Lancelot of the empty fields, Op. 41

1.
I suppose some stories of affection and plight,
Of kings and knaves, of their lovers and might,
Surviving fable-death, ever told and forged again
By forgers and actors, do recur and play
Their course again in some new and twisted way,
And whose Heroes below far-shining distant stars
Run their tragic lives behind fate's titan-bars.
Such a story is ours today, and do check -
We know him well, for his is the fable oft told
Whose light of treachery well fits the virtues of old;
Here we have, a Lancelot of empty fields,
Whose titular fields lush with sanguine is made!

2.
This verdant field of ours, where no critter springs,
A blink ago did brim with animate things;
Yet a silence that the clatter trails with haste,
Now brings to an ear a sparkling, foaming stream,
Issuing a cacophony onto our poetic dream;
In the morning-dew these rapids would run,
Strawy meadow its deathbed-din would bring,
And in the distant hills the death-bells ring;
Clang! Clang! - cast copper there gladly plays,
The varied symphonies that silence blows.
Yet but one still stays to hear the music flow,
Smoothly, smoothly; how the winds so smoothly go.

3.
Here then stands him whom virtue knights,
Atop a boulder; with a brightly-mailed hand,
He strokes in its sheath his sleepy spectral brand,
And yet with the other waves a straw-blade sword.
Lancelot! Knight of knights! Flower loyal and passionate,
Clad in silver-gem suit as old as its ornate,
Whose foes but match his sting; Whose inhuman powers,
Rend with deathly, whilst bravery in its trenches cowers;
So gaze not away from our aesthetic ideal,
Whose sight commands the warlike in its thrall;
Yet do still, and check but those grizzled eyes,
Who've seen a manifold loss, lit up many a wondrous prize.

4.
His hands then lax and tremble in the wind,
Those eyes gleam and glitter, reflecting no inner moods;
Here silence and serenity dwell and naught intrudes,
Here move but meditations below the empty glare,
Turned upward, past the limits of feeble sight,
To the distant, distant and past the dazzling height;
Turn your eyes upwards, where your love dwells!
Lancelot! Past the airy and shivering spheres,
Past the dwelling-places of restless elements,
Up! Up! Where makes abode that so lovely queen,
Whose love commands the puppetry of our scene;
Up! Up! To dream our dream, sleepy Lancelot!

5.
His dream goes further than those cloudy ships,
Past the grasp and reach of this earth-globe;
That sight pierces heavens, to further probe
The fields of expansive and empty voids;
The blackly wisps that without winds do swim,
And crawl and belie the edges of universal rim;
The monuments and massives whose imposing airs,
Make tremble and shatter with empty ocean-stares;
Here must we go and follow, to the distance,
Where no light rebounds, and shields no aegis of ether;
We trail this path for shelter and love,
From ground below, to pass the bowl above.

6.
Yet when up above and away from humane gasp,
How small then appears the plain of human birth,
As giants and super-giants, but ignore his atom-earth,
Lost in straight-line maze; Thus thinking, behold,
How close dances yon swaying pulser-light,
As dimly, dimly, it scintillates in moonless night;
And close pounds now the heirs of echoing guns,
The sons and daughters of some long-split suns.
Here we have a cold and featureless place,
Whose petty corners and crevices house our gaze,
And those same crevices, the universe's manifold race!
That way goes our path, to bind our loving hearts!

7.
In more mellow lands lives his golden queen,
Near more familiar stages, near inns and taverns,
In the hospitable depths of empty star-caverns;
Somewhere, where covered by many a sail-cloth blanket,
Man is warm, when close to his orbs of flare and flame,
Amongst tall peaks, he hunts his astral game.
We arrive! Look not back but set forward,
Here walls are girdled round with her tower-guard,
Who check and stop every passing caravan,
Whose wares no poesy yet could entangle.
Yet again! Past the spheres of airy breath,
We come! From within the domains of soundless death!

8.
Queen Guenavere! Silent sits in her solitude's tower,
Where restless paces about; To pass an idle hour,
She dreams of love, of Sires both sweet and great.
Willful amours! Hers the heroes of fever and hate,
For whom she swings her poetic pen, her blade
Of Hyacinth-bloom, and moans in Eve's gloomy shade,
What an abyss are yon doorless spires! There confined
Spins and wheels alone her matchless mind.
Queen Guenavere! Wave those raven-locks yet again,
Wave for longing and wave for sorrow, and who'd know,
Perhaps through our star-trail your song could go,
Where those tortures of love and ice, he too endures.

9.
Now echo the twin chords of loss and love,
And where's such man whose heart grows cold,
When souls of poetry ever such stories have told?
Most men do know; and all the women I know indeed,
How little care have they for our knight and queen;
When avid's the sigh for their own sweet dream!
No suprise then, how in selfsame way the dual views,
Meet and mingle in some starry mid-way serai;
Merrily dance, a rondeau for those empty fields,
And each to their reciprocal love then yields!
Back to the trodden trail we go, to return,
Where our champion in his amourous fervor burns!

10.
In the sky where naught ever breaks or sinks,
He sees a disturbance; A pulsing north-star blinks,
Lancelot! Shield your eyes with your gauntlet-arm,
And now your fickle light is an answering power,
Carrying a reprisal of love from that distant tower.
Lancelot! Dream and glitter in that silver mail,
And salute, make honour with your spectral flail!
And we too shall, for sake of fairer myth,
Posthaste, lest your tragedy should run its course,
And upon your happy hour its envy endorse;
Yet one last look; Look, some riders through misty bog,
In steely standards now ride to meet our Lancelot.