In eras weird with old mythology,
As if asleep the fabled country lay:
Her wave-like hills and faerie forests dense,
Her thorny brambles budding curling claws, 
And ivy circling all the woodsey way -
The far swan's cry came soft and woke them not.
Forlorn, that selfsame call upon the gates
Did break; those gates of Britain's long-lost keep.
She too slept fast, the weary weathered stones
Of fairest Caerleon. O pulsing stream,
Thou vein of life in woods a-slumber, Usk!
Alone are you in knowing castle's face,
From years of timeless burbling at her feet.
What tales are told by water over stone?
What lark or wren can sing of sadness come?
Aye, answers are the beach-wet sand, yet hark!
Rejoicings spilled, proud hails, from Caerleon:
They cheered the hoar-frost's melting with the Spring;
The holy Gwyl Fair y Canhwyllau
Had come at last, in foliage of dawn.

Astonishment had come like breaking wave
Upon the thirsty sands of monarch's face
So long consigned to reap the low-tide's grief.
When Arthur's ursine hand clenched round his cup
And hailed his nephew's presence with a roar
Long lost to hibernation's hoary spell,
The hearts that beat in armor under him
Did swell to find their lord with cheer at last;
The toast they drank so hearty as to give
Sweet Dionysus pause against excess.
Though only two there were who did not drink,
And one of these were Bors, a sadness fell
Once more as tangible as any wrong
That chose to haunt a hall. 'Twas Gwalchmai grey,
The conqueror now home from quest to rest
Who would not lift his eyes to meet the King's.

"Is there some madness come to roost herein?
Thy folly is ridiculous," said Kay.
"I valued mine own life past honor's flame,
A sin of selfishness, and blame, and wrong.
What of the world, if all would act as such?"
A weeping noise he made, but choked it back
And turned to leave in shame, and might have done
Had not the stout Sir Kay gripped Gwalchmai's arm.
He raised it in the air and shouted thus:
"Percieve our stunning champion stands nigh!
Though of a frail ennobled heart, we know
Thou art absolved. This trinket given free
To aid in quest I wager was for thee.

Upon a bough upon the road, a wren
Pronounced a song that knighted travelers knew
And Gwalchmai whistled in the harmonies.
Four moons they'd seen upon the road,
Tonight to be their fifth, though now 'twas day
So newly formed it wore a bridal veil
Of snaking mists throughout that dreaming land.
The wren and Gwalchmai sang a merry mile
Yet parted when the sun grew high. The shroud
Dispersed somewhat, as if to clear their path,
Yet in its place the forest tangled thick.
Like sometimes dreamers find their sight a mist
So indistinct became the path they trailed,
In verdant triumph of the trees and vines
And moss that spilled like spiderwebs aloft,
That grace of light was blocked; this place was night
For all the days it wove itself in life.

The sweep of hills in coat of grasses sown
From finer weave than man can seek to learn
Did ripple in the wind and swell, a sea,
Through which their dappled horses waded deep.
Kay blew his hunting horn, let fly its drone,
Yet no reply returned: no human heard.
Beneath the surface of the sea-green grass
Some waves they saw that were the beasts that passed,
Some stalking prey, some hiding, slinking, swift,
And katydids did breach the surface with a leap
So like the leaping fish. "Upon my mind,"
Said Kay, the golden-tonguéd knight, "If we,
Much like these hopping things, would charge at him,
As from a sheltered secret place, my friend!
This plan the one to aid us most. We'll leap
And at the massy boar we'll charge with lance
To run him to his core! What blood he'll shed!
A plan like this says we've already won!"

Along the coast they rode, on stony shoals
Their errant hooves blazed trails until the dawn
When clouds were pink and pale in sky asleep.
The crashing waves, eternal thunder, pulsed
And danced their cycles, tongueless, to the moon.
A salt was on the wind. Sir Kay in thought
At last in weak tones spoke "See thee the sea?
See thee its cold embrace? I see the crests
All vanishing behind the foggy veil.
What lies beyond these shores through which we steal?
Do further lands upon the ocean dwell,
Or else our island all alone? In sleep
I wander out upon the spray and crash:
The coldness of her glass upon my soles,
The blindness in the belly of the mist.

The morning sprawled above like evil haze
That hid the sun from them and hid its warmth
And hid the hope that rises with the dawn.
Through weaves of vines and tangled thorns they slipped
As silent as a stalking lion's breath;
Their eyes were mirrors waiting for a face
To give them shape and soul and purpose plain:
The face they stalked was like to find its end.
On conversation, like a raft, they'd sailed
From ivor stones of Caerleon on Usk;

When Kay was found among the roots and leaves
He'd stained the earth with heavy blood that oozed
From gash along his side. His plate was off,
His pauldrons too, he'd stripped them down
Allowing wound to bleed. "We must away,"
Said Gwalchmai, dragging Kay to shaking feet.
"Some shelter we can find, some place to rest
And eat, and heal ourselves. We've done it, Kay!
The beast is dead! The monster boar lies slain!"
But only dull approving nod gave Kay,
So dazed from loss of strength. He faintly walked
While Gwalchmai struggled sore to hold him up,
And bind the ragged rip that wept his blood,
And on and on the miles to forest's end.

He sat upon his throne and drank his wine,
Another dismal holy feast. He was,
They say, some god that stalked the minds of man
In strange and hollow places of the world
Though all his justice helped him not with joy:
His loneliness a barren mother swan.
Some friends from table absent, killed in spite
Or simply lost, or late, no king could tell.
And Mordred, since Gwyl Fair y Canhwyllau,
Had fled to raise black-hearted armies hence,
And if today he'd shown his face, a host
Would flail the king's own blood into his grave.
My son, my son, the agéd monarch thought,
We must dissolve our feud and live as one,
My son, my son, my only son. This feast
Has been undone by absences of kin.