Yet tottering as I am, and weak,
Still have I left a little breath
To seek within the jaws of death
An entrance to that happy place,
To seek the unforgotten face
Once seen, once kissed, once rest from me
Anigh the murmuring of the sea."
"Jason" is, practically, a very long tale from the "Earthly Paradise," as
the "Earthly Paradise" is an immense treasure of shorter tales in the
manner of "Jason." Mr. Morris reverted for an hour to his fourteenth
century, a period when London was "clean." This is a poetic license;
many a plague found mediaeval London abominably dirty! A Celt himself,
no doubt, with the Celt's proverbial way of being _impossibilium
cupitor_, Mr. Morris was in full sympathy with his Breton Squire, who, in
the reign of Edward III., sets forth to seek the Earthly Paradise, and
the land where Death never comes. Much more dramatic, I venture to
think, than any passage of "Jason," is that where the dreamy seekers of
dreamland, Breton and Northman, encounter the stout King Edward III.,
whose kingdom is of this world. Action and fantasy are met, and the
wanderers explain the nature of their quest. One of them speaks of death
in many a form, and of the flight from death:--
"His words nigh made me weep, but while he spoke
I noted how a mocking smile just broke
The thin line of the Prince's lips, and he
Who carried the afore-named armoury
Puffed out his wind-beat cheeks and whistled low:
But the King smiled, and said, 'Can it be so?
I know not, and ye twain are such as find
The things whereto old kings must needs be blind.
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