So Gareth all for glory underwent The sooty yoke of kitchen-vassalage; Ate with young lads his portion by the door, And couched at night with grimy kitchen-knaves. And Lancelot ever spake him pleasantly, But Kay the seneschal, who loved him not, Would hustle and harry him, and labour him Beyond his comrade of the hearth, and set To turn the broach, draw water, or hew wood, Or grosser tasks; and Gareth bowed himself With all obedience to the King, and wrought All kind of service with a noble ease That graced the lowliest act in doing it. And when the thralls had talk among themselves, And one would praise the love that linkt the King And Lancelot—how the King had saved his life In battle twice, and Lancelot once the King’s— For Lancelot was the first in Tournament, But Arthur mightiest on the battle-field— Gareth was glad. Or if some other told, How once the wandering forester at dawn, Far over the blue tarns and hazy seas, On Caer-Eryri’s highest found the King, A naked babe, of whom the Prophet spake, “He passes to the Isle Avilion, He passes and is healed and cannot die”— Gareth was glad. But if their talk were foul, Then would he whistle rapid as any lark, Or carol some old roundelay, and so loud That first they mocked, but, after, reverenced him. Or Gareth telling some prodigious tale Of knights, who sliced a red life-bubbling way Through twenty folds of twisted dragon, held All in a gap-mouthed circle his good mates Lying or sitting round him, idle hands, Charmed; till Sir Kay, the seneschal, would come Blustering upon them, like a sudden wind Among dead leaves, and drive them all apart. Or when the thralls had sport among themselves, So there were any trial of mastery, He, by two yards in casting bar or stone Was counted best; and if there chanced a joust, So that Sir Kay nodded him leave to go, Would hurry thither, and when he saw the knights Clash like the coming and retiring wave, And the spear spring, and good horse reel, the boy Was half beyond himself for ecstasy. So for a month he wrought among the thralls; But in the weeks that followed, the good Queen, Repentant of the word she made him swear, And saddening in her childless castle, sent, Between the in-crescent and de-crescent moon, Arms for her son, and loosed him from his vow. This, Gareth hearing from a squire of Lot With whom he used to play at tourney once, When both were children, and in lonely haunts Would scratch a ragged oval on the sand, And each at either dash from either end— Shame never made girl redder than Gareth joy. He laughed; he sprang. “Out of the smoke, at once I leap from Satan’s foot to Peter’s knee— These news be mine, none other’s—nay, the King’s— Descend into the city:” whereon he sought The King alone, and found, and told him all.