It is the King. GUENEVERE I cannot see him. LYNNED Think! He is in deadly danger: it may be This is the last time you may look on him. GUENEVERE I cannot. LYNNED Sister, I, too, once denied One who had loved me, when he sought me out For my forgiveness. Gawaine was his name. They had told an evil tale of me, and he Believed it in his sudden wrath, and then Repented, and he came to see me, and I Denied him. Now he is dead, that stormy heart---- GUENEVERE Sir Gawaine, dead? LYNNED Dead of that wound he got By Joyous Gard. The news came even now. I shall not see him now, never again; I, that had all his pardon brimming here. And have no pardon for myself. GUENEVERE You, too? LYNNED We are all kneaded of one flesh; wild earth, Yet heavenly seed can spring in it, and peace That comes in the end, but comes not without cost. It is ill shrinking from our sorrow, Queen. Will you not see the King? GUENEVERE How looked he? Tell me. LYNNED I saw him in the ghostly morning mist Clad in his armour, sitting on his horse. He rides to battle. Almost like a spirit He seemed, and greater than himself. When he spoke, His voice was gentle, yet withal commanded. And there was such a shining in his eyes As never yet I saw in any man’s Upon this earth. GUENEVERE Go, tell him---- (ARTHUR _appears at the back, as a shadow among the shadows, emerging into the light till he stands near_ GUENEVERE.) LYNNED He is here. (LYNNED _glides away as the King appears. He has an exalted, strange, and almost transfigured air._) ARTHUR Guenevere! GUENEVERE Why do you bring me back that ache And the sharp memory of all I thirst To have forgotten? Do you come now to forgive me? Standing apart, to pardon? Only the truth is worthy of what we are. I have wept tears that scald the soul, and yet I do my heart of hearts wrong, if I say That I repent of all. ARTHUR If I were he You knew in other time, if I were he Who had no eyes but for his distant goal, And saw not the things nearest to his heart-- But he is passed. GUENEVERE You speak with a new voice. But I am as the dead who cannot change: Burnt out. I feel not, only see, from far, The unending desolation I have made. ARTHUR