Idylls of the King (Unabridged). Alfred Tennyson

       With skill and fineness. Instant were his words.

      Then Gareth, ‘Here be rules. I know but one —

       To dash against mine enemy and win.

       Yet have I seen thee victor in the joust,

       And seen thy way.’ ‘Heaven help thee,’ sighed Lynette.

      Then for a space, and under cloud that grew

       To thunder-gloom palling all stars, they rode

       In converse till she made her palfrey halt,

       Lifted an arm, and softly whispered, ‘There.’

       And all the three were silent seeing, pitched

       Beside the Castle Perilous on flat field,

       A huge pavilion like a mountain peak

       Sunder the glooming crimson on the marge,

       Black, with black banner, and a long black horn

       Beside it hanging; which Sir Gareth graspt,

       And so, before the two could hinder him,

       Sent all his heart and breath through all the horn.

       Echoed the walls; a light twinkled; anon

       Came lights and lights, and once again he blew;

       Whereon were hollow tramplings up and down

       And muffled voices heard, and shadows past;

       Till high above him, circled with her maids,

       The Lady Lyonors at a window stood,

       Beautiful among lights, and waving to him

       White hands, and courtesy; but when the Prince

       Three times had blown — after long hush — at last —

       The huge pavilion slowly yielded up,

       Through those black foldings, that which housed therein.

       High on a nightblack horse, in nightblack arms,

       With white breast-bone, and barren ribs of Death,

       And crowned with fleshless laughter — some ten steps —

       In the half-light — through the dim dawn — advanced

       The monster, and then paused, and spake no word.

      But Gareth spake and all indignantly,

       ‘Fool, for thou hast, men say, the strength of ten,

       Canst thou not trust the limbs thy God hath given,

       But must, to make the terror of thee more,

       Trick thyself out in ghastly imageries

       Of that which Life hath done with, and the clod,

       Less dull than thou, will hide with mantling flowers

       As if for pity?’ But he spake no word;

       Which set the horror higher: a maiden swooned;

       The Lady Lyonors wrung her hands and wept,

       As doomed to be the bride of Night and Death;

       Sir Gareth’s head prickled beneath his helm;

       And even Sir Lancelot through his warm blood felt

       Ice strike, and all that marked him were aghast.

      At once Sir Lancelot’s charger fiercely neighed,

       And Death’s dark war-horse bounded forward with him.

       Then those that did not blink the terror, saw

       That Death was cast to ground, and slowly rose.

       But with one stroke Sir Gareth split the skull.

       Half fell to right and half to left and lay.

       Then with a stronger buffet he clove the helm

       As throughly as the skull; and out from this

       Issued the bright face of a blooming boy

       Fresh as a flower new-born, and crying, ‘Knight,

       Slay me not: my three brethren bad me do it,

       To make a horror all about the house,

       And stay the world from Lady Lyonors.

       They never dreamed the passes would be past.’

       Answered Sir Gareth graciously to one

       Not many a moon his younger, ‘My fair child,

       What madness made thee challenge the chief knight

       Of Arthur’s hall?’ ‘Fair Sir, they bad me do it.

       They hate the King, and Lancelot, the King’s friend,

       They hoped to slay him somewhere on the stream,

       They never dreamed the passes could be past.’

      Then sprang the happier day from underground;

       And Lady Lyonors and her house, with dance

       And revel and song, made merry over Death,

       As being after all their foolish fears

       And horrors only proven a blooming boy.

       So large mirth lived and Gareth won the quest.

      And he that told the tale in older times

       Says that Sir Gareth wedded Lyonors,

       But he, that told it later, says Lynette.