Chronicles and Characters :: :: University of Virginia Library

A knight that wears no lady's sleeve
Upon his helm from dawn to eve,
And all night long beneath the throng
Of throbbing stars, without reprieve
My moan I make, as on I ride
Along waste lands and waters wide,
The haunts of bitterns; smoky strips
Of sea-coast where there come no ships;
Or over brambly hump-back'd downs,
And under walls of hilly towns,
And out again across the plain,
Oft borne beneath a hissing rain
Within the murmurs of the wind,
That doth at nightfall leave his lair
To follow and vex me; till I find
Fair Yoland with the yellow hair.

II.

On a field azure, all pure or,
A fountain springing evermore
To reach one star that, just too far
For its endeavour, trembles o'er
The topmost spray its strength will yield,
For my device upon my shield
Long since I wrought; and under it
Along a scroll of flame is writ
The legend, thus ... “I shall attain.”
In letters large: albeit “In vain!”
My heart replies to mock mine eyes;
For where that fountain seems to rise
Its highest, it is back consign'd
To earth, and falls in void despair,
Like my sad seven-years' hope to find
Fair Yoland with the yellow hair.

III.

Seven years ago (how long it seems
Since then!) as free as summer streams
My fancy play'd with sun and shade,
And all my days were dim with dreams.
One day—I wot not whence nor how
It flash'd upon me—even now
I marvel at the change it wrought!
My whole life leapt into one thought,

Which thought was made my lifelong act;
As, dash'd in dazzling cataract,
From its long sleeps, at last outleaps
Some lazy ooze, which henceforth keeps
One steadfast way; so all my mind
Was in that moment made aware
That henceforth I must die, or find
Fair Yoland with the yellow hair.

IV.

Since then, how many lands and climes
Have I ransack'd—how many times
Been bruised with blows—how many foes
Have dealt to death—how many crimes
Avenged—how many maidens freed!
And yet I seem to be, indeed,
No nearer to the endless quest.
Neither by night nor day I rest:
My heart burns in me like a fire:
My soul is parch'd with long desire:
Ghostlike I grow: and where I go,
I hear men mock and mutter low
And feel men's fingers point behind—
“The moon-struck knight that talks to air!
Lord help the fool who hopes to find
Fair Yoland with the yellow hair!”

V.

At times, in truth, I start, and shake
Myself from thought, as one men wake
From some long trance to hard mischance,
Who knows not yet what choice to make
'Twixt false and true, since all things seem
Mere fragments of his broken dream,
When I recal what men aver,
That all my lifelong quest of her
Is vain and void; since thrice (say they)
Three hundred years are rolled away,
And knights forgot, whose bones now rot,
And their good deeds remember'd not,
Fail'd one by one, long ere I pined
For this strange quest; whence they declare
No living wight may hope to find
Fair Yoland with the yellow hair.

VI.

Ah me! ... For Launcelot maketh cheer
With great-eyed, glorious Guinevere;
In glad green wood; with Queen Isoud
Tristram of Lyones hunts the deer;
In cool of bloomy trellises
Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris,
After long labours brought to end,
With their two dames in joyance spend

The blue June hours; Sir Agravaine
With Dame Laurell along the main
Seeks his new home; and Pelleas
Sits smiling calm in halls of glass
At Nimuë's knees. Good knights be these
Because they have their hearts at ease,
Because their lives and loves are joined:
O if two hearts in one life were,
What life were that! ... God let me find
Fair Yoland with the yellow hair!

VII.

Mere life is vile. I may have done
Deeds not unworthy, and have won
Unwilling fame; tho' all men blame
This heart's unrest which makes me shun
The calm content that good men take
From good deeds done for good deeds' sake,
Deeds that in doing of the deed
Do bless the doer, who should need
No bliss beyond: but what to me
Is this,—that over land and sea
My name should fly? Or what care I,
For the mere sake of climbing high,
To climb for ever steps that wind
Up empty towers? I only wear
Life hollow thus, unless I find
Fair Yoland with the yellow hair.

VIII.

Sometimes, whom I to free from wrong
Have dragons fought, strange folk do throng
About my steed, and lightly lead
My horse and me, with shout and song,
In banner'd castle-courts; and there
From chambers cool come dames most fair,
Whose forms as thro' a cloud I see;
Whose voices seem far off to be;
Tho' near they stand, and bid me rest
Awhile within, where, richly drest,
In order stored, with goblets poured,
I see the sparkling banquet-board;
But far from these is all my mind,
For ... “What if foes, whom I must scare,
In noisome den now seek to bind
Fair Yoland with the yellow hair?”

IX.

In deepest dark, when no moon shines
Thro' the blind night on the black pines
With bony boughs, if I, to drouse
(As sometimes mere despair inclines
A frame outworn) should slip from horse,
And lay me down along the gorse,
In some cold hollow far away
A little while—albeit I pray

Ere I lie down—my dreams are drear:
First comes a slowly-creeping fear,
Like icy dew, that seems to glue
My limbs to earth, and freeze them thro',
Then a long shriek on a wild wind,
And “O,” I think, “if her's it were,
And I a murder'd corpse should find
Fair Yoland with the yellow hair!”

X.

Sometimes 'neath dropping white rose-leaves
I ride, and under gilded eaves
Of garden bowers where, plucking flowers,
With scarlet skirts and stiff gold sleeves,
Between green walls, and two by two,
Kings' daughters walk, whilst just a few
Faint harps make music mild, that falls
Like mist from off the ivied walls
Along the sultry corn, and stirs
The hearts of far-off harvesters;
Then, on the brink of hope, I shrink
With shuddering strange, the while I think
“O what if, after body and mind
Consumed in toil, and all my care,
Not a corpse, but a bride, I find
Fair Yoland with the yellow hair?”

XI.

But when at night's most lonely noon,
The ghost of an ill-buried moon
Frets in the shroud of a cold cloud,
And, like the echo of a tune,
Within mine ear the silence makes
A yearning sound that throbs and aches,
A whisper sighs ... “The grave is deep,
There is no better thing than sleep.
Life's fever speeds its own decease,
Let the mole work: be thou at peace.”
Yet why should this fair earth, which is
So fair, so fit to furnish bliss,
Prove a mere failure—stuff design'd
By Hope to clothe her foe Despair?
And whence, if vain, this need to find
Fair Yoland with the yellow hair?

XII.

This grieving after unknown good,
Though but a sickness in the blood,
Cries from the dust. And God is just.
No rock denies the raven food.
For who would torture, night by night,
Some starving creature with the sight
Of banquets fair with plenty spread,
Then mock ... “crawl empty thou to bed,

“And dream of viands not for thee!”
Yet night by night, dear God, to me,
In wake or sleep, such visions creep
To gnaw my heart with hunger deep.
How can I meet dull death, resign'd
To die the fool of dreams so fair?
Nay, love hath seen, and life shall find,
Fair Yoland with the yellow hair!

XIII.

Good Pilgrim, to whatever shrine,
With whatsoever vows of thine,
Thou wendest, stay! I charge thee, pray
That God may bless this quest of mine.
Sweet maidens, whom from losel hands
Mine own have freed—in many lands,
I bid you each, when ye shall be
With your good knights, remember me!
And wish me well,—that some day I
May find fair Yoland; else I die
In love's defeat. To die were sweet,
If, dying, I might clasp her feet.
Death comes at last to all mankind;
Yet ere I die, I know not where,
I know not how, but I must find
Fair Yoland with the yellow hair.