Stood, while he mutter’d, ‘Craven crests! O shame! What faith have these in whom they sware to love? The glory of our Round Table is no more.’ So Tristram won, and Lancelot gave, the gems, Not speaking other word than ‘Hast thou won? Art thou the purest, brother? See, the hand Wherewith thou takest this, is red!’ to whom Tristram, half plagued by Lancelot’s languorous mood, Made answer, ‘Ay, but wherefore toss me this Like a dry bone cast to some hungry hound? Let be thy fair Queen’s fantasy. Strength of heart And might of limb, but mainly use and skill, Are winners in this pastime of our King. My hand—belike the lance hath dript upon it— No blood of mine, I trow; but O chief knight, Right arm of Arthur in the battlefield, Great brother, thou nor I have made the world; Be happy in thy fair Queen as I in mine.’ And Tristram round the gallery made his horse Caracole; then bow’d his homage, bluntly saying, ‘Fair damsels, each to him who worships each Sole Queen of Beauty and of love, behold This day my Queen of Beauty is not here.’ And most of these were mute, some anger’d, one Murmuring, ‘All courtesy is dead,’ and one, ‘The glory of our Round Table is no more.’ Then fell thick rain, plume droopt and mantle clung, And pettish cries awoke, and the wan day Went glooming down in wet and weariness: But under her black brows a swarthy one Laugh’d shrilly, crying, ‘Praise the patient saints, Our one white day of Innocence hath past, Tho’ somewhat draggled at the skirt. So be it. The snowdrop only, flowering thro’ the year, Would make the world as blank as Winter-tide. Come—let us gladden their sad eyes, our Queen’s And Lancelot’s, at this night’s solemnity With all the kindlier colours of the field.’” Arthur’s last victory over a robber knight is ingloriously squalid:—