<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=456523" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Tristram And Iseult</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I<br>TRISTRAM</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tristram. Is she not come? The messenger was sure—<br>Prop me upon the pillows once again—<br>Raise me, my page! this cannot long endure.<br>—Christ, what a night! how the sleet whips the pane!<br>What lights will those out to the northward be?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Page. The lanterns of the fishing-boats at sea.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tristram. Soft—who is that, stands by the dying fire?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Page. Iseult.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tristram. Ah! not the Iseult I desire.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What Knight is this so weak and pale,<br>Though the locks are yet brown on his noble head,<br>Propt on pillows in his bed, <br>Gazing seaward for the light<br>Of some ship that fights the gale<br>On this wild December night?<br>Over the sick man's feet is spread <br>A dark green forest-dress;<br>A gold harp leans against the bed,<br>Ruddy in the fire's light.<br>I know him by his harp of gold,<br>Famous in Arthur's court of old; <br>I know him by his forest-dress—<br>The peerless hunter, harper, knight,<br>Tristram of Lyoness.<br>What Lady is this, whose silk attire<br>Gleams so rich in the light of the fire?<br>The ringlets on her shoulders lying<br>In their flitting lustre vying<br>With the clasp of burnish'd gold<br>Which her heavy robe doth hold.<br>Her looks are mild, her fingers slight<br>As the driven snow are white;<br>But her cheeks are sunk and pale.<br>Is it that the bleak sea-gale<br>Beating from the Atlantic sea<br>On this coast of Brittany,<br>Nips too keenly the sweet flower?<br>Is it that a deep fatigue<br>Hath come on her, a chilly fear,<br>Passing all her youthful hour<br>Spinning with her maidens here,<br>Listlessly through the window-bars<br>Gazing seawards many a league,<br>From her lonely shore-built tower,<br>While the knights are at the wars?<br>Or, perhaps, has her young heart<br>Felt already some deeper smart,<br>Of those that in secret the heart-strings rive,<br>Leaving her sunk and pale, though fair?<br>Who is this snowdrop by the sea?—<br>I know her by her mildness rare,<br>Her snow-white hands, her golden hair;<br>I know her by her rich silk dress,<br>And her fragile loveliness—<br>The sweetest Christian soul alive,<br>Iseult of Brittany.<br>Iseult of Brittany?—but where<br>Is that other Iseult fair,<br>That proud, first Iseult, Cornwall's queen?<br>She, whom Tristram's ship of yore<br>From Ireland to Cornwall bore,<br>To Tyntagel, to the side<br>Of King Marc, to be his bride?<br>She who, as they voyaged, quaff'd<br>With Tristram that spiced magic draught,<br>Which since then for ever rolls<br>Through their blood, and binds their souls,<br>Working love, but working teen?—.<br>There were two Iseults who did sway<br>Each her hour of Tristram's day;<br>But one possess'd his waning time,<br>The other his resplendent prime.<br>Behold her here, the patient flower,<br>Who possess'd his darker hour!<br>Iseult of the Snow-White Hand<br>Watches pale by Tristram's bed.<br>She is here who had his gloom,<br>Where art thou who hadst his bloom?<br>One such kiss as those of yore<br>Might thy dying knight restore!<br>Does the love-draught work no more?<br>Art thou cold, or false, or dead,<br>Iseult of Ireland?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Loud howls the wind, sharp patters the rain,<br>And the knight sinks back on his pillows again.<br>He is weak with fever and pain; <br>And his spirit is not clear.<br>Hark! he mutters in his sleep,<br>As he wanders far from here,<br>Changes place and time of year,<br>And his closéd eye doth sweep<br>O'er some fair unwintry sea,<br>Not this fierce Atlantic deep,<br>While he mutters brokenly:—<br>Tristram. The calm sea shines, loose hang the vessel's sails;<br>Before us are the sweet green fields of Wales,<br>And overhead the cloudless sky of May.—<br>'Ah, would I were in those green fields at play,<br>Not pent on ship-board this delicious day!<br>Tristram, I pray thee, of thy courtesy,<br>Reach me my golden phial stands by thee,<br>But pledge me in it first for courtesy.'—<br>Ha! dost thou start? are thy lips blanch'd like mine?<br>Child, 'tis no true draught this, 'tis poison'd wine!<br>Iseult!