# Tristram of Lyonesse and Other Poems/Tristram of Lyonesse/The Last Pilgrimage

VIII.
THE LAST PILGRIMAGE.
Enough of ease, O Love, enough of light, Enough of rest before the shadow of night. Strong Love, whom death finds feebler; kingly Love, Whom time discrowns in season, seeing thy dove Spell-stricken by the serpent; for thy sake These that saw light see night's dawn only break, Night's cup filled up with slumber, whence men think The draught more dread than thine was dire to drink. O Love, thy day sets darkling: hope and fear Fall from thee standing stern as death stands here. For what have these to do with fear or hope On whom the gates of outer darkness ope, On whom the door of life's desire is barred? Past like a cloud, their days in Joyous Gard Gleam like a cloud the westering sun stains red Till all the blood of day's blithe heart be bled And all night's heart requickened; in their eyes So flame and fade those far memorial skies, So shines the moorland, so revives the sea, Whereon they gazing mused of things to be
And wist not more of them than waters know What wind with next day's change of tide shall blow. Dark roll the deepening days whose waves divide Unseasonably, with storm-struck change of tide, Tristram from Iseult: nor may sorrow say If better wind shall blow than yesterday With next day risen or any day to come. For ere the songs of summer's death fell dumb, And autumn bade the imperial moorlands change Their purples, and the bracken's bloom grow strange As hope's green blossom touched with time's harsh rust, Was all their joy of life shaken to dust, And all its fire made ashes: by the strand Where late they strayed and communed hand from hand For the last time fell separate, eyes of eyes Took for the last time leave, and saw the skies Dark with their deep division. The last time— The last that ever love's rekindling rhyme Should keep for them life's days and nights in tune With refluence of the morning and the moon Alternative in music, and make one The secrets of the stardawn and the sun For these twain souls ere darkness held them fast; The last before the labour marked for last And toil of utmost knighthood, till the wage Of rest might crown his crowning pilgrimage Whereon forth faring must he take farewell, With spear for staff and sword for scallop-shell
And scrip wherein close memory hoarded yet Things holier held than death might well forget; The last time ere the travel were begun Whose goal is unbeholden of the sun, The last wherewith love's eyes might yet be lit, Came, and they could but dream they knew not it. For Tristram parting from her wist at heart How well she wist they might not choose but part, And he pass forth a pilgrim, when there came A sound of summons in the high king's name For succour toward his vassal Triamour, King in wild Wales, now spoiled of all his power, As Tristram's father ere his fair son's birth, By one the strongest of the sons of earth, Urgan, an iron bulk of giant mould: And Iseult in Tintagel as of old Sat crowned with state and sorrow: for her lord At Arthur's hand required her back restored, And willingly compelled against her will She yielded, saying within her own soul still Some season yet of soft or stormier breath Should haply give her life again or death: For now nor quick nor dead nor bright nor dark Were all her nights and days wherein King Mark Held haggard watch upon her, and his eyes Were cloudier than the gradual wintering skies That closed about the wan wild land and sea. And bitter toward him waxed her heart: but he Was rent in twain betwixt harsh love and hate With pain and passion half compassionate
That yearned and laboured to be quit of shame, And could not: and his life grew smouldering flame. And hers a cloud full-charged with storm and shower, Though touched with trembling gleams of fire's bright flower That flashed and faded on its fitful verge, As hope would strive with darkness and emerge And sink, a swimmer strangled by the swallowing surge. But Tristram by dense hills and deepening vales Rode through the wild glad wastes of glorious Wales, High-hearted with desire of happy fight And strong in soul with merrier sense of might Than since the fair first years that hailed him knight: For all his will was toward the war, so long Had love repressed and wrought his glory wrong, So far the triumph and so fair the praise Seemed now that kindled all his April days. And here in bright blown autumn, while his life Was summer's yet for strength toward love or strife, Blithe waxed his hope toward battle, and high desire To pluck once more as out of circling fire Fame, the broad flower whose breath makes death more sweet Than roses crushed by love's receding feet. But all the lovely land wherein he went The blast of ruin and ravenous war had rent; And black with fire the fields where homesteads were, And foul with festering dead the high soft air,
