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Page 1 of 11912 · PDF PAGE 83
…f Memnon’s singing stone So fierce a questing barked and brayed, It turned his laughter to a groan. His vow forgot, his task undone, His soul whipped in God’s bitter school! (He moaned a mighty malison !) The perfect knight? The perfect fool! “Now, by God’s wounds!” quoth he, “my strength Is burnt out to a pest of pains. Let me fling off my curse at length In old Chaldea’s starry plains! Thou blesséd Jesus, foully nailed Unto the cruel Calvary tree, Look on my soul’s poor fort assailed By all the hosts of devilry ! Is there no medicine but deat…
1912 · PDF PAGE 71
XXIV “ One thing at least ” (quoth Palamede), “Beyond dispute my soul can see: This Questing Beast that mocks my need Dwelleth in deep obscurity.” So delveth he a darksome hole Within the bowels of Etna dense, Closing the harbour of his soul To all the pirate-ships of sense. And now the questing of the Beast Rolls in his very self, and high Leaps his whole heart in fiery feast On the expected ecstasy. But echoing from the central roar Reverberates many a mournful moan, And shapes more mystic than before Baffle its formless monotone! Ah! mocks h…
1912 · PDF PAGE 111
XL Sir PALAMEDE the Saracen Hath seen the All; his mind is set To pass beyond that great Amen. Far hath he wandered; still to fret His soul against that Soul. He breaches The rhododendron forest-net, His body bloody with its leeches. Sternly he travelleth the crest Of a great mountain, far that reaches Toward the King-snows; the rains molest The knight, white wastes updriven of wind In sheets, in torrents, fiend-possessed, Up from the steaming plains of Ind. They cut his flesh, they chill his bones : Yet he feels naught; his mind is pinned To t…
1912 · PDF PAGE 80
…rise again. Dread torture racks him; all his bones Get voice to utter forth his groans. The very poison of his blood Joins in that cry’s soul-shaking flood. For many a chiliad counted well His soul stayed in its proper Hell. Then, when Sir Palamedes came Back to himself, the shrine was dark. Cold was the incense, dead the flame; The slain babe lay there black and stark. What of the Beast? What of the quest? More blind the quest, the Beast more dim. Even now its laughter is suppressed, While his own demons mock at him!
1912 · PDF PAGE 78
…n all the seasons and the tides. But ah! the more it changed and changed” — (The good knight laughed to split his sides !) “What? Is the soul of things deranged? The more it changed, and rippled through Its changes, and still changed, and changed, The liker to itself it grew. Bear me,” he cried, “ to purge my bile To the old land of Hormakhu, That I may sit and curse awhile At all these follies fond that pen My quest about—on, on to Nile! Tread tenderly, my merry men! For nothing is so void and vile As Palamede the Saracen.”
1912 · PDF PAGE 35
…litant! O lord of this arboreal seat!” Thus worshipped he, and stalking stole Into the Presence: he emerged. The scent awakes the uneasy soul Of that Majestic One: upsurged 29
1912 · PDF PAGE 77
…f things brake down; his eyes behold The mighty Beast serenely couched Upon its breast of burnished gold. “ Ah! by Christ's blood!” (his soul avouched), “ Nothing but change (but change!) abides. Death lurks, a leopard curled and crouched,
1912 · PDF PAGE 94
… and all the emotions stilled, And all the stains and all the scars Left him; so like a child he thrilled With utmost knowledge; all his soul, With perfect sense and sight fulfilled,
1912 · PDF PAGE 84
…ht? He leaps to’s feet—a wonder shews: Steep dips a stairway from the light To what obscurity God knows. Still never a tremor shakes his soul (God praise thee, knight of adamant }) ; He plunges to that gruesome goal Firm as an old bull-elephant!
