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MERLIN




  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  _POEMS_

  CAPTAIN CRAIG
  THE CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT
  THE TOWN DOWN THE RIVER
  THE MAN AGAINST THE SKY

  _PLAYS_

  VAN ZORN. A Comedy in Three Acts
  THE PORCUPINE. A Drama in Three Acts




  MERLIN

  _A Poem_


  BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON


  New York
  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
  1917
  _All rights reserved_




  COPYRIGHT, 1917,
  By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

  Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1917.


  Norwood Press
  J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
  Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.




To GEORGE BURNHAM




MERLIN


I

  "Gawaine, Gawaine, what look ye for to see,
  So far beyond the faint edge of the world?
  D'ye look to see the lady Vivian,
  Pursued by divers ominous vile demons
  That have another king more fierce than ours?
  Or think ye that if ye look far enough
  And hard enough into the feathery west
  Ye'll have a glimmer of the Grail itself?
  And if ye look for neither Grail nor lady,
  What look ye for to see, Gawaine, Gawaine?"
  So Dagonet, whom Arthur made a knight
  Because he loved him as he laughed at him,
  Intoned his idle presence on a day
  To Gawaine, who had thought himself alone,
  Had there been in him thought of anything
  Save what was murmured now in Camelot
  Of Merlin's hushed and all but unconfirmed
  Appearance out of Brittany. It was heard
  At first there was a ghost in Arthur's palace,
  But soon among the scullions and anon
  Among the knights a firmer credit held
  All tongues from uttering what all glances told--
  Though not for long. Gawaine, this afternoon,
  Fearing he might say more to Lancelot
  Of Merlin's rumor-laden resurrection
  Than Lancelot would have an ear to cherish,
  Had sauntered off with his imagination
  To Merlin's Rock, where now there was no Merlin
  To meditate upon a whispering town
  Below him in the silence.--Once he said
  To Gawaine: "You are young; and that being so,
  Behold the shining city of our dreams
  And of our King."--"Long live the King," said Gawaine.--
  "Long live the King," said Merlin after him;
  "Better for me that I shall not be King;
  Wherefore I say again, Long live the King,
  And add, God save him, also, and all kings--
  All kings and queens. I speak in general.
  Kings have I known that were but weary men
  With no stout appetite for more than peace
  That was not made for them."--"Nor were they made
  For kings," Gawaine said, laughing.--"You are young
  Gawaine, and you may one day hold the world
  Between your fingers, knowing not what it is
  That you are holding. Better for you and me,
  I think, that we shall not be kings."

                                      Gawaine,
  Remembering Merlin's words of long ago,
  Frowned as he thought, and having frowned again,
  He smiled and threw an acorn at a lizard:
  "There's more afoot and in the air to-day
  Than what is good for Camelot. Merlin
  May or may not know all, but he said well
  To say to me that he would not be King.
  No more would I be King." Far down he gazed
  On Camelot, until he made of it
  A phantom town of many stillnesses,
  Not reared for men to dwell in, or for kings
  To reign in, without omens and obscure
  Familiars to bring terror to their days;
  For though a knight, and one as hard at arms
  As any, save the fate-begotten few
  That all acknowledged or in envy loathed,
  He felt a foreign sort of creeping up
  And down him, as of moist things in the dark,--
  When Dagonet, coming on him unawares,
  Presuming on his title of Sir Fool,
  Addressed him and crooned on till he was done:
  "What look ye for to see, Gawaine, Gawaine?"

  "Sir Dagonet, you best and wariest
  Of all dishonest men, I look through Time,
  For sight of what it is that is to be.
  I look to see it, though I see it not.
  I see a town down there that holds a king,
  And over it I see a few small clouds--
  Like feathers in the west, as you observe;
  And I shall see no more this afternoon
  Than what there is around us every day,
  Unless you have a skill that I have not
  To ferret the invisible for rats."

  "If you see what's around us every day,
  You need no other showing to go mad.
  Remember that and take it home with you;
  And say tonight, 'I had it of a fool--
  With no immediate obliquity
  For this one or for that one, or for me.'"

  Gawaine, having risen, eyed the fool curiously:
  "I'll not forget I had it of a knight,
  Whose only folly is to fool himself;
  And as for making other men to laugh,
  And so forget their sins and selves a little,
  There's no great folly there. So keep it up,
  As long as you've a legend or a song,
  And have whatever sport of us you like
  Till havoc is the word and we fall howling.
  For I've a guess there may not be so loud
  A sound of laughing here in Camelot
  When Merlin goes again to his gay grave
  In Brittany. To mention lesser terrors,
  Men say his beard is gone."

                                "Do men say that?"
  A twitch of an impatient weariness
  Played for a moment over the lean face
  Of Dagonet, who reasoned inwardly:
  "The friendly zeal of this inquiring knight
  Will overtake his tact and leave it squealing,
  One of these days."--Gawaine looked hard at him:
  "If I be too familiar with a fool,
  I'm on the way to be another fool,"
  He mused, and owned a rueful qualm within him:
  "Yes, Dagonet," he ventured, with a laugh,
  "Men tell me that his beard has vanished wholly,
  And that he shines now as the Lord's anointed,
  And wears the valiance of an ageless youth
  Crowned with a glory of eternal peace."

  Dagonet, smiling strangely, shook his head:
  "I grant your valiance of a kind of youth
  To Merlin, but your crown of peace I question;
  For, though I know no more than any churl
  Who pinches any chambermaid soever
  In the King's palace, I look not to Merlin
  For peace, when out of his peculiar tomb
  He comes again to Camelot. Time swings
  A mighty scythe, and some day all your peace
  Goes down before its edge like so much clover.
  No, it is not for peace that Merlin comes,
  Without a trumpet--and without a beard,
  If what you say men say of him be true--
  Nor yet for sudden war."

                            Gawaine, for a moment,
  Met then the ambiguous gaze of Dagonet,
  And, making nothing of it, looked abroad
  As if at something cheerful on all sides,
  And back again to the fool's unasking eyes:
  "Well, Dagonet, if Merlin would have peace,
  Let Merlin stay away from Brittany,"
  Said he, with admiration for the man
  Whom Folly called a fool: "And we have known him;
  We knew him once when he knew everything."

  "He knew as much as God would let him know
  Until he met the lady Vivian.
  I tell you that, for the world knows all that;
  Also it knows he told the King one day
  That he was to be buried, and alive,
  In Brittany; and that the King should see
  The face of him no more. Then Merlin sailed
  Away to Vivian in Broceliande,
  Where now she crowns him and herself with flowers,
  And feeds him fruits and wines and many foods
  Of many savors, and sweet ortolans.
  Wise books of every lore of every land
  Are there to fill his days, if he require them,
  And there are players of all instruments--
  Flutes, hautboys, drums, and viols; and she sings
  To Merlin, till he trembles in her arms
  And there forgets that any town alive
  Had ever such a name as Camelot.
  So Vivian holds him with her love, they say,
  And he, who has no age, has not grown old.
  I swear to nothing, but that's what they say.
  That's being buried in Broceliande
  For too much wisdom and clairvoyancy.
  But you and all who live, Gawaine, have heard
  This tale, or many like it, more than once;
  And you must know that Love, when Love invites
  Philosophy to play, plays high and wins,
  Or low and loses.