…</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah, sweet angels, let him dream!<br>Keep his eyelids! let him seem<br>Not this fever-wasted wight<br>Thinn'd and paled before his time,<br>But the brilliant youthful knight<br>In the glory of his prime,<br>Sitting in the gilded barge,<br>At thy side, thou lovely charge,<br>Bending gaily o'er thy hand,<br>Iseult of Ireland!<br>And she too, that princess fair,<br>If her bloom be now less rare,<br>Let her have her youth again—<br>Let her be as she was then!<br>Let her have her proud dark eyes,<br>And her petulant quick replies—<br>Let her sweep her dazzling hand<br>With its gesture of command,<br>And shake back her raven hair<br>With the old imperious air!<br>As of old, so let her be,<br>That first Iseult, princess bright,<br>Chatting with her youthful knight<br>As he steers her o'er the sea,<br>Quitting at her father's will<br>The green isle where she was bred,<br>And her bower in Ireland,<br>For the surge-beat Cornish strand<br>Where the prince whom she must wed<br>Dwells on loud Tyntagel's hill,<br>High above the sounding sea.<br>And that potion rare her mother<br>Gave her, that her future lord,<br>Gave her, that King Marc and she,<br>Might drink it on their marriage-day,<br>And for ever love each other—<br>Let her, as she sits on board,<br>Ah, sweet saints, unwittingly!<br>See it shine, and take it up,<br>And to Tristram laughing say:<br>'Sir Tristram, of thy courtesy,<br>Pledge me in my golden cup!'<br>Let them drink it—let their hands<br>Tremble, and their cheeks be flame,<br>As they feel the fatal bands<br>Of a love they dare not name,<br>With a wild delicious pain,<br>Twine about their hearts again!<br>Let the early summer be<br>Once more round them, and the sea<br>Blue, and o'er its mirror kind<br>Let the breath of the May-wind,<br>Wandering through their drooping sails,<br>Die on the green fields of Wales!<br>Let a dream like this restore<br>What his eye must see no more!<br>Tristram. Chill blows the wind, the pleasaunce-walks are drear—<br>Madcap, what jest was this, to meet me here?<br>Were feet like those made for so wild a way?<br>The southern winter-parlour, by my fay,<br>Had been the likeliest trysting-place to-day!<br>'Tristram!—nay, nay—thou must not take my hand!—<br>Tristram!—sweet love!—we are betray'd—out-plann'd.<br>Fly—save thyself—save me!—I dare not stay.'—<br>One last kiss first!—''Tis vain—to horse—away!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah! sweet saints, his dream doth move<br>Faster surely than it should,<br>From the fever in his blood!<br>All the spring-time of his love<br>Is already gone and past,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And instead thereof is seen<br>Its winter, which endureth still—<br>Tyntagel on its surge-beat hill,<br>The pleasaunce-walks, the weeping queen,<br>The flying leaves, the straining blast,<br>And that long, wild kiss—their last.<br>And this rough December-night,<br>And his burning fever-pain,<br>Mingle with his hurrying dream,<br>Till they rule it, till he seem<br>The press'd fugitive again,<br>The love-desperate banish'd knight<br>With a fire in his brain<br>Flying o'er the stormy main.<br>—Whither does he wander now?<br>Haply in his dreams the wind<br>Wafts him here, and lets him find<br>The lovely orphan child again<br>In her castle by the coast;<br>The youngest, fairest chatelaine,<br>Whom this realm of France can boast,<br>Our snowdrop by the Atlantic sea,<br>Iseult of Brittany. <br>And—for through the haggard air,<br>The stain'd arms, the matted hair<br>Of that stranger-knight ill-starr'd,<br>There gleam'd something, which recall'd<br>The Tristram who in better days<br>Was Launcelot's guest at Joyous Gard—<br>Welcomed here, and here install'd,<br>Tended of his fever here,<br>Haply he seems again to move<br>His young guardian's heart with love<br>In his exiled loneliness,<br>In his stately, deep distress,<br>Without a word, without a tear.<br>—Ah! 'tis well he should retrace<br>His tranquil life in this lone place;<br>His gentle bearing at the side<br>Of his timid youthful bride;<br>His long rambles by the shore<br>On winter-evenings, when the roar<br>Of the near waves came, sadly grand,<br>Through the dark, up the drown'd sand,<br>Or his endless reveries<br>In the woods, where the gleams play<br>On the grass under the trees,<br>Passing the long summer's day<br>Idle as a mossy stone<br>In the forest-depths alone,<br>The chase neglected, and his hound<br>Couch'd beside him on the ground.<br>—Ah! what trouble's on his brow?<br>Hither let him wander now;<br>Hither, to the quiet hours<br>Pass'd among these heaths of ours.