And loud with wail of women many a stream Whose own live song was like love's deepening dream, Spake all against the spoiler: wherefore still Wrath waxed with pity, quickening all his will, In Tristram's heart for every league he rode Through the aching land so broad a curse bestrode With so supreme a shadow: till one dawn Above the green bloom of a gleaming lawn, High on the strait steep windy bridge that spanned A glen's deep mouth, he saw that shadow stand Visible, sword on thigh and mace in hand Vast as the mid bulk of a roof-tree's beam. So, sheer above the wild wolf-haunted stream, Dire as the face disfeatured of a dream, Rose Urgan: and his eyes were night and flame; But like the fiery dawn were his that came Against him, lit with more sublime desire Than lifts toward heaven the leaping heart of fire: And strong in vantage of his perilous place The huge high presence, red as earth's first race, Reared like a reed the might up of his mace, And smote: but lightly Tristram swerved, and drove Right in on him, whose void stroke only clove Air, and fell wide, thundering athwart: and he Sent forth a stormier cry than wind or sea When midnight takes the tempest for her lord; And all the glen's throat seemed as hell's that roared; But high like heaven's light over hell shone Tristram's sword,
Falling, and bright as storm shows God's bare brand Flashed as it shore sheer off the huge right hand Whose strength was as the shadow of death on all that land. And like the trunk of some grim tree sawn through Reeled Urgan, as his left hand grasped and drew A steel by sorcerers tempered: and anew Raged the red wind of fluctuant fight, till all The cliffs were thrilled as by the clangorous call Of storm's blown trumpets from the core of night, Charging: and even as with the storm-wind's might On Tristram's helm that sword crashed: and the knight Fell, and his arms clashed, and a wide cry brake From those far off that heard it, for his sake Soul-stricken: and that bulk of monstrous birth Sent forth again a cry more dire for mirth: But ere the sunbright arms were soiled of earth They flashed again, re-risen: and swift and loud Rang the strokes out as from a circling cloud, So dense the dust wrought over them its drifted shroud. Strong strokes, within the mist their battle made, Each hailed on other through the shifting shade That clung about them hurtling as the swift fight swayed: And each between the jointed corslet saw Break forth his foe's bright blood at each grim flaw Steel made in hammered iron: till again The fiend put forth his might more strong for pain And cleft the great knight's glittering shield in twain,
Laughing for very wrath and thirst to kill, A beast's broad laugh of blind and wolfish will, And smote again ere Tristram's lips drew breath Panting, and swept as by the sense of death, That surely should have touched and sealed them fast Save that the sheer stroke shrilled aside, and passed Frustrate: but answering Tristram smote anew, And thrust the brute breast as with lightning through Clean with one cleaving stroke of perfect might: And violently the vast bulk leapt upright, And plunged over the bridge, and fell: and all The cliffs reverberate from his monstrous fall Rang: and the land by Tristram's grace was free. So with high laud and honour thence went he, And southward set his sail again, and passed The lone land's ending, first beheld and last Of eyes that look on England from the sea: And his heart mourned within him, knowing how she Whose heart with his was fatefully made fast Sat now fast bound, as though some charm were cast About her, such a brief space eastward thence, And yet might soul not break the bonds of sense And bring her to him in very life and breath More than had this been even the sea of death That washed between them, and its wide sweet light The dim strait's darkness of the narrowing night That shuts about men dying whose souls put forth To pierce its passage through: but south and north Alike for him were other than they were: For all the northward coast shone smooth and fair,
And off its iron cliffs the keen-edged air Blew summer, kindling from her mute bright mouth; But winter breathed out of the murmuring south, Where, pale with wrathful watch on passing ships, The lone wife lay in wait with wan dumb lips. Yet, sailing where the shoreward ripple curled Of the most wild sweet waves in all the world, His soul took comfort even for joy to see The strong deep joy of living sun and sea, The large deep love of living sea and land, As past the lonely lion-guarded strand Where the huge warder lifts his couchant sides, Asleep, above the sleepless lapse of tides, The light sail swept, and past the unsounded caves Unsearchable, wherein the pulse of waves Throbs through perpetual darkness to and fro, And the blind night swims heavily below While heavily the strong noon broods above, Even to the very bay whence very Love, Strong daughter of the giant gods who wrought Sun, earth, and sea out of their procreant thought, Most meetly might have risen, and most divine Beheld and heard things round her sound and shine From floors of foam and gold to walls of serpentine. For splendid as the limbs of that supreme Incarnate beauty through men's visions gleam, Whereof all fairest things are even but shadow or dream, And lovely like as Love's own heavenliest face,
