CAMELOT - a poem by Maurice Biggar
Watching "FIRST KNIGHT" (Sean Connery, Richard Geere and Julia Ormond) this afternoon brought back memories of a poem which I wrote more than ten years ago.
CAMELOT
Guenevere,
Not much good
Has been said about you
For fourteen hundred years.
Lancelot, seduced,
Arthur, betrayed,
More surely than
The Assassin’s bullet,
You struck down your
Once and future King,
And, in the process,
Destroyed Camelot.
Your heart,
Your fist was closed,
Until your fingers blossomed,
Revealing in your palm,
Love’s illicit apple,
Bewitching in its promise,
Nurtured to deceive.
II
Lancelot,
Dreams are still made of you,
The greatest knight at Camelot,
Invincible, indomitable,
Unequalled in the fray,
Valour your sword,
Honour your shield,
By right of conquest,
First at the Table Round.
Stronger, braver, holier,
Than any knight in Christendom,
Nothing was beyond your reach,
Deepest, clearest water you drew,
From the sacred well of purity,
And, sacrilege for virtuous man,
Tasted and kissed her stolen lips.
III
Arthur,
Long have you slept in Avalon,
Your legend first amongst Kings,
The fame of your fellowship secure.
Yet, you chose not to see
Beneath your kingly eyes,
Lancelot and Guenevere conspire,
His designs and her compliance,
The twin seeds of your destruction,
The death-warrant for all
Who believed in Camelot.
That Magic Christmas morn,
You pulled sword from anvil,
You said farewell to friendship,
You kissed goodbye to trust,
Machiavelli was born too late,
Or else he would have warned you,
When Lancelot glanced at Guenevere.
Yet, God is not, as man, obsessed
With flagrant lust and felony,
The troubadours sang of love,
The lawyers whispered: “Treason”;
But should a single sin bring down
A once and future Kingdom ?
IV
Merlin,
He came again, of course,
(As, indeed, you said he would),
For just a thousand days.
I was too young
To hear the bullet strike
The back of his head,
In Mordred’s town of Dallas,
Yet, years later, when I learned,
That his dying red blood
Had stained and saturated her
Immaculate pink dress,
As she cradled his mortal head,
On her lap and in her arms,
I knew she loved him;
But, I couldn’t help wondering,
Whether the man she loved,
The Irishman who died,
Was Arthur or Lancelot ?
Maurice Biggar
4 April 2009