<br>By the grey Atlantic sea;<br>Hours, if not of ecstasy,<br>From violent anguish surely free!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tristram. All red with blood the whirling river flows,<br>The wide plain rings, the dazed air throbs with blows.<br>Upon us are the chivalry of Rome—<br>Their spears are down, their steeds are bathed in foam.<br>'Up, Tristram, up,' men cry, 'thou moonstruck knight!<br>What foul fiend rides thee? On into the fight!'<br>—Above the din her voice is in my ears;<br>I see her form glide through the crossing spears.—<br>Iseult!…</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah! he wanders forth again;<br>We cannot keep him; now, as then,<br>There's a secret in his breast<br>Which will never let him rest.<br>These musing fits in the green wood<br>They cloud the brain, they dull the blood!<br>—His sword is sharp, his horse is good;<br>Beyond the mountains will he see<br>The famous towns of Italy,<br>And label with the blessed sign<br>The heathen Saxons on the Rhine.<br>At Arthur's side he fights once more<br>With the Roman Emperor.<br>There's many a gay knight where he goes<br>Will help him to forget his care;<br>The march, the leaguer, Heaven's blithe air,<br>The neighing steeds, the ringing blows—<br>Sick pining comes not where these are.<br>Ah! what boots it, that the jest<br>Lightens every other brow,<br>What, that every other breast<br>Dances as the trumpets blow,<br>If one's own heart beats not light<br>On the waves of the toss'd fight,<br>If oneself cannot get free<br>From the clog of misery?<br>Thy lovely youthful wife grows pale<br>Watching by the salt sea-tide<br>With her children at her side<br>For the gleam of thy white sail.<br>Home, Tristram, to thy halls again!<br>To our lonely sea complain,<br>To our forests tell thy pain! <br>Tristram. All round the forest sweeps off, black in shade,<br>But it is moonlight in the open glade;<br>And in the bottom of the glade shine clear<br>The forest-chapel and the fountain near.<br>—I think, I have a fever in my blood;<br>Come, let me leave the shadow of this wood,<br>Ride down, and bathe my hot brow in the flood.<br>—Mild shines the cold spring in the moon's clear light;<br>God! 'tis her face plays in the waters bright.<br>'Fair love,' she says, 'canst thou forget so soon,<br>At this soft hour under this sweet moon?'—<br>Iseult!…</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah, poor soul! if this be so,<br>Only death can balm thy woe.<br>The solitudes of the green wood<br>Had no medicine for thy mood;<br>The rushing battle clear'd thy blood<br>As little as did solitude.<br>—Ah! his eyelids slowly break<br>Their hot seals, and let him wake;<br>What new change shall we now see?<br>A happier? Worse it cannot be.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tristram. Is my page here? Come, turn me to the fire!<br>Upon the window-panes the moon shines bright;<br>The wind is down—but she'll not come to-night.<br>Ah no! she is asleep in Cornwall now,<br>Far hence; her dreams are fair—smooth is her brow<br>Of me she recks not, nor my vain desire.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">—I have had dreams, I have had dreams, my page,<br>Would take a score years from a strong man's age;<br>And with a blood like mine, will leave, I fear,<br>Scant leisure for a second messenger.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">—My princess, art thou there? Sweet, do not wait!<br>To bed, and sleep! my fever is gone by;<br>To-night my page shall keep me company.<br>Where do the children sleep? kiss them for me!<br>Poor child, thou art almost as pale as I;<br>This comes of nursing long and watching late.<br>To bed—good night!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She left the gleam-lit fireplace,<br>She came to the bed-side;<br>She took his hands in hers—her tears<br>Down on his wasted fingers rain'd.<br>She raised her eyes upon his face—<br>Not with a look of wounded pride,<br>A look as if the heart complained—<br>Her look was like a sad embrace;<br>The gaze of one who can divine<br>A grief, and sympathise.<br>Sweet flower! thy children's eyes<br>Are not more innocent than thine.<br>But they sleep in shelter'd rest,<br>Like helpless birds in the warm nest,<br>On the castle's southern side;<br>Where feebly comes the mournful roar<br>Of buffeting wind and surging tide<br>Through many a room and corridor.<br>—Full on their window the moon's ray<br>Makes their chamber as bright as day.