Gleams there and glows the presence and the grace Even of the mother of all, in perfect pride of place. For otherwhere beneath our world-wide sky There may not be beheld of men that die Aught else like this that dies not, nor may stress Of ages that bow down men's works make less The exultant awe that clothes with power its loveliness. For who sets eye thereon soever knows How since these rocks and waves first rolled and rose The marvel of their many-coloured might Hath borne this record sensible to sight, The witness and the symbol of their own delight, The gospel graven of life's most heavenly law, Joy, brooding on its own still soul with awe, A sense of godlike rest in godlike strife, The sovereign conscience of the spirit of life. Nor otherwhere on strand or mountain tower Hath such fair beauty shining forth in flower Put on the imperial robe of such imperious power. For all the radiant rocks from depth to height Burn with vast bloom of glories blossom-bright As though the sun's own hand had thrilled them through with light And stained them through with splendour: yet from thence Such awe strikes rapture through the spirit of sense From all the inaccessible sea-wall's girth, That exultation, bright at heart as mirth, Bows deeper down before the beauty of earth
Than fear may bow down ever: nor shall one Who meets at Alpine dawn the mounting sun On heights too high for many a wing to climb Be touched with sense of aught seen more sublime Than here smiles high and sweet in face of heaven and time. For here the flower of fire, the soft hoar bloom Of springtide olive-woods, the warm green gloom Of clouded seas that swell and sound with dawn of doom, The keen thwart lightning and the wan grey light Of stormy sunrise crossed and vexed with night, Flash, loom, and laugh with divers hues in one From all the curved cliff's face, till day be done, Against the sea's face and the gazing sun. And whensoever a strong wave, high in hope, Sweeps up some smooth slant breadth of stone aslope, That glowed with duskier fire of hues less bright, Swift as it sweeps back springs to sudden sight The splendour of the moist rock's fervent light, Fresh as from dew of birth when time was born Out of the world-conceiving womb of morn. All its quenched flames and darkling hues divine Leap into lustrous life and laugh and shine And darken into swift and dim decline For one brief breath's space till the next wave run Right up, and ripple down again, undone, And leave it to be kissed and kindled of the sun. And all these things, bright as they shone before Man first set foot on earth or sail from shore,
Rose not less radiant than the sun sees now When the autumn sea was cloven of Tristram's prow, And strong in sorrow and hope and woful will That hope might move not nor might sorrow kill He held his way back toward the wild sad shore Whence he should come to look on these no more, Nor ever, save with sunless eyes shut fast, Sail home to sleep in home-born earth at last. And all these things fled fleet as light or breath Past, and his heart waxed cold and dull as death, Or swelled but as the tides of sorrow swell, To sink with sullen sense of slow farewell. So surely seemed the silence even to sigh Assurance of inveterate prophecy, 'Thou shalt not come again home hither ere thou die.' And the wind mourned and triumphed, and the sea Wailed and took heart and trembled; nor might he Hear more of comfort in their speech, or see More certitude in all the waste world's range Than the only certitude of death and change. And as the sense and semblance fluctuated Of all things heard and seen alive or dead That smote far off upon his ears or eyes Or memory mixed with forecasts fain to rise And fancies faint as ghosthest prophecies, So seemed his own soul, changefully forlorn, To shrink and triumph and mount up and mourn; Yet all its fitful waters, clothed with night, Lost heart not wholly, lacked not wholly light, Seeing over life and death one star in sight
