“Sometime I will, Tristram, but not tomorrow.
Tomorrow I go with you, unless you kill me,”
Gouvernail said, “and that would be a little
For you to do. I have seen in and out,
And I’m as wise today as when my mother
Was glad because I cried that I was born.
Your mother was not, you say. Well, perhaps not.”
Tomorrow I go with you, unless you kill me,”
Gouvernail said, “and that would be a little
For you to do. I have seen in and out,
And I’m as wise today as when my mother
Was glad because I cried that I was born.
Your mother was not, you say. Well, perhaps not.”
IX
Against a parapet that overlooked
The sea, lying now like sound that was asleep,
King Mark sat gazing at Isolt’s white face,
Mantled no more with red, and pale no longer
With life. The poor dominion that was his
Of her frail body was not revenge enough
To keep even hate alive, or to feed fury.
There was a needlessness about it now
That fury had not foreseen, and that foresight
Would never have forestalled. The sight of her,
Brought back to him a prisoner by his men
From Joyous Gard, and her first look at him,
Had given to death a smallness, and to life,
Ready for death, an uncomplaining triumph
The sea, lying now like sound that was asleep,
King Mark sat gazing at Isolt’s white face,
Mantled no more with red, and pale no longer
With life. The poor dominion that was his
Of her frail body was not revenge enough
To keep even hate alive, or to feed fury.
There was a needlessness about it now
That fury had not foreseen, and that foresight
Would never have forestalled. The sight of her,
Brought back to him a prisoner by his men
From Joyous Gard, and her first look at him,
Had given to death a smallness, and to life,
Ready for death, an uncomplaining triumph
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