MERLIN
They bring me nearer to the elements
From which I came than I care now to be."
"You owe a service to those elements;
For by their service you outwitted age
And made the world a kingdom of your will."
He touched her hand, smiling : "Whatever service
Of mine awaits them will not be forgotten,"
He said; and the smile faded on his face.
"Now of all graceless and ungrateful wizards "
But there she ceased, for she found in his eyes
The first of a new fear. "The wrong word rules
Today," she said; "and we'll have no more journeys."
Although he wandered rather more than ever
Since he had come again to Brittany
From Camelot, Merlin found eternally
Before him a new loneliness that made
Of garden, park, and woodland, all alike,
A desolation and a changelessness
Defying reason, without Vivian
Beside him, like a child with a black head,
Or moving on before him, or somewhere
So near him that, although he saw it not
With eyes, he felt the picture of her beauty
And shivered at the nearness of her being.
Without her now there was no past or future,
And a vague, soul-consuming premonition
He found the only tenant of the present;
He wondered, when she was away from him,
If his avenging injured intellect
Might shine with Arthur's kingdom a twin mirror,
Fate's plaything, for new ages without eyes
JTo see therein themselves and their declension.
Love made his hours a martyrdom without her;
The world was like an empty house without her,
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