Where evening's gates as fair as morning's ope, Whose name was memory, but whose flame was hope. For all the tides of thought that rose and sank Felt its fair strength wherefrom strong sorrow shrank A mightier trust than time could change or cloy, More strong than sorrow, more secure than joy. So came he, nor content nor all unblest, Back to the grey old land of Merlin's rest. But ere six paces forth on shore he trod Before him stood a knight with feet unshod, And kneeling called upon him, as on God Might sick men call for pity, praying aloud With hands held up and head made bare and bowed; 'Tristram, for God's love and thine own dear fame, I Tristram that am one with thee in name And one in heart with all that praise thee—I, Most woful man of all that may not die For heartbreak and the heavier scourge of shame, By all thy glory done our woful name Beseech thee, called of all men gentlest knight, Be now not slow to do my sorrows right. I charge thee for thy fame's sake through this land, I pray thee by thine own wife's fair white hand, Have pity of me whose love is borne away By one that makes of poor men's lives his prey, A felon masked with knighthood: at his side Seven brethren hath he night or day to ride With seven knights more that wait on all his will: And here at hand, ere yet one day fulfil Its flight through light and darkness, shall they fare Forth, and my bride among them, whom they bear
Through these wild lands his prisoner; and if now I lose her, and my prayer be vain, and thou Less fain to serve love's servants than of yore, Then surely shall I see her face no more. But if thou wilt, for love's sake of the bride Who lay most loved of women at thy side, Strike with me, straight then hence behoves us ride And rest between the moorside and the sea Where we may smite them passing: but for me, Poor stranger, me not worthy scarce to touch Thy kind strong hand, how shouldst thou do so much? For now lone left this long time waits thy wife And lacks her lord and light of wedded life Whilst thou far off art famous: yet thy fame, If thou take pity on me that bear thy name Unworthily, but by that name implore Thy grace, how shall not even thy fame grow more? But be thy will as God's among us done, Who art far in fame above us as the sun: Yet only of him have all men help and grace.' And all the lordly light of Tristram's face Was softened as the sun's in kindly spring. 'Nay, then may God send me as evil a thing When I give ear not to such prayers,' he said, 'And make my place among the nameless dead When I put back one hour the time to smite And do the unrighteous griefs of good men right. Behold, I will not enter in nor rest Here in mine own halls till this piteous quest Find end ere noon to-morrow: but do thou, Whose sister's face I may not look on now,
Go, Ganhardine, with tiding of the vow That bids me turn aside for one day's strife Or live dishonoured all my days of life, And greet for me in brother's wise my wife, And crave her pardon that for knighthood's sake And womanhood's, whose bands may no man break And keep the bands of bounden honour fast, I seek not her till two nights yet be past And this my quest accomplished, so God please By me to give this young man's anguish ease And on his wrongdoer's head his wrong requite.' And Tristram with that woful thankful knight Rode by the seaside moorland wastes away Between the quickening night and darkening day Ere half the gathering stars had heart to shine. And lightly toward his sister Ganhardine Sped, where she sat and gazed alone afar Above the grey sea for the sunset star, And lightly kissed her hand and lightly spake His tiding of that quest for knighthood's sake. And the white-handed Iseult, bowing her head, Gleamed on him with a glance athwart, and said, 'As God's on earth and far above the sun, So toward his handmaid be my lord's will done.' And doubts too dim to question or divine Touched as with shade the spirit of Ganhardine, Hearing; and scarce for half a doubtful breath His bright light heart held half a thought of death And knew not whence this darkling thought might be, But surely not his sister's work: for she
Was ever sweet and good as summer air, And soft as dew when all the night is fair, And gracious as the golden maiden moon When darkness craves her blessing: so full soon His mind was light again as leaping waves, Nor dreamed that hers was like a field of graves Where no man's foot dares swerve to left or right, Nor ear dares hearken, nor dares eye take sight Of aught that moves and murmurs there at night. But by the sea-banks where at morn their foes Might find them, lay those knightly name-fellows, One sick with grief of heart and sleepless, one With heart of hope triumphant as the sun Dreaming asleep of love and fame and fight: But sleep at last wrapped warm the wan young knight; And Tristram with the first pale windy light Woke ere the sun spake summons, and his ear Caught the sea's call that fired his heart to hear, A noise of waking waters: for till dawn The sea was silent as a mountain lawn When the wind speaks not, and the pines are dumb, And summer takes her fill ere autumn come Of life more soft than slumber: but ere day Rose, and the first beam smote the bounding bay, Up sprang the strength of the dark East, and took With its wide wings the waters as they shook, And hurled them huddling on aheap, and cast The full sea shoreward with a great glad blast, Blown from the heart of morning: and with joy Full-souled and perfect passion, as a boy
