He owns him, heart and mind

This painting is an illustration to a poem. So I thought I'd better post the poem as well, otherwise it will make absolutely no sense at all.

I did NOT write the poem, I hasten to add. It's based on "The Cap and Bells" poem by WB Yeats, which I have hacked about with a machete to twist it into a Merlin and Arthur poem instead.

(WB Yeats is currently revolving in his grave like a washing machine on the spin cycle!)


The warlock walked in the courtyard:
The courtyard had fallen still;
He bade his soul rise upward
And stand on his window-sill.

It rose in a straight blue garment,
When owls began to call:
It had grown wise-tongued by thinking
Of a brave and quick footfall;

But the new king would not listen;
He rose in his pale night gown;
He drew in the heavy casement
And pushed the latches down.

He bade his heart go to him,
When the owls called out no more;
In a red and quivering garment
It sang to him through the door.

It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming,
Of a wave of wheat-field hair;
Arthur took up his sword from the table
And sliced it out of the air.

He said, ‘I have Spells and 'kerchief.'
‘I will leave them for him and die;’
And when the morning whitened
Merlin left them where he went by.

Against his chest Arthur hugged them,
And softly closed his eyes,
And his red lips sang them a love song:
Till stars grew out of the skies.

He opened his door and his window,
And the heart and the soul came through,
To his right hand came the red one,
To his left hand came the blue.

They set up a noise like crickets,
A chattering wise and sweet,
And his eyes were the rain in Autumn
And the quiet of love in his feet.