TWO AT THE CROSSROADS
Reading edition
The knight of battered and unblazoned arms
Reined up before the haster from the South
Whose red shield bore the crookt beast Glatysaunt,
(Also a scroll with “Pray for me!” entwined
With flowers and poison-leaves and Iseult’s name)
And cried “Where lies the sea-road?”; but the other
Seeming as mad as his own crest, replied
“Has the beast quested past you? have its dogs
Given sharp tongue along these drooping woods?
For I must follow them until I fall
Dead in some cleft of rock, and let the crabs
Hack at my armor till the Judgement Day!”
The first—“Whence come you, and for what your quest?”
“Palomides am I from Camelot,
Wretched Palomides whom dreams torment
Forever—of a cold proud little head,
A friendly hand that gives me the same love
It would to a familiar dog, a body
For which Sir Tristram and King Mark contend,
Wolves over a spilled bone ... and yet this name,
This “Iseult” is a good thing for the sword,
And makes it cut through many helms and makes
Death very visible to heathen men ...
... And I could sit with her on a green cliff
And watch the world die—if she were but tired
And soon would rest her head against my heart;
Not caring for the roughness of my mail
Not aught at all save that I held her close
24And she and her child’s love at last had peace....
So, Lord, what need were Heaven, Hell or quest?
No! I must follow winter! She will be
Doubtless betrayed and hurt—and I not there
To comfort her in any measure—well
Pray God some ax beat through my warding soon!—
I beg your grace, sir Knight—my dreams—you said?—
“I heard the quarrel and loud noise of hounds
More to the westward, by a little inn
That’s badged with a dry bush.”
“I must ride on!
Your road lies thither!”
Like a pawing storm
His horse beat down the valley and was gone
The stranger’s face within the vizor wore
The look of one who, having had a gem
Some twelvemonth, finds it out of fashion, dulled
By others’ praise perhaps—at any rate
Its turn gone past—a new stone to be found,
New tiger-hues....
Palomides was far.
And, settling well his harp upon his back,
With something of amusement in his mouth,
Tristram rode southward to the Breton ships.
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