4

While other men were havering he spoke little.
He always listened -- almost crouching -
Turning his lidded eyes on him who spoke,
Staring from his eyes a wordless query
Like a lynx tensing above a riffled pool,
Its dark and sliding water harboring
A glinting silver-sided life within.
Arthur tunneled deep and sought for omens.
Whenever Merlin driveled, dashing his hands
Like jays in flutter about his ears,
So dashed away in windy somersaults
His wordy omens, and most men heeded not.
But Arthur listened. Kay and Bedivere,
Veterans under Arthur's eagles, could not,
But quiet sat and spoke to Arthur later.

"Merlin," said they, "did not know a Saxon,
Nor much more else, Arthur, king,"
And touching his hand they joined their voices.
"Let the old man go. He served us well
When we rode our horses to the Douglas,
Swam them over and fought four battles
Bloody beyond words, north of Lincoln,
A long, long way from Camelot.
We praise him for that cunning then. But now
His mouth makes words that rush upon one
Like black pelagic winds from over ocean,
Or peek from corners like a witch's children
That sniggle and spy and draw back in the night.
He frightens us; your other captains fear him,
And all believe he looks to uncouth ends.
King, we have fought long together;
We wish it longer. Send Merlin off
From Camelot."
          Once Arthur asked them,
"What are his words today you cannot read?
What says he that you fear?
           And they to Arthur,
"He knows not Rome. He scorns it. No peace
Will issue from his violence. His words
Slam into place thick doors. And at such times
He leers behind the wicket and coughs up rust.
What hides in those rooms beyond his rede
And witless sayings, surely none can tell -
At least we cannot."

More earnestly the two again spoke out.
"Rome is still a queen though now she sits
Twisting her fingers in her silken lap.
Rome is great and you are a Roman, king.
Arthur you are, seated now in empire;
There are none more in Rome. Only in Albion you.
The Saxon will accept your peace, if only
You show them where their fortune lies,
Give them offices and clap around
Their necks gold torques, and hail them friends,
Overpile them with banquets and strong wine -
They love the wine still brought from Italy,
Rich cargoes in deep, Atlantic boats
Lumbering through the waves of ocean, salt
The water, sweet the wine.

"A king you are, no silly Saxon.
An emperor you are, and this island
Is yours to make anew -- but Merlin goads you on
To dance to British airs alone, to skip
With arms akimbo to tribal pipe and drum.
He serves some demon imp with slivered tongue;
His imprecations jar in Camelot.
Let Merlin go and then we'll ride
Sun's morning path from Camelot:
To heaven and then back to Camelot --
To laugh at clowns and pay bright silver
To watch jugglers float their balls in air,
And count six fingers, and ride on unicorns."

How often Arthur heard this no one knows.
Words are gulls that drift from ship to shore
Sometimes with measured, carefully oaring wings,
Again with wildered cries and flashing white,
Garbeled, and raucous, and hard to read.
As months moved down the zodiac, gave up
Their beings to become years and then flee on,
So Arthur still said little and rode to war
Letting others debate the times in Camelot.
Misease would grip his heart, however, till
He strode waist-deep again in action's tides,
And had for study enemies, not friends.

5

Arthur in Tintagel walked with Merlin
in silence on a time ago, at half-moon,
And first they listened as if there were a tale
In the slither of the shingle and in --
Farther out unmarried to the shore --
The lost halloo and syllables of ocean.
They looked away, each from the other's eyes,
Till Arthur held high his hand and asked
In low inflected tones, constrained, most like
Some long monotony of suffering,
Afraid to feel.

"Have I not fought long enough, Merlin?
Is joy less real because I do without it?
Why cannot I, like good men everywhere,
Sit myself down in a press of golden dreams,
Doing nothing and hurting only few?
A quiet king -- are there no quiet kings?"

Merlin answered and the bronze bangles
On his arms answered too and chimed with him.
"No king who must bear a charge is quiet.
You were chosen king and lent a sword
By Albion, to find again that world,
The Celtic jadestone, the world's emerald,
As it was before old Julius came.
How can you sheath the sword your people gave!
How can Britons live in Albion
Without you! Supporter you of empire,
You, the Scarlet Dragon, you the Boar,
Master of soldiers and many horsemen fleet!
How can Albion live again without you?
There is none like Arthur."
           How Arthur dreamlike answered,
As slowly he chased each word into a jewel,
"Merlin, winsome is the rosy innocence
Of dawn, but the noon comes finally hot
And cruel, and things are done then undesired;
And then comes the night and very dark it is.
Night is a stalker and a shadow hunter,
And night likes me not, for I am in fear.
Nor am I blameless. I need respite;
My heart aches for peace. Does not yours?"

"And if sweet peace is all your quest, good Arthur,
Why bring Mordred to Camelot?
Mordred the hard rider whom all hate,
Bedivere, and Illtud, and Kay,
And even Gawain who otherwise is gentle --
All dislike him, find him evil, a ghost
Wrapped in cobwebs, gluey strings of spiders.
All wonder at your blindness to his bent
And slit-eyed nature. He brings no peace.
You cannot want peace and Mordred too."

And Arthur,
"Where is a willow tree, there is a stream;
Where is a star, there is a well of darkness;
Where blood is, there swords are.
And where a son is, can there not be balm?
Presuppose, good Merlin, any thing
And you must surely conjure up another.
An ill deed need not print itself forever.
All inks will fade, and in the book of fate
Records will be erased and man forgiven.
A son ill-gotten can -- I swear it -- be
A marvel to turn aside his father's sin
Washing it to whiteness. And what if
Mordred is such a son!
My captains like at least the Roman in him.
Have you seen him at full gallop break
The Saxon's wing!

