"Whence comest thou, my guest, and by what name?" Then answered Lancelot, the chief of knights:
"Known am I and of Arthur's hall, and known
What I, by mere mischance have brought, my shield;
But since I go to joust as one unknown
At Camelot, for the diamond, ask me not.
Hereafter you shall know me, and the shield;
I pray you lend me one if such you have,
Blank, or at least with some device, not mine."
Then said the lord of Astolat: "Here is Torre's."
"O father," said young Lavaine, “give me leave
To ride to Camelot with this noble knight?"
66 So you will grace me," answered Lancelot.
Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable,
Lifted her eyes and read his lineaments
And loved him with that love which was her doom.
And all night long his face before her lived,
Dark, splendid, speaking in the silence, full
Of noble things, and held her from her sleep,
Till rather she rose and stole adown the stairs,
Then Lancelot, turning, looked and was amazed.
He had not dreamed she was so beautiful.
Lavaine, returning, brought the jet-unblazoned shield,
And so the new companions passed away.
At last they reached the lists by Camelot,
And Lancelot hurled into the joust, and now,
His party cried, "Advance and take your prize,
The diamond!" But he said, "My prize is death!"
Then vanished from the field with young Lavaine.
But Arthur sent Gawain to find the knight;
He came at last, though late, to Astolat,
To whom the lord replied, "Abide with us;
Here was the knight, and here he left a shield.”
And when Gawain had seen the shield he cried,
Right was the king! our Lancelot, that true man,
And, damsel, let me leave my quest with you;
The diamond also." Then he rode away.
The maid then crept unto her sire and said:
"Sweet father, let me (for I needs must) hence,
And find the great knight whereso'er he be,
And with my own hand give the diamond.”
Lightly, her request allowed, she slipped away
To Camelot; and, before the city gates,
Came on her brother with a happy face.
And Lavaine led her to Sir Lancelot's cave;
She laid the diamond in his open hand,
And, staying, every day she tended him.
But when Sir Lancelot's deadly hurt was whole,
He pressed the maid to ask some gift of him.
Then suddenly and passionately she spoke:
"I have gone mad, I love you; let me die!"
"Ah! sister," answered Lancelot, "what is this?
In all your quarrels will I be your knight
But more than this, I cannot." While he spoke,
She neither blushed nor spoke, but downward fell,
And thus they bore her swooning to the tower.
And in the evening Lancelot rode away.
So in her tower alone the maiden sang:
"Sweet is true love, though given in vain, in vain;
I needs must follow death, who calls for me.
Call, and I follow, I follow, let me die."
At last the maid besought Lavaine to write,
As she devised a letter. Then she said,
"O father, lay this letter in my hand
A little ere I die and close the hand;
Then take the little bed on which I died
For Lancelot's love, and deck it like the queen's;
And let a barge be ready, clothed in black.
in state to court to meet the queen
And, therefore, let our dumb old man alone.
Go with me to the palace, to the doors."
She died, and her two brothers, with bent brow,
Fulfilled her wish, and parted all in tears.
Then rose the dumb old servitor and the dead,
Steered by the dumb, went upward with the flood,
In her right hand the lily, in her left
The letter; and she did not seem as dead
But fast asleep, and lay as though she smiled.
That day Sir Lancelot at the palace craved
Audience of Guinevere, to give at last
The nine-years'-fought-for diamonds. Said the queen, "Diamonds for me! Oh, not for me-for her!
She shall not have them." Saying which, she seized
And through the casement flung them in the stream.
Then slowly past the window sailed the barge.
But the wild queen sought to burst away
To weep and wail in secret; and the barge,
On to the palace door-way gliding, came;
And reverently they bore her into the hall.
But Arthur spied the letter in her hand,
Stooped, took it, brake seal and read it; this was all: "Most noble lord, Sir Lancelot of the lake,
I come to take my last farewell of you.
I loved you, and my love had no return,
And, therefore, my true love has been my death;
Pray for my soul and yield me burial."
And when the knights had laid her comely head
Low in the dust of half-forgotten kings,
The queen drew near, and sighed to Lancelot,
"Forgive me my jealousy in love."
To whom the knight: "Pass on, my queen, forgiven.'
Then went and by the river in a cove prayed God
To send a sudden angel down
To fling him deep in some forgotten mere.
So groaned Sir Lancelot in sad, remorseful pain,
Not knowing he should die a holy man.
[The story of Donald was told by one of a party of students from Oxford, who were camping during vacation. Gathered in a tent, one after another had told a tale, when the last related the following as he had heard it from the lips of the hero:]
OU may recognize Ben by description;
Behind him a moor's immenseness;
Up goes the middle mount of a range,
Fringed with its firs in denseness.
Rimming the edge, its fir-fringe, mind!
For an edge there is, though narrow;
From end to end of the range, a strip
Of path runs straight as an arrow.
And the mountaineer who takes that path
Saves himself miles of journey;
He has to plod if he crosses the moor,
Through heather, peat, and burnie.
But a mountaineer he needs must be,
For, look you, right in the middle
Projects bluff Ben, sky-reaching and fiercely jagged;
Why planted there, is a riddle.
It seems, in the gully, as if Ben's breast,
To a sudden spike diminished,
Would signify to the boldest foot,
"All further passage finished!"
Yet the mountaineer who sidles on
And on to the very bending,
Discovers, if heart and brain be proof,
No necessary ending.
Foot up, foot down, to the turn abrupt
Having trod, he, there arriving,
Finds what he took for a point was breadth,
A mercy of nature's contriving.
So he rounds what, when 'tis reached, proves straight, From one side gains the other;
The wee path widens,-resume the march,
And he foils you, Ben, my brother!
But Donald had dared the danger from boyhood,
And now, when perchance was waiting
A lass at the brig below, 'twixt mount
And moor would he stand debating?
Moreover, this Donald was twenty-five,
A glory of bone and muscle;
Did a fiend dispute the right of way.
Donald would try a tussle.
Lightsomely marched he out of the broad
On to the narrow and narrow;
A step more, rounding the angular rock,
Reached the front straight as an arrow.
He stepped it, safe on the ledge he stood,
When-whom found he full facing?
What fellow in courage and wariness, too,
Had scouted ignoble pacing?
Twas a gold-red stag that stood and stared,
Gigantic and magnific!
By the wonder-ay, and the peril—struck
Intelligent and pacific:
Yet Donald must turn, would pride permit,
Though pride ill brooks retiring;
Each eyed each-mute man, motionless beast-
Less fearing than admiring.
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