That leaps up light to wrestle with the sea For pure heart's gladness and large ecstasy, Up sprang the might of Tristram; and his soul Yearned for delight within him, and waxed whole As a young child's with rapture of the hour That brought his spirit and all the world to flower, And all the bright blood in his veins beat time To the wind's clarion and the water's chime That called him and he followed it and stood On the sand's verge before the grey great flood Where the white hurtling heads of waves that met Rose unsaluted of the sunrise yet. And from his heart's root outward shot the sweet Strong joy that thrilled him to the hands and feet, Filling his limbs with pleasure and glad might, And his soul drank the immeasurable delight That earth drinks in with morning, and the free Limitless love that lifts the stirring sea When on her bare bright bosom as a bride She takes the young sun, perfect in his pride, Home to his place with passion: and the heart Trembled for joy within the man whose part Was here not least in living; and his mind Was rapt abroad beyond man's meaner kind And pierced with love of all things and with mirth Moved to make one with heaven and heavenlike earth And with the light live water. So awhile He watched the dim sea with a deepening smile, And felt the sound and savour and swift flight Of waves that fled beneath the fading night
And died before the darkness, like a song With harps between and trumpets blown along Through the loud air of some triumphant day, Sink through his spirit and purge all sense away Save of the glorious gladness of his hour And all the world about to break in flower Before the sovereign laughter of the sun; And he, ere night's wide work lay all undone, As earth from her bright body casts off night, Cast off his raiment for a rapturous fight And stood between the sea's edge and the sea Naked, and godlike of his mould as he Whose swift foot's sound shook all the towers of Troy; So clothed with might, so girt upon with joy As, ere the knife had shorn to feed the fire His glorious hair before the unkindled pyre Whereon the half of his great heart was laid, Stood, in the light of his live limbs arrayed, Child of heroic earth and heavenly sea, The flower of all men: scarce less bright than he, If any of all men latter-born might stand, Stood Tristram, silent, on the glimmering strand. Not long: but with a cry of love that rang As from a trumpet golden-mouthed, he sprang, As toward a mother's where his head might rest Her child rejoicing, toward the strong sea's breast That none may gird nor measure: and his heart Sent forth a shout that bade his lips not part, But triumphed in him silent: no man's voice, No song, no sound of clarions that rejoice,
Can set that glory forth which fills with fire The body and soul that have their whole desire Silent, and freer than birds or dreams are free Take all their will of all the encountering sea. And toward the foam he bent and forward smote, Laughing, and launched his body like a boat Full to the sea-breach, and against the tide Struck strongly forth with amorous arms made wide To take the bright breast of the wave to his And on his lips the sharp sweet minute's kiss Given of the wave's lip for a breath's space curled And pure as at the daydawn of the world. And round him all the bright rough shuddering sea Kindled, as though the world were even as he, Heart-stung with exultation of desire: And all the life that moved him seemed to aspire, As all the sea's life toward the sun: and still Delight within him waxed with quickening will More smooth and strong and perfect as a flame That springs and spreads, till each glad limb became A note of rapture in the tune of life, Live music mild and keen as sleep and strife: Till the sweet change that bids the sense grow sure Of deeper depth and purity more pure Wrapped him and lapped him round with clearer cold, And all the rippling green grew royal gold Between him and the far sun's rising rim. And like the sun his heart rejoiced in him, And brightened with a broadening flame of mirth: And hardly seemed its life a part of earth,
But the life kindled of a fiery birth And passion of a new-begotten son Between the live sea and the living sun. And mightier grew the joy to meet full-faced Each wave, and mount with upward plunge, and taste The rapture of its rolling strength, and cross Its flickering crown of snows that flash and toss Like plumes in battle's blithest charge, and thence To match the next with yet more strenuous sense; Till on his eyes the light beat hard and bade His face turn west and shoreward through the glad Swift revel of the waters golden-clad, And back with light reluctant heart he bore Across the broad-backed rollers in to shore; Strong-spirited for the chance and cheer of fight, And donned his arms again, and felt the might In all his limbs rejoice for strength, and praised God for such life as that whereon he gazed, And wist not surely its joy was even as fleet As that which laughed and lapsed against his feet, The bright thin grey foam-blossom, glad and hoar, That flings its flower along the flowerless shore On sand or shingle, and still with sweet strange snows, As where one great white storm-dishevelled rose May rain her wild leaves on a windy land, Strews for long leagues the sounding slope of strand, And flower on flower falls flashing, and anew A fresh light leaps up whence the last flash flew, And casts its brief glad gleam of life away To fade not flowerwise but as drops the day