<br>It shines upon the blank white walls,<br>And on the snowy pillow falls,<br>And on two angel-heads doth play<br>Turn'd to each other—the eyes closed,<br>The lashes on the cheeks reposed.<br>Round each sweet brow the cap close-set<br>Hardly lets peep the golden hair;<br>Through the soft-open'd lips the air<br>Scarcely moves the coverlet.<br>One little wandering arm is thrown<br>At random on the counterpane,<br>And often the fingers close in haste<br>As if their baby-owner chased<br>The butterflies again.<br>This stir they have, and this alone;<br>But else they are so still!<br>—Ah, tired madcaps! you lie still;<br>But were you at the window now,<br>To look forth on the fairy sight<br>Of your illumined haunts by night,<br>To see the park-glades where you play<br>Far lovelier than they are by day,<br>To see the sparkle on the eaves,<br>And upon every giant-bough<br>Of those old oaks, whose wet red leaves<br>Are jewell'd with bright drops of rain—<br>How would your voices run again!<br>And far beyond the sparkling trees<br>Of the castle-park one sees<br>The bare heaths spreading, clear as day,<br>Moor behind moor, far, far away,<br>Into the heart of Brittany.<br>And here and there, lock'd by the land,<br>Long inlets of smooth glittering sea,<br>And many a stretch of watery sand<br>All shining in the white moon-beams—<br>But you see fairer in your dreams!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What voices are these on the clear night-air?<br>What lights in the court—what steps on the stair?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II<br>ISEULT OF IRELAND<br>Tristram. Raise the light, my page! that I may see her.—<br>Thou art come at last, then, haughty Queen!<br>Long I've waited, long I've fought my fever;<br>Late thou comest, cruel thou hast been.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Iseult. Blame me not, poor sufferer! that I tarried;<br>Bound I was, I could not break the band.<br>Chide not with the past, but feel the present!<br>I am here—we meet—I hold thy hand.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tristram. Thou art come, indeed—thou hast rejoin'd me;<br>Thou hast dared it—but too late to save.<br>Fear not now that men should tax thine honour!<br>I am dying: build—(thou may'st)—my grave!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Iseult. Tristram, ah, for love of Heaven, speak kindly!<br>What, I hear these bitter words from thee?<br>Sick with grief I am, and faint with travel—<br>Take my hand—dear Tristram, look on me!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tristram. I forgot, thou comest from thy voyage—<br>Yes, the spray is on thy cloak and hair.<br>But thy dark eyes are not dimm'd, proud Iseult!<br>And thy beauty never was more fair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Iseult. Ah, harsh flatterer! let alone my beauty!<br>I, like thee, have left my youth afar.<br>Take my hand, and touch these wasted fingers—<br>See my cheek and lips, how white they are!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tristram. Thou art paler—but thy sweet charm, Iseult!<br>Would not fade with the dull years away.<br>Ah, how fair thou standest in the moonlight!<br>I forgive thee, Iseult!—thou wilt stay?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Iseult. Fear me not, I will be always with thee;<br>I will watch thee, tend thee, soothe thy pain;<br>Sing thee tales of true, long-parted lovers,<br>Join'd at evening of their days again.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tristram. No, thou shalt not speak! I should be finding<br>Something alter'd in thy courtly tone.<br>Sit—sit by me! I will think, we've lived so<br>In the green wood, all our lives, alone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Iseult. Alter'd, Tristram? Not in courts, believe me,<br>Love like mine is alter'd in the breast;<br>Courtly life is light and cannot reach it—<br>Ah! it lives, because so deep-suppress'd!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What, thou think'st men speak in courtly chambers<br>Words by which the wretched are consoled?<br>What, thou think'st this aching brow was cooler,<br>Circled, Tristram, by a band of gold?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Royal state with Marc, my deep-wrong'd husband—<br>That was bliss to make my sorrows flee!<br>Silken courtiers whispering honied nothings—<br>Those were friends to make me false to thee!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah, on which, if both our lots were balanced,<br>Was indeed the heaviest burden thrown—<br>Thee, a pining exile in thy forest,<br>Me, a smiling queen upon my throne?