Then was he ware of three pavilions reared Above the bushes, gilden-peakt: in one, Red after revel, droned her lurdane knights Slumbering, and their three squires across their feet: In one, their malice on the placid lip Frozen by sweet sleep, four of her damsels lay: And in the third, the circlet of the jousts Bound on her brow, were Gawain and Ettarre. Back, as a hand that pushes through the leaf To find a nest and feels a snake, he drew: Back, as a coward slinks from what he fears To cope with, or a traitor proven, or hound Beaten, did Pelleas in an utter shame Creep with his shadow through the court again, Fingering at his sword-handle until he stood There on the castle-bridge once more, and thought, “I will go back, and slay them where they lie.” And so went back, and seeing them yet in sleep Said, “Ye, that so dishallow the holy sleep, Your sleep is death,” and drew the sword, and thought, “What! slay a sleeping knight? the King hath bound And sworn me to this brotherhood;” again, “Alas that ever a knight should be so false.” Then turned, and so returned, and groaning laid The naked sword athwart their naked throats, There left it, and them sleeping; and she lay, The circlet of her tourney round her brows, And the sword of the tourney across her throat. And forth he past, and mounting on his horse Stared at her towers that, larger than themselves In their own darkness, thronged into the moon. Then crushed the saddle with his thighs, and clenched His hands, and maddened with himself and moaned: “Would they have risen against me in their blood At the last day? I might have answered them Even before high God. O towers so strong, Huge, solid, would that even while I gaze The crack of earthquake shivering to your base Split you, and Hell burst up your harlot roofs Bellowing, and charred you through and through within, Black as the harlot’s heart—hollow as a skull! Let the fierce east scream through your eyelet-holes, And whirl the dust of harlots round and round In dung and nettles! hiss, snake—I saw him there— Let the fox bark, let the wolf yell. Who yells Here in the still sweet summer night, but I— I, the poor Pelleas whom she called her fool? Fool, beast—he, she, or I? myself most fool; Beast too, as lacking human wit—disgraced, Dishonoured all for trial of true love— Love?—we be all alike: only the King Hath made us fools and liars. O noble vows! O great and sane and simple race of brutes That own no lust because they have no law! For why should I have loved her to my shame? I loathe her, as I loved her to my shame. I never loved her, I but lusted for her— Away—” He dashed the rowel into his horse, And bounded forth and vanished through the night.