Storm-smitten, when at once the dark devours Heaven and the sea and earth with all their flowers; No star in heaven, on earth no rose to see, But the white blown brief blossoms of the sea, That make her green gloom starrier than the sky, Dance yet before the tempest's tune, and die. And all these things he glanced upon, and knew How fair they shone, from earth's least flake of dew To stretch of seas and imminence of skies, Unwittingly, with unpresageful eyes, For the last time. The world's half heavenly face, The music of the silence of the place, The confluence and the refluence of the sea, The wind's note ringing over wold and lea, Smote once more through him keen as fire that smote, Rang once more through him one reverberate note, That faded as he turned again and went, Fulfilled by strenuous joy with strong content, To take his last delight of labour done That yet should be beholden of the sun Or ever give man comfort of his hand. Beside a wood's edge in the broken land An hour at wait the twain together stood, Till swift between the moorside and the wood Flashed the spears forward of the coming train; And seeing beside the strong chief spoiler's rein His wan love riding prisoner in the crew, Forth with a cry the young man leapt, and flew Right on that felon sudden as a flame; And hard at hand the mightier Tristram came,
Bright as the sun and terrible as fire: And there had sword and spear their soul's desire, And blood that quenched the spear's thirst as it poured Slaked royally the hunger of the sword, Till the fierce heart of steel could scarce fulfil Its greed and ravin of insatiate will. For three the fiery spear of Tristram drove Down ere a point of theirs his harness clove Or its own sheer mid shaft splintered in twain; And his heart bounded in him, and was fain As fire or wind that takes its fill by night Of tempest and of triumph: so the knight Rejoiced and ranged among them, great of hand, Till seven lay slain upon the heathery sand Or in the dense breadth of the woodside fern. Nor did his heart not mightier in him burn Seeing at his hand that young knight fallen, and high The red sword reared again that bade him die. But on the slayer exulting like the flame Whose foot foreshines the thunder Tristram came Raging, for piteous wrath had made him fire; And as a lion's look his face was dire That flashed against his foeman ere the sword Lightened, and wrought the heart's will of its lord, And clove through casque and crown the wrongdoer's head. And right and left about their dark chief dead Hurtled and hurled those felons to and fro, Till as a storm-wind scatters leaves and snow
His right hand ravening scattered them; but one That fled with sidelong glance athwart the sun Shot, and the shaft flew sure, and smote aright, Full in the wound's print of his great first fight When at his young strength's peril he made free Cornwall, and slew beside its bordering sea The fair land's foe, who yielding up his breath Yet left him wounded nigh to dark slow death. And hardly with long toil thence he won home Between the grey moor and the glimmering foam, And halting fared through his own gate, and fell, Thirsting: for as the sleepless fire of hell The fire within him of his wound again Burned, and his face was dark as death for pain, And blind the blithe light of his eyes: but they Within that watched and wist not of the fray Came forth and cried aloud on him for woe. And scarce aloud his thanks fell faint and slow As men reared up the strong man fallen and bore Down the deep hall that looked along the shore, And laid him soft abed, and sought in vain If herb or hand of leech might heal his pain. And the white-handed Iseult hearkening heard All, and drew nigh, and spake no wifely word, But gazed upon him doubtfully, with eyes Clouded; and he in kindly knightly wise Spake with scant breath, and smiling: 'Surely this Is penance for discourteous lips to kiss And feel the brand burn through them, here to lie And lack the strength here to do more than sigh
And hope not hence for pardon.' Then she bowed Her head, still silent as a stooping cloud, And laid her lips against his face; and he Felt sink a shadow across him as the sea Might feel a cloud stoop toward it: and his heart Darkened as one that wastes by sorcerous art And knows not whence it withers: and he turned Back from her emerald eyes his own, and yearned All night for eyes all golden: and the dark Hung sleepless round him till the loud first lark Rang record forth once more of darkness done, And all things born took comfort from the sun.