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Vain and strange debate, where both have suffer'd,<br>Both have pass'd a youth consumed and sad,<br>Both have brought their anxious day to evening,<br>And have now short space for being glad!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Join'd we are henceforth; nor will thy people,<br>Nor thy younger Iseult take it ill,<br>That a former rival shares her office,<br>When she sees her humbled, pale, and still.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I, a faded watcher by thy pillow,<br>I, a statue on thy chapel-floor,<br>Pour'd in prayer before the Virgin-Mother,<br>Rouse no anger, make no rivals more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She will cry: 'Is this the foe I dreaded?<br>This his idol? this that royal bride?<br>Ah, an hour of health would purge his eyesight!<br>Stay, pale queen! for ever by my side.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hush, no words! that smile, I see, forgives me.<br>I am now thy nurse, I bid thee sleep.<br>Close thine eyes—this flooding moonlight blinds them!—<br>Nay, all's well again! thou must not weep.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tristram. I am happy! yet I feel, there's something<br>Swells my heart, and takes my breath away.<br>Through a mist I see thee; near—come nearer!<br>Bend—bend down!—I yet have much to say.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Iseult. Heaven! his head sinks back upon the pillow—<br>Tristram! Tristram! let thy heart not fail!<br>Call on God and on the holy angels!<br>What, love, courage!—Christ! he is so pale.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tristram. Hush, 'tis vain, I feel my end approaching!<br>This is what my mother said should be,<br>When the fierce pains took her in the forest,<br>The deep draughts of death, in bearing me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Son,' she said, 'thy name shall be of sorrow;<br>Tristram art thou call'd for my death's sake.'<br>So she said, and died in the drear forest.<br>Grief since then his home with me doth make.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I am dying.—Start not, nor look wildly!<br>Me, thy living friend, thou canst not save.<br>But, since living we were ununited,<br>Go not far, O Iseult! from my grave.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Close mine eyes, then seek the princess Iseult;<br>Speak her fair, she is of royal blood!<br>Say, I will'd so, that thou stay beside me—<br>She will grant it; she is kind and good.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now to sail the seas of death I leave thee—<br>One last kiss upon the living shore!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Iseult. Tristram!—Tristram!—stay—receive me with thee!<br>Iseult leaves thee, Tristram! never more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">You see them clear—the moon shines bright.<br>Slow, slow and softly, where she stood,<br>She sinks upon the ground;—her hood<br>Has fallen back; her arms outspread<br>Still hold her lover's hand; her head<br>Is bow'd, half-buried, on the bed.<br>O'er the blanch'd sheet her raven hair<br>Lies in disorder'd streams; and there,<br>Strung like white stars, the pearls still are,<br>And the golden bracelets, heavy and rare,<br>Flash on her white arms still.<br>The very same which yesternight<br>Flash'd in the silver sconces' light,<br>When the feast was gay and the laughter loud<br>In Tyntagel's palace proud.<br>But then they deck'd a restless ghost<br>With hot-flush'd cheeks and brilliant eyes,<br>And quivering lips on which the tide<br>Of courtly speech abruptly died,<br>And a glance which over the crowded floor,<br>The dancers, and the festive host,<br>Flew ever to the door.<br>That the knights eyed her in surprise,<br>And the dames whispered scoffingly:<br>'Her moods, good lack, they pass like showers!<br>But yesternight and she would be<br>As pale and still as wither'd flowers,<br>And now to-night she laughs and speaks<br>And has a colour in her cheeks;<br>Christ keep us from such fantasy!'—<br>Yes, now the longing is o'erpast,<br>Which, dogg'd by fear and fought by shame,<br>Shook her weak bosom day and night,<br>Consumed her beauty like a flame,<br>And dimm'd it like the desert-blast.<br>And though the bed-clothes hide her face,<br>Yet were it lifted to the light,<br>The sweet expression of her brow<br>Would charm the gazer, till his thought<br>Erased the ravages of time,<br>Fill'd up the hollow cheek, and brought<br>A freshness back as of her prime—<br>So healing is her quiet now.