship of good days As shall sustain us living, and men's praise Shall burn a beacon lit above us dead. And of the king how shall not this be said When any of us from any mouth has praise, That such were men in only this king's days, In Arthur's? yea, come shine or shade, no less His name shall be one name with knightliness, His fame one light with sunlight. Yet in sooth His age shall bear the burdens of his youth And bleed from his own bloodshed; for indeed Blind to him blind his sister brought forth seed, And of the child between them shall be born Destruction: so shall God not suffer scorn, Nor in men's souls and lives his law lie dead.' And as one moved and marvelling Iseult said: