 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. This is an excerpt from Idols of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson, entitled, Merlin and Vivian. This is part two. Emmerlin locked his hand in hers and said, I once was looking for a magic weed, and found a fair young squire whose sat alone had carved himself a nightly shield of wood, and then was painting on it fancied arms. Azure on eagle rising oar, the sun in dexter chief, the scroll I follow fame. And speaking not, but leaning over him I took his brush and blotted out the bird, and made a gardener putting in a graph with this fermotto, rather use than fame. You should have seen him blush, but afterwards he made a stalwart night. Oh Vivian, for you, the things you think you love me well, for me. I love you somewhat. Rest. And love should have some rest and pleasure in himself, not ever be too curious for a boon, too prurient for a proof against the grain of him you say ye love. But fame with men, being but ampler means to serve mankind, should have small rest or pleasure in herself, but work is vassal to the larger love that dwarfs the petty love of one to one. Use gave me fame at first, and fame again increasing gave me use. Lo, they're my boon. What other? For men sought to prove me vile, because I feign had given them greater wits. And then did Envy call me devil's son, the sick weak beast seeking to help herself by striking at her better, missed, and brought her own claw back and wounded her own heart. Sweet were the days when I was all unknown, but when my name was lifted up, the storm break on the mountain, and I cared not for it. Right well know I that fame is half disfame, yet needs must work my work. That other fame, to one at least, to hath not children, vague, the cackle of the unborn about the grave. I cared not for it. A single misty star, which is the second in a line of stars that seem a sword beneath a belt of three. I never gazed upon it, but I dreamt of some vast charm concluded in that star to make fame nothing. Wherefore, if I fear, giving you power upon me through this charm, that you might play me falsely having power, however well you think you love me now, as sons of kings loving in pupillage have turned to tyrants when they came to power, I rather dread the loss of use than fame. If you, and not so much from wickedness, as some wild turn of anger, or a mood of overstrained defection it may be, to keep me all to your own self, or else a sudden spurt of woman's jealousy should try this charm on whom ye say ye love. And Vivian answered, smiling as in wrath. Have I not sworn? I am not trusted. Good. Well. Hide it. Hide it. I shall find it out. And being found, take heed of Vivian. A woman and not trusted. Doubtless I might feel some sudden turn of anger born of your misfaith. And your fine epithet is acrid too. For this full love of mine without the full heart back may merit well your term of overstrained. So used as I, my daily wonder is, I love it all. And as to woman's jealousy. Oh, why not? Oh, to what end except a jealous one, and one to make me jealous if I love? Were this fair charm invented by yourself? I will believe that all about this world ye cage a buksome captive here and there, closed in the four walls of a hollow tower from which there is no escape for evermore. Then the great master merrily answered her. Full many a love and loving youth was mine. I needed then no charm to keep them mine, but youth and love. And that full heart of yours were of ye prattle, may now assure you mine. So live uncharmed. For those who wrought it first, the wrist is parted from the hand that waved, the feet unmortist from their ankle bones who pasted ages back. But will ye hear the legend as engared on for your rhyme? There lived a king in the most eastern east, less old than I, yet older, for my blood hath earnest ended up far springs to be. A tawny pirate anchored in his port, whose bark had plundered twenty nameless aisles. And passing one at the high peep of dawn, he saw two cities in a thousand boats, all fighting for a woman on the sea. And pushing his black craft among them all, he lightly scattered theirs and brought her off, with loss of half his people aeroslane. A maid so smooth, so white, so wonderful, they said a light came from her when she moved. And since the pirate would not yield her up, the king impaled him for his piracy. Then made her queen. But those aisle-nurtured eyes waged such unwilling those successful war on all the youth, they sickened, councils thinned, and armies waned. For magnet light she drew the rustious iron of old fighters' hearts, and beasts themselves would worship. Camels knelt unbidden, and the brutes of mountain back that carry kings and castles, bowed black knees of homage, ringing with their serpent hands to make her smile, her golden ankle bells. What wonder being jealous that he sent his horns of proclamation out through all the hundred under-kingdoms that he swayed, to find a wizard who might teach the king some charm, which being wrought upon the queen might keep her all his own. To such a one he promised more than ever king has given, a league of mountain full of golden mines, a province with a hundred miles of coast, a palace and a princess, all for him. But on all who tried and failed the king pronounced a dismal sentence, meaning by it to keep the list low and pretenders back, or like a king not to be trifled with, their heads should molder on the city gates. And many tried and failed, because