Tristram (Robinson)/Canto 10

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

X

By the same parapet that overlookedThe same sea, lying like sound now that was dead,Mark sat alone, watching an unknown shipThat without motion moved from hour to hour,Farther away. There was no other thingAnywhere that was not as fixed and stillAs two that were now safe within the wallsBelow him, and like two that were asleep.“There was no more for them,” he said again,To himself, or to the ship, “and this is peace.I should have never praise or thanks of themIf power were mine and I should waken them;And what might once have been if I had knownBefore—I do not know. So men will sayIn darkness, after daylight that was darkness,Till the world ends and there are no more kingsAnd men to say it. If I were the world’s maker, I should say fate was mightier than I was,Who made these two that are so silent now,And for an end like this. Nothing in thisIs love that I have found, nor is it in loveThat shall find me. I shall know day from nightUntil I die, but there are darknessesThat I am never to know, by day or night;All which is one more weary thing to learn,Always too late. There are some ills and evilsAwaiting us that God could not invent;There are mistakes too monstrous for remorseTo fondle or to dally with, and failuresThat only fate’s worst fumbling in the darkCould have arranged so well. And here once moreThe scroll of my authority presentsDeficiency and dearth. I do not knowWhether these two that have torn life from time,Like a death-laden flower out of the earth,Have failed or won. Many have paid with moreThan death for no such flower. I do not knowHow much there was of Morgan in this lastUnhappy work of Andred’s, or if nowIt matters—when such a sick misshapen grief May with a motion of one feeble armBring this to pass. There is too much in thisThat intimates a more than random issue;And this is peace—whatever it is for me.Now it is done, it may be well for them,And well for me when I have followed them.I do not know.”

The sea and its onAlone he stood there, watchingThe sea and its one ship, until the seaBecame a lonely darkness and the shipWas gone, as a friend goes. The silent waterWas like another sky where silent starsMight sleep for ever, and everywhere was peace.It was a peace too heavy to be enduredLonger by one for whom no peace less heavyWas coming on earth again. So Mark at lastWent sombrely within, where GouvernailAnd silence wearied him. Move as he might,Silence was all he found—silence within,Silence without, dark silence everywhere—And peace.

That night onAnd peace, that lay so heavy and darkThat night on Cornwall, lay as dark that night On Brittany, where Isolt of the white handsSat watching, as Mark had watched, a silent seaThat was all stars and darkness. She was lookingWith her gray eyes again, in her old way,Into the north, and for she knew not whatTonight. She was not looking for a ship,And there was no ship coming. Yet there she sat,And long into the night she sat there, lookingAway into the darkness to the north,Where there was only darkness, and more stars.No ship was coming that night to BrittanyFrom Cornwall. There was time enough for ships;And when one came at last, with Gouvernail,Alone, she had seen in him the end of waiting,Before her father’s eyes and his bowed headConfirmed her sight and sense.

Like one who shifts a grievous wKing Howel paused,Like one who shifts a grievous weight he carries,Hoping always in vain to make it lighter,And after gazing at the large gray eyesIn the wan face before him, would have spoken,But no speech came. Dimly from where he was, Through mist that filled his eyes, he pictured herMore as a white and lovely thing to killWith words than as a woman who was waitingFor truth already told. “Isolt—my child!”He faltered, and because he was her father,His anguish for the blow that he was givingFelt the blow first for her.

To me, my father,” she said “You are so kindTo me, my father,” she said softly to him,“That you will hold behind you now the knifeYou bring with you, first having let me see it.You are too kind. I said then to GawaineThat he would not come back. Tristram is dead.So—tell me all there is. I shall not die.I have died too many times already for that.I shall not ever die. Where was he, father?”Her face was whiter and her large gray eyesGlimmered with tears that waited.

A tale, by Gouvernail and himself twHe told her thenA tale, by Gouvernail and himself twice-tempered,Of Tristram on his way to Brittany,Having seen that other Isolt, by Mark’s reprieve, Only once more before she was to die.It was an insane sort of kinsman, Andred,Not Mark, who slew him in a jealous hate;All which was nebulously true enoughTo serve, her father trusted, willing to leaveThe rest of it unheard, whatever it was,For time to bury and melt. With Tristram dead,This child of his, with her gray eyes that sawSo much, seeing so far, might one day seeA reason to live without him—which, to him,Her father, was not so hard as to conceiveA reason for man’s once having and leaving her.That night the King prayed heaven to make her see,And in the morning found his child asleep—After a night of tears and stifled words,They told him. She had made almost no soundThat whole night; and for many a day to followShe made almost no sound.

Her father found her by the sOne afternoonHer father found her by the sea, alone,Where the cold waves that rolled along the sandWere saying to her unceasingly, “Tristram—Tristram.” She heard them and was unaware That they had uttered once another nameFor Tristram’s ears. She did not know of that,More than a woman or man today may knowWhat women or men may hear when someone saysFamiliar things forgotten, and did not seeHer father until she turned, hearing him speak:

“Two years ago it was that he came hereTo make you his unhappy wife, my child,Telling you then, and in a thousand ways,Without the need of language, that his loveWas far from here. His willingness and my wishWere more to save you then, so I believed,Than to deceive you. You were not deceived;And you are as far now from all deception,Or living need of it. You are not goingOn always with a ghost for company,Until you die. If you do so, my way,Which cannot be a long way now, may stillBe more than yours. If Tristram were alive,You would be Tristram’s queen, and the world’s eyesAnd mind would be content, seeing it so.But he is dead, and you have dreamed too long, Partly because your dream was partly true—Which was the worst of all, but yet a dream.Now it is time for those large solemn eyesOf yours to open slowly, and to seeBefore them, not behind. Tristram is dead,And you are a king’s daughter, fairer than fameHas told—which are two seeds for you to plantIn your wise little head as in a garden,Letting me see what grows. We pay for dreamsIn waking out of them, and we forgetAs much as needs forgetting. I’m not a kingWith you; I am a father and a man—A man not over wise or over foolish,Who has not long to live, and has one childTo be his life when he is gone from here.You will be Queen some day, if you will live,My child, and all you are will shine for me.You are my life, and I must live in you.Kings that are marked with nothing else than honorAre not remembered long.”

Of Here or There, may be—so“I shall be QueenOf Here or There, may be—sometime,” she said;“And as for dreaming, you might hesitate In shaking me too soon out of my sleepIn which I’m walking. Am I doing so illTo dream a little, if dreams will help me now?You are not educating me, my father,When you would seize too soon, for my improvement,All that I have. You are the dreamer now.You are not playing today with the same childWhose dream amused you once when you supposedThat she was learning wisdom at your knees.Wisdom was never learned at any knees,Not even a father’s, and that father a king.If I am wiser now than while I waitedFor Tristram coming, knowing that he would come,I may not wait so long for Tristram going,For he will never go. I am not oneWho must have everything, yet I must haveMy dreams if I must live, for they are mine.Wisdom is not one word and then another,Till words are like dry leaves under a tree;Wisdom is like a dawn that comes up slowlyOut of an unknown ocean.”

Sometimes,” the king said, “in“And goes downSometimes,” the king said, “into the same ocean. You live still in the night, and are not readyFor the new dawn. When the dawn comes, my child,You will forget. No, you will not forget,But you will change. There are no mortal housesThat are so providently barred and fastenedAs to keep change and death from coming in.Tristram is dead, and change is at your door.Two years have made you more than two years older,And you must change.”

“And wisdom will come w“The dawn has come,” she said,“And wisdom will come with it. If it sinksAway from me, and into night again—Then I shall be alone, and I shall die.But I shall never be all alone—not now;And I shall know there was a fate more swiftThan yours or mine that hurried him farther onThan we are yet. I would have been the worldAnd heaven to Tristram, and was nothing to him;And that was why the night came down so darkOn me when Tristram died. But there was alwaysAttending him an almost visible doomThat I see now; and while he moved and looked As one too mighty and too secure to die,He was not mingled and equipped to liveVery long. It was not earth in him that burnedItself to death; and she that died for himMust have been more than earth. If he had lived,He would have pitied me and smiled at me,And he would always have been kind to me—If he had lived; and I should not have known,Not even when in his arms, how far awayHe was from me. Now, when I cannot sleep,Thinking of him, I shall know where he is.”

King Howel shook his head. “Thank God, my child,That I was wise enough never to thwart youWhen you were never a child. If that was wisdom,Say on my tomb that I was a wise man.”He laid his hands upon her sun-touched hair,Which in Gawaine’s appraisal had no colorThat was a name, and saying no more to herWhile he stood looking into her gray eyes,He smiled, like one with nothing else to do;And with a backward glance unsatisfied,He walked away.

Isolt with her gray Isolt of the white hands,Isolt with her gray eyes and her white face,Still gazed across the water to the northBut not now for a ship. Were ships to come,No fleet of them could hold a golden cargoThat would be worth one agate that was hers—One toy that he had given her long ago,And long ago forgotten. Yet there she gazedAcross the water, over the white waves,Upon a castle that she had never seen,And would not see, save as a phantom shapeAgainst a phantom sky. He had been there,She thought, but not with her. He had died there,But not for her. He had not thought of her,Perhaps, and that was strange. He had been all,And would be always all there was for her,And he had not come back to her alive,Not even to go again. It was like thatFor women, sometimes, and might be so too oftenFor women like her. She hoped there were not manyOf them, or many of them to be, not knowingMore about that than about waves and foam,And white birds everywhere, flying, and flying; Alone, with her white face and her gray eyes,She watched them there till even her thoughts were white,And there was nothing alive but white birds flying,Flying, and always flying, and still flying,And the white sunlight flashing on the sea.