He pausing, Arthur answered, “O my knight, It will be to thy worship, as my knight, And mine, as head of all our Table Round, To see that she be buried worshipfully.” So toward that shrine which then in all the realm Was richest, Arthur leading, slowly went The marshalled Order of their Table Round, And Lancelot sad beyond his wont, to see The maiden buried, not as one unknown, Nor meanly, but with gorgeous obsequies, And mass, and rolling music, like a queen. And when the knights had laid her comely head Low in the dust of half-forgotten kings, Then Arthur spake among them, “Let her tomb Be costly, and her image thereupon, And let the shield of Lancelot at her feet Be carven, and her lily in her hand. And let the story of her dolorous voyage For all true hearts be blazoned on her tomb In letters gold and azure!” which was wrought Thereafter; but when now the lords and dames And people, from the high door streaming, brake Disorderly, as homeward each, the Queen, Who marked Sir Lancelot where he moved apart, Drew near, and sighed in passing, “Lancelot, Forgive me; mine was jealousy in love.” He answered with his eyes upon the ground, “That is love’s curse; pass on, my Queen, forgiven.” But Arthur, who beheld his cloudy brows, Approached him, and with full affection said, “Lancelot, my Lancelot, thou in whom I have Most joy and most affiance, for I know What thou hast been in battle by my side, And many a time have watched thee at the tilt Strike down the lusty and long practised knight, And let the younger and unskilled go by To win his honour and to make his name, And loved thy courtesies and thee, a man Made to be loved; but now I would to God, Seeing the homeless trouble in thine eyes, Thou couldst have loved this maiden, shaped, it seems, By God for thee alone, and from her face, If one may judge the living by the dead, Delicately pure and marvellously fair, Who might have brought thee, now a lonely man Wifeless and heirless, noble issue, sons Born to the glory of thine name and fame, My knight, the great Sir Lancelot of the Lake.” Then answered Lancelot, “Fair she was, my King, Pure, as you ever wish your knights to be. To doubt her fairness were to want an eye, To doubt her pureness were to want a heart— Yea, to be loved, if what is worthy love Could bind him, but free love will not be bound.” “Free love, so bound, were freest,” said the King. “Let love be free; free love is for the best: And, after heaven, on our dull side of death, What should be best, if not so pure a love Clothed in so pure a loveliness? yet thee She failed to bind, though being, as I think, Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know.”