<br>So perfectly the lines express<br>A tranquil, settled loveliness,<br>Her younger rival's purest grace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The air of the December-night<br>Steals coldly around the chamber bright,<br>Where those lifeless lovers be;<br>Swinging with it, in the light<br>Flaps the ghostlike tapestry.<br>And on the arras wrought you see<br>A stately Huntsman, clad in green,<br>And round him a fresh forest-scene.<br>On that clear forest-knoll he stays,<br>With his pack round him, and delays.<br>He stares and stares, with troubled face,<br>At this huge, gleam-lit fireplace,<br>At that bright, iron-figured door,<br>And those blown rushes on the floor.<br>He gazes down into the room<br>With heated cheeks and flurried air,<br>And to himself he seems to say:<br>'What place is this, and who are they?<br>Who is that kneeling Lady fair?<br>And on his pillows that pale Knight<br>Who seems of marble on a tomb?<br>How comes it here, this chamber bright,<br>Through whose mullion'd windows clear<br>The castle-court all wet with rain,<br>The drawbridge and the moat appear,<br>And then the beach, and, mark'd with spray,<br>The sunken reefs, and far away<br>The unquiet bright Atlantic plain?<br>—What, has some glamour made me sleep,<br>And sent me with my dogs to sweep,<br>By night, with boisterous bugle-peal,<br>Through some old, sea-side, knightly hall,<br>Not in the free green wood at all?<br>That Knight's asleep, and at her prayer<br>That Lady by the bed doth kneel—<br>Then hush, thou boisterous bugle-peal!'<br>—The wild boar rustles in his lair;<br>The fierce hounds snuff the tainted air;<br>But lord and hounds keep rooted there.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cheer, cheer thy dogs into the brake,<br>O Hunter! and without a fear<br>Thy golden-tassell'd bugle blow,<br>And through the glades thy pastime take—<br>For thou wilt rouse no sleepers here!<br>For these thou seest are unmoved;<br>Cold, cold as those who lived and loved<br>A thousand years ago.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III</div><div style="margin:10px 0">ISEULT OF BRITTANY<br>A year had flown, and o'er the sea away,<br>In Cornwall, Tristram and Queen Iseult lay;<br>In King Marc's chapel, in Tyntagel old—<br>There in a ship they bore those lovers cold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The young surviving Iseult, one bright day,<br>Had wander'd forth. Her children were at play<br>In a green circular hollow in the heath<br>Which borders the sea-shore—a country path<br>Creeps over it from the till'd fields behind.<br>The hollow's grassy banks are soft-inclined,<br>And to one standing on them, far and near<br>The lone unbroken view spreads bright and clear<br>Over the waste. This cirque of open ground<br>Is light and green; the heather, which all round<br>Creeps thickly, grows not here; but the pale grass<br>Is strewn with rocks, and many a shiver'd mass<br>Of vein'd white-gleaming quartz, and here and there<br>Dotted with holly-trees and juniper.<br>In the smooth centre of the opening stood<br>Three hollies side by side, and made a screen,<br>Warm with the winter-sun, of burnish'd green<br>With scarlet berries gemm'd, the fell-fare's food.<br>Under the glittering hollies Iseult stands,<br>Watching her children play; their little hands<br>Are busy gathering spars of quartz, and streams<br>Of stagshorn for their hats; anon, with screams<br>Of mad delight they drop their spoils, and bound<br>Among the holly-clumps and broken ground,<br>Racing full speed, and startling in their rush<br>The fell-fares and the speckled missel-thrush<br>Out of their glossy coverts;—but when now<br>Their cheeks were flush'd, and over each hot brow,<br>Under the feather'd hats of the sweet pair,<br>In blinding masses shower'd the golden hair—<br>Then Iseult call'd them to her, and the three<br>Cluster'd under the holly-screen, and she<br>Told them an old-world Breton history.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Warm in their mantles wrapt the three stood there,<br>Under the hollies, in the clear still air—<br>Mantles with those rich furs deep glistering<br>Which Venice ships do from swart Egypt bring.<br>Long they stay'd still—then, pacing at their ease,<br>Moved up and down under the glossy trees.