the charm of nature in her overbore their own, and many a wizard brow bleached on the walls, and many weeks of troop of carrion crows hung like a cloud above the gateway towers. And Vivian, breaking in upon him, said, I sit and gather honey, yet me thinks thy tongue has tripped a little. Ask thyself. The lady never made unwilling war with those fine eyes. She had her pleasure in it, and made her good man jealous with good cause, and lived there neither dame nor damsel than wroth at a lover's loss? Were all as tame, I mean, as noble as the queen was fair? Not one to flirt a venom at her eyes, or pinch a murderous dust into her drink, or make her paler with a poisoned rose. Well, those were not our days. But did they find a wizard? Tell me, was he like to thee? She ceased, and made her lithe arm round his neck tighten, and then drew back and let her eyes speak for her, glowing on him like a brides on her new lord, her own, the first of men. He answered, laughing, nay, not like to me. At last they found, his foragers for charms, a little glassy-headed, hairless man, who lived alone in a great wild on grass, read but one book, and ever-reading grew so greated down and filed away with thought, so lean his eyes were monstrous, while the skin clung but to crate him basket, ribs, and spine. And since he kept his mind on one soul aim, nor ever touched fierce wine, nor tasted flesh, nor owned a sensual wish, to him the wall that sunders ghosts and shadow-casting men became a crystal, and he saw them through it, and heard their voices talk behind the wall, and learnt their elemental secrets, powers, and forces. Often o'er the sun's bright eye drew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud, and lashed it at the base with slanting storm, or in the noon of mist and driving rain, when the lake whitened and the pine-wood roared, and the current mountain was a shadow sunned at the world to peace again. Here was the man. And so by force they dragged him to the king, and then he taught the king to charm the queen in such wise that no man could see her more, nor saw she save the king who wrought the charm, coming and going, and she lay as dead and lost all use of life. But when the king made proffer of the league of golden mines, the province with a hundred miles of coast, the palace, and the princess, that old man went back to his old wild, and lived on grass, and vanished, and his book came down to me. And Vivian answered, smiling saucily, Ye have the book. The charm is written in it. Good. Take my counsel. Let me know it at once. For keep it like a puzzle, chest in chest, with each chest locked and padlocked thirtyfold, and whelm all this beneath as vast amount as after furious battle terfs the slain on some wild down above the windy deep. I yet should strike upon a sudden means to dig, pick, open, find, and read the charm. Then if I tried it, who should blame me then? And smiling as a master smiles on one that is not of his school, nor any school, but that where blind and naked ignorance delivers brawling judgments, unashamed, on all things all day long, he answered her. Thou read the book, my pretty Vivian. Oh, aye, it is but twenty pages long. But every page, having an ample march, and every march enclosing in the midst a square of text that seems a little blot, the text no larger than the limbs of fleas, and every square of text an awful charm, written a language that is long gone by, so long that mountains have arisen since with cities on their flanks. Thou read the book, and every margin scribbled, crossed, and crammed with comet, densest condensation, hard to mine and die, but the long sleepless nights of my long life have made it easy to me. And none can read the text, not even I, and none can read the comet but myself. And in the comet did I find the charm. Oh, the results are simple. A mere child might use it to the harm of any one, and never could undo it. Ask no more. For though ye should not prove it upon me, but keep that oath ye swear, ye might perchance assay it on some one of the table round, and all because ye dream they babble of you. And Vivian, frowning in true anger, said, What dare the full-fed liars say of me? They write abroad redressing human wrongs. They sit with knife and meat and wine and horn. They bound to holy vows of chastity. Were I not, woman, I could tell a tale. But you are man. You well can understand the shame that cannot be explained for shame. Not one of all the droves should touch me. Swine! Then answered Merlin careless of her words. You breathe but accusation vast and vague, spleen-born, I think, and proofless. If ye know, set up the charge ye know to stand or fall. And Vivian answered frowning wrathfully, Oh, I! What say ye to surveillance? Him, whose kinsman left him watcher or his wife and two fair babes, and went to distant lands? Was one year gone and on returning found not two but three? There lay the reckling, one but one hour old. What said the happy sire? A seven-months babe had been a truer gift. Those twelve sweet moons confused his fatherhood. Then answered Merlin, Nay, I know the tale. Surveillance wedded with an outland dame. Some cause it kept him sundered from his wife. One child they had. It lived with her. She died. Her kinsman travelling on his own affair was charged by valence to bring home the child. He brought, not found it therefore, take the truth. Oh, I! said Vivian. Overtrue a tale. What say ye then to sweet sir Sagramore? That ardent man. To pluck the flower in season, so