1912 · PDF PAGE 82
…ght, striding forth From Set’s abominable shrine, Pursues the quest with bitter wrath, So that his words flow out like wine. And lo! the soul that heareth them Is straightway healed of suffering. His fame runs through the land of Khem: They flock, the peasant and the king. There he works many a miracle: The blind see, and the cripples walk; Lepers grow clean ; sick folk grow well ; The deaf men hear, the dumb men talk. He casts out devils with a word; Circleth his wand, and dead men rise. No such a wonder hath been heard Since Christ our God’s …
1912 · PDF PAGE 92
…knees No longer gripped the charger rude. Listless, he aches ; his purpose swims Exhausted in the oily seas Of laxity and lassitude. The soul subsides; its serious motion Still throbs ; by habit, not by will. And all his lust to win the quest Is but a passive-mild devotion. (Ay! soon the blood shall run right chill —And is not death the Lord of Rest ?) There as he basks upon the cliff He yearns toward the Beast ; his eyes Are moist with love; his lips are fain
1912 · PDF PAGE 20
…r mad with war; He sabres many a million men, And tramples many a million more! Before him lies the untravelled land Where never a human soul is known, A desert by a wizard banned, A soulless wilderness of stone. Nor grass, nor corn, delight the vales ; Nor beast, nor bird, span space. Immense, Black rain, grey mist, white wrath of gales, Fill the dread armoury of sense. Nor shines the sun; nor moon, nor star Their subtle light at all display ; Nor day, nor night, dispute the scaur: All’s one intolerable grey. Black Ilyns, grey rocks, white hil…
1912 · PDF PAGE 116
As the simoom, and forth did roll A sudden thunder. Still they stood. Then came a bugle-blast. The soul Of each knight stirred. With vigour rude, The blast tore down the tapestry That hid the door. All ashen-hued The knights laid hand to sword. But he (Sir Palamedes) in the gap Was found—God knoweth—bitterly Weeping. Cried Arthur: “Strange the hap! My knight, my dearest knight, my friend ! What gift had Fortune in her lap Like thee? Embrace me!” “ Rather rend Your garments, if you love me, sire!” (Quod he). “Iam come unto the end. All mine inte…
1912 · PDF PAGE 22
…, at such a cost? He cries against the impassive sun : The world is dim, is all but lost. Then, with the bitterness of death Cutting his soul, his fingers clench The piteous passage of her breath. The dews of horror rise and drench Sir Palamede the Saracen. Then, rising from the hideous meal, He plunges to the land of men With nerves renewed and limbs of steel. Who is the naked man that rides Yon tameless stallion on the plain, His face like Hell's? What fury guides The maniac beast without a rein?
1912 · PDF PAGE 93
To breathe fond prayers ; and (marry !) if Man’s soul were measured by his sighs He need not linger to attain. Nay! while the Beast squats there, above Him, smiling on him; as he vows Wonderful deeds and fruitless flowers, He grows so maudlin in his love That even the knaves of his own house Mock at him in their merry hours. “God’s death!” raged Palamede, not wroth But irritated, “laugh ye so? Am I a jape for scullions ?” His curse came in a flaky froth. He seized a club, with blow on blow Breaking the knave’s unreverent sconce! “Thou mock the …
1912 · PDF PAGE 110
…e suns, All in one net of triune bars; Inextricably one, inevitably one, Immeasurable, immutable, immense Beyond all the wonder that his soul had won By sense, in spite of sense, and beyond sense. “Praise God!” quoth Palamede, “ by this I attain the uttermost of bliss. . . . God’s wounds! but that I never sought. The Questing Beast I sware to attain And all this miracle is naught. Off on my travels once again ! I keep my youth regained to foil Old Time that took me in his toil. I keep my strength regained to chase The Beast that mocks me now as…
1912 · PDF PAGE 6
…m that illusion. xxx, Upon the plains of Chaldea he descendeth into the bowels of the earth, where he beholdeth the Visible Image of the Soul of Nature for the Beast. Yet Earth belcheth him forth. xxi. In a slum city he converseth with a Rationalist. Learning nothing, nor even hearing the Beast, he goeth forth to cleanse himself. xxxii, Seeking to imitate the Beast, he goeth on all-fours, questing horribly. The townsmen cage him for a lunatic. Nor can he imitate the elusiveness of the Beast. Yet at one note of that questing the prison is shatte…