He answered laughing, “Nay, not like to me. At last they found—his foragers for charms— A little glassy-headed hairless man, Who lived alone in a great wild on grass; Read but one book, and ever reading grew So grated down and filed away with thought, So lean his eyes were monstrous; while the skin Clung but to crate and basket, ribs and spine. And since he kept his mind on one sole aim, Nor ever touched fierce wine, nor tasted flesh, Nor owned a sensual wish, to him the wall That sunders ghosts and shadow-casting men Became a crystal, and he saw them through it, And heard their voices talk behind the wall, And learnt their elemental secrets, powers And forces; often o’er the sun’s bright eye Drew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud, And lashed it at the base with slanting storm; Or in the noon of mist and driving rain, When the lake whitened and the pinewood roared, And the cairned mountain was a shadow, sunned The world to peace again: here was the man. And so by force they dragged him to the King. And then he taught the King to charm the Queen In such-wise, that no man could see her more, Nor saw she save the King, who wrought the charm, Coming and going, and she lay as dead, And lost all use of life: but when the King Made proffer of the league of golden mines, The province with a hundred miles of coast, The palace and the princess, that old man Went back to his old wild, and lived on grass, And vanished, and his book came down to me.” And Vivien answered smiling saucily: “Ye have the book: the charm is written in it: Good: take my counsel: let me know it at once: For keep it like a puzzle chest in chest, With each chest locked and padlocked thirty-fold, And whelm all this beneath as vast a mound As after furious battle turfs the slain On some wild down above the windy deep, I yet should strike upon a sudden means To dig, pick, open, find and read the charm: Then, if I tried it, who should blame me then?” And smiling as a master smiles at one That is not of his school, nor any school But that where blind and naked Ignorance Delivers brawling judgments, unashamed, On all things all day long, he answered her: