Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE DEATH OF SIR LAUNCELOT, by CONDE BENOIST PALLEN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE DEATH OF SIR LAUNCELOT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: At canterbury seven years a monk
Last Line: Like evening's purple with the setting sun.
Subject(s): Arthurian Legend; Death; Funerals; Grief; Heaven; Prayer; Arthur, King; Dead, The; Burials; Sorrow; Sadness; Paradise


At Canterbury seven years a monk
Sir Launcelot had abode. For Arthur passed,
And all the goodly fellowship of knights
Broken and scattered through his mighty sin
With Guinevere, he sought to purge his guilt
By prayers and fasting and the biting scourge
Within the holy life, till chastened love,
Freed from the clogging dross of earthly passion,
Leap a shooting flame upward to Heaven.

Seven years he there abode, and ever grew
To holier ways in spiritual might
As great as erst his prowess in the lists,
When first amongst the knights he overthrew
All comers in the jousts and won the prize.
And there he learned the smallness of his fame
And all the greatness of his sin with power
To drag down Arthur's mighty realm to ruin.
And from the bitterness of that vast grief
He fed his soul with constant tears to bloom
In penitential fruits, for he was come
To be a holy man with gift to see
That time is shadow of eternity,
And all the uses of our mortal hours
But vanity, save as the generous seed
Sown for the reaping in high heaven's demesne.

And so Sir Launcelot waxed in holiness;
And from the ashes of his sinful past
Stirred by the ceaseless breath of penitence,
Blew, first, the fainting spark of higher love,
And last, the glowing fire, whose lambent flame
Eat out the grossness of the carnal will,
And, then, with ardent tongue aspiring leaped
To union with celestial fires, whence came
The heat and quickening of its swift desire.

And in the furnace of that inward love
The man was changed beyond all mortal knowing;
For he had dwined away to ghostliness,
Until the shining spirit burned and glowed
Through flesh and bone worn to translucency.
And all his face shone like Sir Galahad's,
Who saw the Holy Grail, and like to hers,
The virgin sister of Sir Percival,
Who sent the deathless ardor of her eyes
In Galahad's, and made her virgin purpose
One with his virgin will, forever wed
To chastity and to the higher life,
Till caught up in an ecstasy he passed
Beyond, in vision of the Sacred Cup.
But Launcelot came to holiness by penance,
Like stubborn ore seven times over passed
Through the refiner's fire, till it come forth
Pure golden, purged of all its earthiness
And alien dross. For many ways has God
To draw His creature to Himself, and steep
It in the gracious furnace of His love:
Some as Sir Galahad through innocence,
Whose white flower blossomed from his cradled years,
Some as the holy nun through human love,
Which rooted first in man's frail faith withered,
But after grew to fruit in heavenly soil;
And some as Launcelot through the dolorous way
Of penance cleansing all the sinful past
With prayer and fasting, till this mortal house
Grow luminant with grace, and in the eyes
The Spirit shines with love's interior flame,
Like windows glowing with an inner light
From out an ancient hall, wherein they hold
High feast for coming of their absent lord,
After long years of exile from his hearth.

For after that great battle in the west,
Where Arthur smote the traitor Modred down,
And wounded sore was borne by Bedivere
Down to the margin of the sleeping mere,
And went into the barge that hovèd there,
And passed with those three hooded queens, who holped
The fainting king unto the happy isles,
Sir Launcelot, heavy with the grievous word,
Came back from over seas, and sought the queen
At Almesbury, whither she had fled the wrath
Of Arthur, knowing not the king would come
To bless her with forgiveness, not to bane.

And there to be a holy nun the queen
Abode and clothed herself in black and white,
As nuns are wont, veiling her beauty's fire
With weeds of penance, as evening's ardourous star
Burns all enclouded in the vapourous west,
When heaven weeps a dying day of autumn,
Sinking behind grey banks of broken storm.

And hither over seas Sir Launcelot came,
When Arthur passed and bold Sir Gawain died;
And sought the queen, thinking within his heart
Old thoughts, that came and went and came again
Like sudden birds on winter's leafless boughs
Chattering a noisy chorus for the food
They find not, locked within the whitened land
Forgetful of the summer's lavishness.
And so the memories of the summer hours
Came fluttering in the winter of his grief,
Where all was barrenness, and found no place
Of solace for the bitterness of joys
Long past, remembered sweets but present pangs.
And all the glamour of his fame died out
Within his heart and lay in dust and ashes,
Like fires gone out within a wasted land.
And making lamentation for his sin,
His soul grew black as death with gathering pain
At seeing the vast emptiness of life
Wrought in the vanity of things long passed;
And all the shadows of his vanished days
Trooped mockingly before him as to say:
"Behold the wraiths of thine own deeds misdone,
And all the hollowness of time misspent."
And pointing ghostly fingers at him, jeered
Accusingly, and beat him down in shame.
And what of good and pure he once had wrought
Drew back affrighted, wailing at the strength
Of evil deeds grown old with years of custom.

And so as in a swoon Sir Launcelot lay,
Sunk in the blackness of that ghostly night,
Unrecking time and all the world about:
And from the dripping east the sunless day
Rose heavily, and wheeled a clouded arc
Through weeping skies down to the shrouded west,
And sank in darkness, o'er the world's blurred rim.
And the bare woodland's leafless limbs made moan
With requiem winds dirging the dying year,
That, whistling through the empty rookeries,
Shrilled ghostly music in the abbey towers.
But Launcelot lay and heeded not, lost
Within the deeper night that whelmed his soul;
Till on the second day the abbey bell,
Clanging its noisy message o'er the walls,
With sudden onset smote his startled ear,
And roused his smothered soul from out its swoon,
While through the wakening senses poured the tides
Of life in rushing streams of sight and sound.

Then rising up Sir Launcelot strode a pace
And reeled with giddiness, but onward pressed
And stood before the abbey's massy gates;
And thereon smiting with his hilted sword,
The startled corridors grew clamourous
With replicated echoes rumbling far
Like distant thunder through the cloistered cells,
And into solemn silence died again.

And hearing, Guinevere rose up and paused;
And all her heart went trembling through her limbs;
But praying on high God she called to stay
Her weakness, and in the sacred power of prayer
Gathered the scattered forces of her will,
Resolved against herself and him, who came
To plead against her better self and his.
Once only, for a little moment swayed
Her resolution, when she heard the craunch
Of armèd footsteps on the virgin flags,
Wavered a sudden instant, then rooted firm.
And Launcelot coming saw, and stood amazed,
Scarce knowing her; for all unlike the queen,
Whose beauty flashed of yore in Arthur's court
From snowy arms of rounded perfectness
And shoulders purer than the lily's glow,
Crowned with a wanton wealth of sunny hair
Above the fulness of her columned throat,
Her queenly stature rose before him robed
And veiled in solemn folds of black and white,
Her lustrous beauty chastened and eclipsed,
Yet temperately shining through her garb
Of soberness, as pearls a radiant moon
Behind a fleece of clouds illuminate
With hidden light.

With broken voice at first,
Like brooklet hesitating over flats
And shallows, but gathering fuller flood and depth
At last flows smooth and strong through widening fields,
She spake to Launcelot sunken on his knee
In knightly courtesy: "Through thee and me,
Sir Launcelot, all the goodliest fellowship
Of knights the needful world has ever seen
Is utterly dispersed, and Arthur's work,
The building of a realm of love and law,
Wherein the man is lord of beast and lust,
And Christ is King (O blind was I not seeing!)
Is all undone; and treason, war and death
Have seized upon the realm and ravened it,
Laying the land all waste and desolate;
Till wolves now sniff the blackened hearth, where men
Were wont to sit before their household blaze;
And all the fields lie choked with riotous weeds,
Where waxed the bearded grain laughing to heaven
With plenty, sowed and reaped in Arthur's peace,
From shore to shore through lengthening year to year.
Through me and thee hath all this ill been wrought;
For in our sinful love this grief has come
Upon the land, and on us lies the dole
Of unpurged guilt, who sinned so easily
And erred so greatly, seeing now how deep
The wound we wrought so lightly, and how sore
The hurt, whence comes confusion and the death
To all that Arthur built so beautiful.
So wit thou now, Sir Knight, my soul's sad plight,
And how I seek God's pardon having hope
In Christ's high blood for my soul's after health,
And yet to see His Blessed Face through grace
Of God when I have purged me of my sins
In this quiet house of prayer, and laid aside
The frailty of this flesh through which I sinned.
For well I know in heaven is many a saint,
Who sinned as I, yet after won the height
By Christ's dear mercy and his precious blood.
Wherefore, Sir Launcelot, I beseech thee go;
Leave thou me here to work my penance out,
That rooting up the tares of time abused,
I sow celestial seed for heavenly gain;
For well as I have loved thee sinfully,
My heart forbids I love thee shamefully,
As once I loved forgetful of my place
And that high destiny wherein I failed;
And this I pray for thy soul's health and mine.
Farewell! betake thee to thy realm again,
And guard it well from war and wrack, and there
Take thee a wife for joy and for an heir
To bear thy name and do thy work hereafter;
Till righted be the wrong of our misliving,
And from the ashes of the dolorous past
Push forth the blossom of a fairer hour,
In promise of the nobler fruit to come
Now blighted by the canker of our loves."

And Launcelot kneeling bowed his knightly head,
And felt his heart strain 'gainst his corselet's girth,
Well-nigh to bursting with the swollen floods
Of grief surging and shocking in his ears
At thought of his unknightly faithlessness,
Made naked and ashamed by utter truth
Of her calm words accusing and accused.
And groaning answered Launcelot sore at heart:
"Would ye, sweet Madame, that I go again
Unto my country? Nay, I never shall;
Nor take me there a wife; for on high God
I call, that I in thee have ever had
Mine earthly joy, and false shall never prove.
Now wit thee well, I make a knightly vow,
That ne'er again in other shall I joy;
But that same choice which thou hast made, I make;
And hence will seek the holy life to mend
My grievous past for Jesu's sake and health
Of mine own soul. For now I see full well
The mickle vanity of praise, and how
A summer cloudlet puffed by wanton winds
Our slender hour of fame is blown and lost
Within the endless vaultage of the skies.
No more I seek the glory of the field
Or tourney's prize, a little dust of deeds
Raised by the fitful breath of jealous time
To settle back upon its native earth
In dust again beneath the heedless feet
Of men remembering not. And since, my Queen,
Ye have renounced the sounding world's rank pomp
To seek the perfect way for Jesu's sake,
I one with thee in all that grievous past,
And knowing now the canker at the root
Of love that runneth not the course of God,
Must needs of right seek out the prayerful way,
And follow it with hope in Christ's high blood
Of sin forgiven and of pardon won.
Farewell! and I beseech thee let thy voice
Go up to heaven for me as mine for thee,
That seeing how we wronged high God together,
And each made other's hurt in either's love,
Together we may storm the citadel
Of His vast mercy, each in other's prayers
Winning Christ's healing for the other's wound."
And saying Launcelot rose, and going passed
The abbey's massy gates, that closed behind,
And sent their muffled clang to where the queen
Stood, a statue marbled into grief,
Then like a fainting lily swayed and fell
Prone, till ministered by tender hands
Of holy women loving and beloved.

And Launcelot through the naked forest rode,
Like one who wanders witless in a dream,
Nor heeded aught the roar of lashing boughs
Tumultuous with tempestuous blasts icy
With winter and keen as fangs of famished wolves.
A day and night he rode, nor recked the way,
Till on the morning of the second sun
He chanced upon a hermitage, where dwelt
A holy man wasted with fasts and prayer.
And Launcelot there alighting knelt him down,
And crying out besought the holy man
To shrive him and assoil him, come to make
Amend to Heaven by penitence and prayer
For years of guilty love heavy with hell.

And knowing him the hermit blessed and spake
Large words of comfort and of Jesu's love,
And to his crying harkened shriving him;
And bade him strip him of his shining mail;
And on him placed the habit of a monk,
The sober garment of the world of prayer,
And token of the will to perfect life
In him who walks no more the paths of men
But treads the single way of Christ.

So dwelt
Sir Launcelot at the hermitage, a monk
In arduous striving for the perfect life.
And fierce at first the struggle with the flesh
Tyrannous with th' unbrooked sovereignty of years.
And lean and hollow-eyed he waned ghost-like,
Wrestling against the might of evil habit
Grown stronger year by year as saplings grow
Ring by ring into the stubborn oak.
And beaten down a many times he rose
Again by strenght of prayer and penitence,
And slowly waxed in spiritual power.
Oft-times when heaven stood at middle night,
And all the world was laid in sleep, there came
Upon him half awake and half adream,
Soft phantoms wooing him with sensuous breath
To break his steadfast will and drag him down.
Anon Queen Guinevere bent over him
And swept his lips with velvet touch of hers,
Or Vivien, her almond eyes half veiled,
From under drooping lids shot languorous lightnings;
Or Queen Iseult tossing resplendent arms,
Her raven tresses streaming down about
The snowy drifts of gleaming shoulders, beckoned
And called with amorous parted lips breathing
The heavy sweetness of the ripened rose;
And Launcelot starting up and crying out
Beat 'gainst the hollow air with frantic hands,
And heard, or seemed to hear, a mocking laughter
Drifting away into the outer night
With muttered imprecations echoing back:
And on him stood great drops of agony,
Lest yielding, e'en in thought, he fall again
Into the noisome pit, whence he had toiled
To purer heights. And seizing on the scourge
That ever lay beside his hand, he smote
The recreant flesh and beat the lusting down,
And fell to prayer; till morning creeping up
The murmuring east noosed all the hills with light,
And wold and dale and all the shadowed woods
Silvered with benediction of the dawn;
And Launcelot, overwearied, kneeling slept,
And dreamed no more. And so at last he quelled
The flesh, and made it subject to his will,
As docile as his knightly charger once
To voice and rein in joust or roaring war.
Thus broken was the power of hell to weave
Foul phantasies before his dreaming brain,
Wrought from the sensuous vapours of the past,
Like lingering mists above a dark morass,
Until the sharp pure air of heaven blow
And drive the fetid shades away, and down
From crystal spaces shine the steadfast stars.

But one sole victory gaineth not the walls
Of Heaven, where battlemented gleams afar
The City of the Saints ruby with love.
And Launcelot longing for that distant glory,
As keenly as of old for human fame,
Strove mightily in prayerful contemplation
To win the flashing splendour of the height.

But God, lest he should lean upon himself
Forgetful that the soul is tempered true
Only within humility's black forge
Under the hammer of adversity,
As ruddy iron under the smith's swift blows,
Withdrew Himself, and left him desolate.
And Melancholy breathed her heavy night
Upon his soul, and leaden weighed him down
To an abysmal darkness void and stern:
And calling out in agony his voice
Went from him echoless, and silence pierced
Him through and through like sword of ice numbing
His speech and freezing all his powers of thought,
Save only the black memory of his sins,
That ever rose a creeping tide of foulness
To whelm him under; and isolation spread,
Deathlike, without the blessedness of death,
Innumerable spaces round about,
Until the universe seemed blotted out
Of time and place, and he, sole being plunged
In nothingness, shuddering in the void
Ravened by utter emptiness of self.
Then sudden seemed he snatched and lifted up
Within the grasping of some mighty palm,
And set down in a solitary waste
Of blackened sand and rock blasted of eld
By primal fires; and poured out like a pool
Of leaden waters lay his sluggish soul
Within a hollow of the barren plain,
So dun no star thereon could find its shadow,
Though all the heavens blazed with arrowy lights.
A voiceless shade upon its banks he stood
Gazing with fearful eyes, that could not weep,
Upon the heavy surface of the pool,
That slowly stirred with sluggish undulations
Oozing and bubbling up from slimy depths;
And therein creeping creatures foul with mire
Rose writhing twisted in a hundred knots,
Uncoiling serpent shapes that coiled again,
Flickering malignant tongues and hissing hate.
And from the distant gloom of circling sands
Came hollow laughter, pealing mockingly,
And gibing voices shrilling as to say:
"Behold thyself, that thinkest to take high heaven!"
And 'twixt the wriggling horror of the pool
And those shrill voices seemed he plunged in hell,
Cast out of Love and doomed of God forever.
Nor could his tongue find utterance, nor prayer
Wing upward from his heart in utter shame
Of his unworthiness, seeing his soul
Spilled out in all the foulness of his sins.
And so he seemed to stand eternally,
Helpless and hopeless, scorned of Heaven and Hell.
Then sudden on the far horizon shone
A little light that grew resplendent coming,
And growing flung lances of fire across
The sands scattering the shadows of the waste,
Till all the pool was silvered into white;
And looking, he beheld it crystal pure!
And all the air glowed red with crimson flame,
That wrapped him close and ravished him with sweetness;
While round him swept the radiance of a host
Charging as from a leaguered city's walls
To rescue of a fallen knight begirt
By hurtling foes; and in the crystal pool
Behold—its gleaming towers and turrets mirrored—
The city of God rose-red! And all its walls
Were thronged with aureoled saints shouting Hosannas,
And waving golden palms; and parapet
And base, and all the glowing space between,
Builded of serried ranks angelical,
Arm linking arm and wing enfolding wing,
Breathed harmonies of blended canticles
Flaming like fountained fire, that spouted forth
Rivers of rushing melody flooding
Swift light leaping in seas of glory,
Till height responsive unto height trembled
With song of all the Sons of God crying,
"Behold the Love that conquereth forever!"

And Launcelot by that splendour pierced and rapt,
Was lifted from the night of desolation,
And made to shine in spiritual glory
Upon the heights of holiness, and knew
His mighty sin forgiven and Heaven won
By utter gift of God, who casteth down
And lifteth up out of pure love to win
His creature to Himself.

And ever after
The vision of the City of the Saints
Abode within him, shining in his eyes
With holy flame and lighting all his face
With love, till they that looked upon him, marvelled.
And as a music playing was his presence,
Making glad harmonies with all about,
Till savage beasts ate gently from his hand,
And birds came fluttering round him lovingly;
And when he passed the rose flamed deeper red,
Unfolding all her heart and breathing out
A richer perfume to the joyous air;
So great was love within him shining forth.

And when Sir Bors, and others after him,
Came seeking Launcelot, finding him a monk
They marvelled greatly seeing him so changed.
But by the deathless fire allured, that burned
Celestial beacons in his eyes, and held
By music of his voice that seemed attuned
To heavenly choirs, they would not forth again
Into the discord of the world: and won
Through Launcelot to the love of higher things,
Abode with him and took the ashen garb
Of penitence; and following Christ alone
Strove ever for the perfect life; and so
There gathered round him seven knights, who erst
Had followed him and worshipped him; and now
They followed him no less, but worshipped God
Alone, by his ensample drawn and led.

And now the seventh year in heaven's orb
Had wheeled its round, since Launcelot sought the perfect life;
And it was close upon the Easter hour,
When earth had cast her winter weeds aside,
And baring all her breast to wooing suns,
Felt slender flutterings of the baby spring
Stirring within her quickened zone, while field
And forest prescient of the coming hour,
Grew tender with the creeping sap tinging
The melting wold with hesitating green,
And softening all the boughs with timid buds.
And Launcelot granted by Heaven to know his hour,
That he should pass at Easter-tide, calling
His seven brethren, spake in ghostly words
Clothed with the sad authority of death:
"Now ye who love me in the love of Christ,
Hearken my words, who am about to die;
For keen was I for earthly fame, loving
The incense glory from the lips of men,
Not knowing then the higher life in God,
Nor seeking Him, but serving mine own honour,
Encrowned by pride upon a throne of sand.
And lusting in the flesh I lived my life
Besottedly, and God's high purpose turned
To basest use, making of human love—
Whence flowers our kind upon the stalk of time
For God's own plucking in eternal life—
A sink of passion and a pit of death.
And sinning in the flesh with one that stood
Upon the pinnacle of mortal greatness,
Made sin a brazen trumpet to the world,
Till others from our scandal drawing license
Sinned also, blindly deeming that light fault,
Whose foulness borrowed lustre from high names.
And so the sins of many burdened me
Besides mine own, and weighed me down in shame.
But God, who willeth not the sinner's death,
Is mighty in His Love, whose arm is mercy
And reacheth out to snatch us from the hell
Our sin has made, if we but will to come.

And I that hung upon the trembling brink,
Was plucked from those eternal gulfs of loss
By power of Jesu's blood spilled for us all;
And though unworthy, crying out was heard.
For marvellous the grace of God; and none
So low, but he may rise and live again,
Putting forth buds of righteousness by heat
Of that high Love falling upon the seeds
Of penance sown within the furrowed fields
Of humbleness; for pride resisteth grace,
And they that will not are as barren rock.
Wherefore in me see God's great miracle
Of Jesu's love triumphant over sin;
For none was greater sinner in the flesh
Than I, whose sin was more than lust, seeing
It grew to be the scandal of the realm,
And sapped the props of Arthur's house to ruin.
But God encompasseth the wickedness
Of men, and though we break His ordinance,
And send sin's discord through the groaning world,
And see no healing of the hurt in time,
The arms of love eternally uphold,
And Mercy maketh music in the heavens,
That girdle us arround with harmonies
Unheard save by the spiritual ear
Beyond the lagging sense's evidence.

And he that feareth justice findeth mercy
With outstretched arms to take him to her bosom
As mothers take the thirsting babe to breast;
But he that scorneth mercy and will not,
Within the hands of justice shall be held
Apart, eternally shut out from Love
Inviolate, that wooed him all in vain.
Wherefore that all who knew me in the weeds
Of worldliness, may see in me the flower
Of mercy burgeoning by Jesu's love,
I pray ye bear my body through the land,
When I am dead, to Joyous Gard, and there
Let all men come to look upon my face,
That seeing, they may know the ways of God,
And in the knowing some amend be done
For my great sin." And ceasing, quiet as waters
Flowing from shallows into deeps, his voice
Grew still, and o'er his face death's shadows crept
As daylight waning ashens into night;
And breathing deep in one long-drawn sigh,
As sleepers breathe, his soul went gently forth.

And kneeling all his brethren prayed high God,
And wept for love of him, and yet withal
Felt gladness, knowing him a holy man,
And how he longed for Heaven, not fearing death.
Then rising up, with reverent hands they placed
Him on a bier, and going forth took road
To Joyous Gard.

And it was Easter-tide,
And all the earth had quickened into flowers,
And all the air was redolent of May;
And cope and copse rang revelry with songs
Of feathered joys awaked from winter's sleep
By new-born suns within the tender blue
Of skies liquid with spring's ethereal breath.
And through the joyous season as they went
The gladness of the world lifted their hearts
Thinking upon their risen Lord and death
O'ercome by his great victory, and how
The man they bore had won the eternal pearl.
And such a fragrance from him came as seemed
Death had no part in him, and on his face
A light as from a lamp of holy oils
Burning before the body of our Lord.
And all their going was a sweet spring tune,
Swelling from earth and air and blossomed brake:
Above the bier carolled the wheeling birds;
The little creatures in the grass chorused
A soft insistent note, and in the fields
The grazing kine lifted their patient heads,
And lowed a mellow greeting as they passed.

From thorpe and town the people came and gazed
At them, and wondering looked upon the face
Of him they bore, and seeing greatly marvelled,
And followed reverently: so when they came
To Joyous Gard, the multitude had swelled
Unto a host, as when a people come
In homage of a king. And in the quire
They laid him down, that all might come and see.
And noble lords and ladies came and saw,
And marvelled thinking on the grace of God.
And many that were still in sin were changed,
And followed Christ thereafter. And lastly came
Sir Ector, Launcelot's brother, making dole;
But when he saw his face he wept no more,
And straightway casting off his sword and helm,
He vowed him after to the holy life.

And now twice seven days Sir Launcelot lay
On loft, and all the people came and saw,
And none that came but marvelled seeing him,
And all the whiles his seven brethren sang
And read the psalters over him and prayed,
Their voices going up both night and day
Like incense from a golden censer swung.
And on the fortnight came the Bishop there,
And praying sang a requiem over him,
And offered up the Holy Sacrifice
Of Christ's own Blood and Body for his soul;
And when the Sacred Host was lifted up,
Blood red it shone, and rosy sparkles flashed
Through all the quire, and sounds of voices came
From far off like a mighty host rejoicing,
Then died away as of a people going
Within a city's gates; and fading waned
The rosy red upon the chancel's walls
Like evening's purple with the setting sun.






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