says the song. I trew it is no treason. Oh, master, shall we call him over-quick to crop his own sweet rose before the hour? And Merlin answered. Over-quick art thou to catch a loathly plume fallen from the wing of that foul bird of rapine whose whole prey is man's good name. He never wronged his bride. I know the tale. An angry gust of wind puffed out his torch among the myriad roomed and many corded complexities of Arthur's palace. Then he found a door, and Darkling felt the sculptured ornament that wreathened round it made it seem his own. And weiried out, made for the couch and slept. A stainless man, beside a stainless maid, at either slept nor knew of other there, till the high dawn piercing the royal rose and Arthur's casement glimmered chastely down, blushing upon them blushing, and at once he rose without a word imparted from her. But when the thing was blazed about the court, the brute-world howling forced them into bonds. And as it chanced, they are happy being pure. Oh, I, said Vivian, that were likely, too. What see then to fair Sir Percival of the horrid foulness that he wrought, the saintly youth, the spotless Lamb of Christ, or some black weather of St. Satan's fold? What, in the precincts of the chapel-yard, among the nightly brasses of the graves, and by the cold, hick-jassets of the dead? And Merlin answered careless of her charge. A sober man is Percival and pure. But once in life was flustered with new wine. Then paced for coolness in the chapel-yard, where one of Satan's shepherdesses caught and meant to stamp him with her master's mark. And that he sinned is not believable. For look upon his face. But if he sinned, the sin that practice burns into the blood, and not the one dark hour which brings remorse, will brand us after, of whose fold we be. Or else were he the Holy King whose hymns are chanted in the minster worse than all? But is your spleen frothed out, or have ye more? And Vivian answered frowning, yet in wrath. Oh, I! What say ye to Sir Lancelot? Friend, traitor, or true? That commerce with the queen, I ask you, is it clamored by the child, or whispered in the corner? Do ye know it? To which he answered sadly. Ye, I know it. Sir Lancelot went ambassador at first, to fetch her, and she watched him from her walls. A rumour runs she took him for the king. So fixed her fancy on him. Let them be. But have ye no one word of loyal praise for Arthur, blameless king and stainless man? She answered with a low and chuckling laugh. Man, is he man at all, who knows and winks? Sees what his fair bride is, and does, and winks? By which the good king means to blind himself, and blinds himself, and all the table round, to all the foulness that they work. Myself could call him, were it not for womanhood, the pretty popular cause such manhood earns could call him the main cause of all their crimes. Whom, ye, were he not crowned king? Coward and fool! Then Merlin to his own heart loathing said, O true and tender, O my leeching king, O selfless man and stainless gentleman, Who, what's against thine own eye-witness, fain have all men true and leal, all women pure. How, in the mouths of base interpreters, from over fine-ness not intelligible to things with every sense, As false and foul as the poached filth that floods the middle street, is thy white blamelessness accounted blame. But Vivian, damning Merlin over-born by instance, Recommenced and let her tongue rage like a fire among the noblest names, Polluting and imputing her whole self, defaming and defacing till she left not even Lancelot brave, nor Gala had clean. Her words had issue other than she willed. He dragged his eyebrow bushes down, and made a snowy penthouse for his hollow eyes, and muttered in himself, Tell her the charm. So, if she had it, would she rail on me to snare the next? And if she have it not, so will she rail. What did the wanton say? Not mount is high. We scarce can sink as low, for men at most differ as heaven and earth, But women, worst and best, as heaven and hell. I know the table round, my friends of old, all brave, and many generous, and some chaste. She cloaks the scar of some repulse with lies. I will believe she tempted them and failed. Being so bitter, for fine plots may fail, though harlots paint their talk as well as face with colours of the heart that are not theirs. I will not let her know. Nine tithes of times face-flatterer and backbiter are the same. And they, sweet soul, that most impute a crime are pronussed to it, And impute themselves, wanting the mental range. Or low desire, not to feel lowest, makes them level all. Yea, they would pair the mounton to the plain, to leave an equal baseness, and in this are harlots like the crowd, That if they find some stain or blemish in a name of note, not grieving that their greatest are so small, Inflate themselves with some insane delight, and judge all nature from her feet of clay, Without the will to lift their eyes and see her godlike head crowned with spiritual fire, And touching other worlds. I'm weary of her. He spoke in words, part heard, in whispers part, half suffocated in the hoary fell, And many wintered fleece of throat and chin. But Vivian, gathering somewhat of his mood, and hearing harlot muttered twice or thrice, Leaped from recession on his lap, and stood stiff as a viper frozen, loathsome sight, How from the rosy lips of life and love flashed the bare grinning skeleton of death. White was her cheek. Sharp breaths of anchor puffed her fairy nostril out. Her hand half