<br>But still, as they pursued their warm dry road,<br>From Iseult's lips the unbroken story flow'd,<br>And still the children listen'd, their blue eyes<br>Fix'd on their mother's face in wide surprise;<br>Nor did their looks stray once to the sea-side,<br>Nor to the brown heaths round them, bright and wide,<br>Nor to the snow, which, though 'twas all away<br>From the open heath, still by the hedgerows lay,<br>Nor to the shining sea-fowl, that with screams<br>Bore up from where the bright Atlantic gleams,<br>Swooping to landward; nor to where, quite clear,<br>The fell-fares settled on the thickets near.<br>And they would still have listen'd, till dark night<br>Came keen and chill down on the heather bright;<br>But, when the red glow on the sea grew cold,<br>And the grey turrets of the castle old<br>Look'd sternly through the frosty evening-air, <br>Then Iseult took by the hand those children fair,<br>And brought her tale to an end, and found the path,<br>And led them home over the darkening heath.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And is she happy? Does she see unmoved<br>The days in which she might have lived and loved<br>Slip without bringing bliss slowly away,<br>One after one, to-morrow like to-day?<br>Joy has not found her yet, nor ever will—<br>Is it this thought which, makes her mien so still,<br>Her features so fatigued, her eyes, though sweet,<br>So sunk, so rarely lifted save to meet<br>Her children's? She moves slow; her voice alone<br>Hath yet an infantine and silver tone,<br>But even that comes languidly; in truth,<br>She seems one dying in a mask of youth.<br>And now she will go home, and softly lay<br>Her laughing children in their beds, and play<br>Awhile with them before they sleep; and then<br>She'll light her silver lamp, which fishermen<br>Dragging their nets through the rough waves, afar,<br>Along this iron coast, know like a star,<br>And take her broidery-frame, and there she'll sit<br>Hour after hour, her gold curls sweeping it;<br>Lifting her soft-bent head only to mind<br>Her children, or to listen to the wind.<br>And when the clock peals midnight, she will move<br>Her work away, and let her fingers rove<br>Across the shaggy brows of Tristram's hound<br>Who lies, guarding her feet, along the ground;<br>Or else she will fall musing, her blue eyes<br>Fixt, her slight hands clasp'd on her lap; then rise,<br>And at her prie-dieu kneel, until she have told<br>Her rosary-beads of ebony tipp'd with gold,<br>Then to her soft sleep—and to-morrow'll be<br>To-day's exact repeated effigy.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yes, it is lonely for her in her hall.<br>The children, and the grey-hair'd seneschal,<br>Her women, and Sir Tristram's aged hound,<br>Are there the sole companions to be found.<br>But these she loves; and noiser life than this<br>She would find ill to bear, weak as she is.<br>She has her children, too, and night and day<br>Is with them; and the wide heaths where they play,<br>The hollies, and the cliff, and the sea-shore,<br>The sand, the sea-birds, and the distant sails,<br>These are to her dear as to them; the tales<br>With which this day the children she beguiled<br>She gleaned from Breton grandames, when a child,<br>In every hut along this sea-coast wild.<br>She herself loves them still, and, when they are told,<br>Can forget all to hear them, as of old.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dear saints, it is not sorrow, as I hear,<br>Not suffering, which shuts up eye and ear<br>To all that has delighted them before,<br>And lets us be what we were once no more.<br>No, we may suffer deeply, yet retain<br>Power to be moved and soothed, for all our pain,<br>By what of old pleased us, and will again.<br>No, 'tis the gradual furnace of the world,<br>In whose hot air our spirits are upcurl'd<br>Until they crumble, or else grow like steel—<br>Which kills in us the bloom, the youth, the spring—<br>Which leaves the fierce necessity to feel,<br>But takes away the power—this can avail,<br>By drying up our joy in everything,<br>To make our former pleasures all seem stale.<br>This, or some tyrannous single thought, some fit<br>Of passion, which subdues our souls to it,<br>Till for its sake alone we live and move—<br>Call it ambition, or remorse, or love—<br>This too can change us wholly, and make seem<br>All which we did before, shadow and dream.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And yet, I swear, it angers me to see<br>How this fool passion gulls men potently;<br>Being, in truth, but a diseased unrest,<br>And an unnatural overheat at best.<br>How they are full of languor and distress<br>Not having it; which when they do possess,<br>They straightway are burnt up with fume and care,<br>And spend their lives in posting here and there<br>Where this plague drives them; and have little ease,<br>Are furious with themselves, and hard to please.