"And what does it matter that his mother is my sister?
Am I a king for nothing, a nullity,
A hare without a warren, a lark sans voice?
Illtud says the Cross will serve me here.
Men can choose the good, and I so choose.
My cousin Illtud often reassures me.
Illtud is a mighty man with God, With God and his man Christ, and Mary.
And have I not built a house for Stephen?

"l have looked into my life, Merlin,
Have found not much of good, but less of evil.
And cannot I, perhaps in penance,
Flush out from the high hills of tomorrow
A glorious morning, a new and sweeping life?
On Glaston hill will I set my seal today;
I shall found an abbey and order song within
Pearling each office with angelic hymns.
And I to be interred beneath its altar,
Unbelted, my sword's long hunger satisfied.
And what more needs a king to keep from hell!
Could Arthur find a more consummate sleep?"

And Merlin touched the king's ring and spoke,
"So may be the jewel in your heart,
A wild red encased in pure, hot gold,
And your name a dogma -- lovely, deep, and grave.
What Illtud says of God could be the truth;
The godling Christ may well be strong -- perhaps.
But as for me, I know of different things,
Darker than the underside of basalt,
Swift as eels in slipping mountain water,
And like an owl's flight where no ear hears.
Our gods are not fast asleep, do not believe it.
Bell is here and Bran, and all the others.
Illtud knows his fathers' gods are here
And waiting for their worship too long withheld.
And so know I, the seer Merlin, and so you --
You too, great king and giant Briton,
You know the gods, you know the Blessed Bran;
Return to these and peace will surely come."

And when Merlin had that day ended
And the doves of Tintagel had whistling flown away,
The king sent for a skin of wine and sat
Until the stars came out. And he looked into the stars
And found no one a friend,
And the wash of the world was the wash of sorrow.

6

Kay and Bedivere later came together,
Puzzled still and shackled to their fears.
Kay spoke that day -- an unpointed, angry time -
Hoping to understand old Merlin's kennings
On Arthur's birth, when Merlin years before
Has told Pendragon of his issue, a child
Conceived by sleight in tempest in Tintagel.
Merlin had spoken thus, so he told Kay,
And so Kay said here to Bedivere.

"These were his words, good Bedivere.
'Hear, Pendragon, for no man will be like your son,
A curious creature unlike all others,
Surely to be great, but hard to grasp.
His name will spout as -- from a thousand pipes --
Gushing water leaps through crystal air
And plunges with great noise and shouting
Into a dark and stone-lined basin,
And handmaids draw it up with laughter, splashing
Jugs of wonder, alloting it, one draught
For each of many thirsting, thrusting others.
Ductile as any flowing silver he,
Yet hard as diamond, Briton and Roman both,
But Roman wrongly, for Rome is dead.
Illusion may be his substance, doubt his truth,
Belief the richness of his ample nature --
Three brothers who could tread him underfoot
In the dreadful wrestling of his little time.

"'But give him to me and I will guide him
Turning his face to seek his British kin.
Give me his care and the world shall sing his praises.'"

So Kay remembered and told Bedivere
Then lost himself in silence and shrugged his shoulders,
Uncertain of any outcome that all could wish.

And Bedivere:
"How can this Merlin be so dear to Arthur!
So far apart the two; they only meet
As men will meet at crossroads, weighing words,
Suspecting ill intent, yet all desiring
To offer help and knowledge, to clasp hands,
And walk together in their common tie.
They will never walk together, for one thinks -
The other dreams."

And Bedivere went on, "It is now late season.
I feel a poetry coming on me now
As night with shards of clouds encrusts red evening.
Within the moon's storm-ring a single star
Disciple of her milky brightness glows.
The Pleiades have lost their footing slow.
Summer trembles.
Primal things sit fast upon the hills
Mocking, scratching their haunches --
I do not know how to bear this hour.
This is the never-never and the golden age.
Not again will it be ever better.
Ill things are coming; this I know, good Kay,
And I am much afraid."
          He paused to rub
Two palms across his studded belt.

"And who is this Mordred?
He comes to us in fragments, hoof beats of horses
Clip-clopping, and the rattle of golden buckles,
Tattered bits of curses, and seedy smiles.
Good men he has about him, northern men
Who trained in war against the highland Picts.
But he is not like them.
He comes to us as does a nightime reveler,
A drunken specter lurching on the road
And shouting at the moon in sickness.
We do not know his meaning; we know less
Of him when sober-seeming than when drunk.
His skills are all in subterfuge.
He is not one of us who in the hard beginning
Fought for Arthur just because we loved him."

And Kay;
          "Arthur had a sister, Morgen,
A petal of a girl, so keen, so lovely,
The topaz richness of the brightest morn,
Poignarded upon one rose's single thorn,
Was not as she. You have heard the tale,
How Arthur loved her and had by her a son
In the long barrow country to the north.
Mordred, riding south to Camelot,
Came from there -- who knows if he be not
That son?"

"Then is the hour late indeed,"
Said Bedivere and spoke no more, moving off
Heavy of stride like old lumber,
Not like one young. Kay watched him going:
"Good friend, no matter! Arthur will not topple
Because of Mordred. It is Merlin who holds captive
Our good names and Arthur's'; he knows
The night, the mazy courses of the stars,
And he can hear the voices of surd stones.
If you would succor Arthur, kill him.