Then Arthur, “Let who goes before me, see He do not fall behind me: foully slain And villainously! who will hunt for me This demon of the woods?” Said Balan, “I”! So claimed the quest and rode away, but first, Embracing Balin, “Good my brother, hear! Let not thy moods prevail, when I am gone Who used to lay them! hold them outer fiends, Who leap at thee to tear thee; shake them aside, Dreams ruling when wit sleeps! yea, but to dream That any of these would wrong thee, wrongs thyself. Witness their flowery welcome. Bound are they To speak no evil. Truly save for fears, My fears for thee, so rich a fellowship Would make me wholly blest: thou one of them, Be one indeed: consider them, and all Their bearing in their common bond of love, No more of hatred than in Heaven itself, No more of jealousy than in Paradise.” So Balan warned, and went; Balin remained: Who—for but three brief moons had glanced away From being knighted till he smote the thrall, And faded from the presence into years Of exile—now would strictlier set himself To learn what Arthur meant by courtesy, Manhood, and knighthood; wherefore hovered round Lancelot, but when he marked his high sweet smile In passing, and a transitory word Make knight or churl or child or damsel seem From being smiled at happier in themselves— Sighed, as a boy lame-born beneath a height, That glooms his valley, sighs to see the peak Sun-flushed, or touch at night the northern star; For one from out his village lately climed And brought report of azure lands and fair, Far seen to left and right; and he himself Hath hardly scaled with help a hundred feet Up from the base: so Balin marvelling oft How far beyond him Lancelot seemed to move, Groaned, and at times would mutter, “These be gifts, Born with the blood, not learnable, divine, Beyond my reach. Well had I foughten—well— In those fierce wars, struck hard—and had I crowned With my slain self the heaps of whom I slew— So—better!—But this worship of the Queen, That honour too wherein she holds him—this, This was the sunshine that hath given the man A growth, a name that branches o’er the rest, And strength against all odds, and what the King So prizes—overprizes—gentleness. Her likewise would I worship an I might. I never can be close with her, as he That brought her hither. Shall I pray the King To let me bear some token of his Queen Whereon to gaze, remembering her—forget My heats and violences? live afresh? What, if the Queen disdained to grant it! nay Being so stately-gentle, would she make My darkness blackness? and with how sweet grace She greeted my return! Bold will I be— Some goodly cognizance of Guinevere, In lieu of this rough beast upon my shield, Langued gules, and toothed with grinning savagery.”