<br>Like that bold Cæsar, the famed Roman wight,<br>Who wept at reading of a Grecian knight<br>Who made a name at younger years than he;<br>Or that renown'd mirror of chivalry,<br>Prince Alexander, Philip's peerless son,<br>Who carried the great war from Macedon<br>Into the Soudan's realm, and thundered on<br>To die at thirty-five in Babylon.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What tale did Iseult to the children say,<br>Under the hollies, that bright-winter's day?<br>She told them of the fairy-haunted land<br>Away the other side of Brittany,<br>Beyond the heaths, edged by the lonely sea;<br>Of the deep forest-glades of Broce-liande,<br>Through whose green boughs the golden sunshine creeps<br>Where Merlin by the enchanted thorn-tree sleeps.<br>For here he came with the fay Vivian,<br>One April, when the warm days first began.<br>He was on foot, and that false fay, his friend,<br>On her white palfrey; here he met his end,<br>In these lone sylvan glades, that April-day.<br>This tale of Merlin and the lovely fay<br>Was the one Iseult chose, and she brought clear<br>Before the children's fancy him and her.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Blowing between the stems, the forest-air<br>Had loosen'd the brown locks of Vivian's hair,<br>Which play'd on her flush'd cheek, and her blue eyes<br>Sparkled with mocking glee and exercise.<br>Her palfrey's flanks were mired and bathed in sweat,<br>For they had travell'd far and not stopp'd yet.<br>A brier in that tangled wilderness<br>Had scored her white right hand, which she allows<br>To rest ungloved on her green riding-dress;<br>The other warded off the drooping boughs.<br>But still she chatted on, with her blue eyes<br>Fix'd full on Merlin's face, her stately prize.<br>Her 'haviour had the morning's fresh clear grace,<br>The spirit of the woods was in her face.<br>She look'd so witching fair, that learned wight<br>Forgot his craft, and his best wits took flight;<br>And he grew fond, and eager to obey<br>His mistress, use her empire as she may.<br>They came to where the brushwood ceased, and day <br>Peer'd 'twixt the stems; and the ground broke away,<br>In a sloped sward down to a brawling brook;<br>And up as high as where they stood to look<br>On the brook's farther side was clear, but then<br>The underwood and trees began again.<br>This open glen was studded thick with thorns<br>Then white with blossom; and you saw the horns,<br>Through last year's fern, of the shy fallow-deer<br>Who come at noon down to the water here.<br>You saw the bright-eyed squirrels dart along<br>Under the thorns on the green sward; and strong<br>The blackbird whistled from the dingles near,<br>And the weird chipping of the woodpecker<br>Rang lonelily and sharp; the sky was fair,<br>And a fresh breath of spring stirr'd everywhere.<br>Merlin and Vivian stopp'd on the slope's brow,<br>To gaze on the light sea of leaf and bough<br>Which glistering plays all round them, lone and mild.<br>As if to itself the quiet forest smiled.<br>Upon the brow-top grew a thorn, and here<br>The grass was dry and moss'd, and you saw clear<br>Across the hollow; white anemones<br>Starr'd the cool turf, and clumps of primroses<br>Ran out from the dark underwood behind.<br>No fairer resting-place a man could find.<br>'Here let us halt,' said Merlin then; and she<br>Nodded, and tied her palfrey to a tree.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They sate them down together, and a sleep<br>Fell upon Merlin, more like death, so deep.<br>Her finger on her lips, then Vivian rose<br>And from her brown-lock'd head the wimple throws,<br>And takes it in her hand, and waves it over<br>The blossom'd thorn-tree and her sleeping lover.<br>Nine times she waved the fluttering wimple round,<br>And made a little plot of magic ground.<br>And in that daised circle, as men say,<br>Is Merlin prisoner till the judgment-day;<br>But she herself whither she will can rove—<br>For she was passing weary of his love.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Matthew+Arnold">Matthew Arnold</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=456523" data-title="Tristram And Iseult de Matthew Arnold" data-description="I TRISTRAM Tristram. Is she not come? The messenger was sure— Prop me upon the pillows once again— Raise me, my page! this cannot long endure. —Christ, what a night! how the sleet whips the pane! What lights will those out to the northward ..."></div> </div> </div>

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