clenched when faltering sideways down to her belt, And feeling, had she found a dagger there, for in a wink the false love turns to hate, She would have stabbed him, but she found it not. His eye was calm, and suddenly she took to bitter weeping like a beaten child, A long, long weeping, not consolable. Then her false voice made way, broken with sobs. Oh, crueler than ever was told in tale, or sung in song. Oh, vainly lavished love. Oh, cruel, there was nothing wilder, strange, or seeming shameful. For what shame in love, so love be true, and not as yours is? Nothing. Poor Vivian had not done to win his trust, who called her what he called her. All her crime, all, all the wish to prove him holy hers. She mused a little, and then clapped her hands together with a wailing shriek, And said, stab through the heart's affections to the heart. Seethe, like the kid in his own mother's milk, Killed with a word worse than a life of blows. I thought that he was gentle, being great. Oh, God, that I had loved a smaller man. I should have found in him a greater heart. Or I, that flattering my true passion, Saw the knights, the court, the king, dark in your light, Who love to make men darker than they are, Because of that high pleasure which I had to seat you soul upon my pedestal of worship. I am answered, and henceforth, The course of life that seems so flowery to me, With you for guide and master, Only you, becomes the sea-cliff pathway broken short, And ending in a ruin. Nothing left, but into some low cave to crawl, And there, if the wolf spare me, Weep my life away, killed with unutterable unkindliness. She paused. She turned away. She hung her head. The snake of gold slid from her hair. The braid slipped and uncoiled itself. She wept afresh, and the dark wood grew darker toward the storm in silence, While his anger slowly died within him, Till he let his wisdom go. For ease of heart and half-believed her true, Called her to shelter in the hollow oak, Come from the storm, And having no reply, Gazed at the heaving shoulder, And the face hand-hidden, As for utmost grief or shame, Then thrice assayed, By tenderest touching terms, To sleek her ruffled peace of mind, In vain. At last she let herself be conquered by him, And as the cajling newly flown returns, The seeming-injured, simple-hearted thing Came to her old perch back, And settled there. There while she sat, half falling from his knees, Half nestled at his heart, And since he saw the slow tear Crete from her closed eyelid yet, About her more in kindness than in love, The gentle wizard cast a shielding arm. But she dislinked herself at once and rose, Her arms upon her breast across, And stood, a virtuous gentlewoman deeply wronged, Upright and flushed before him. Then she said, There must now be no passages of love Betwixt us, twain, henceforward evermore. Since, if I be what I am grossly called, What should be granted which your own gross heart Would reckon worth the taking, I will go. In truth, but one thing now, Better have died thrice than have asked it once, Could make me stay. That proof of trust, so often asked in vain, How justly after that vile term of yours I find with grief. I might believe you then. Who knows? Once more. Lo, what was once to me mere matter of the fancy Now hath grown the vast necessity of heart and life. Farewell. Think gently of me, For I fear my fate or folly, Passing gayer youth for one so old, Must be to love thee still. But ere I leave thee, Let me swear once more, That if I schemed against thy peace in this, May yawn just heaven, That darkens o'er me send one flash, That missing all things else May make my scheming brain a cinder if I lie. Scarce had she seized, Went out of heaven a bolt, For now the storm was close above them. Struck, Burrowing a giant oak, And javelinning with darted spikes And splinters of the wood the dark earth round. He raised his eyes and saw the tree That shone whitelisted through the gloom. But Vivian, Fearing heaven had heard her oath, And dazzled by the livid flickering fork, And deafened with the stammering cracks And claps that followed, Flying back and crying out, Oh, Merlin, though you do not love me, Save, yet save me! Clung to him and hugged him close And called him dear protector in her fright, Nor yet forgot her practice in her fright, But wrought upon his mood And hugged him close. The pale blood of the wizard at her touch Took gayer colors, Like an opal warmed. She blamed herself for telling hearsay tales. She'd shook from fear, And for her fault For her insolency She called him lord and liege, Her seer, her bard, Her silver star of eve, Her god, her Merlin, The one passionate love of her whole life, And ever overhead bellowed the tempest, And the rotten branch snapped in the rushing Of the river rain above them, And in change of glare and gloom Her eyes and neck glittering went and came. Till now the storm, Its burst of passion spent, Moaning and calling out of other lands, Had left the ravaged woodland yet once more to peace. And what should not have been had been, For Merlin, over-talked and over-worn, Had yielded, Told her all the charm And slept. Then in one moment She put forth the charm of woven paces And of waving hands. And in the hollow oak He lay as dead And lost to life and use And name and fame. Then crying, I have made his glory mine And shrieking out, Oh fool! The harlot leaped down the forest And the thicket closed behind her And the forest echoed, Fool! End of the story. This recording is in the public domain.