Lamorak and the Queen Morgause of Orkney

Hued from the livid everlasting stone

the queen's hewn eyelids bruised my bone;

my eyes splintered, as our father Adam's when the first

exorbitant flying nature round creation's flank burst.

Her hair was whirlwind about her face;

her face outstripped her hair; it rose from a place

where pre-Adamic sculpture on an ocean rock lay,

and the sculpture torn from its rock was swept away.

Her hand discharged catastrophe; I was thrown

before it; I saw the source of all stone,

the rigid tornado, the schism and first strife

of primeval rock with itself, Morgause Lot's wife.

I had gone in summer at the king's word to explore

the coast of the kingdom towards the Pole; the roar

of the ocean beyond all coasts threatened on one hand;

on the other we saw the cliffs of Orkney stand.

Caves and hollows in the crags were filled with the scream

of seamews nesting and fleeting; the extreme theme

of Logres rose in harsh cries and hungry storms,

and there, hewn in a cleft, were hideous huge forms.

(Lines 1 - 20)

Charles Williams
Taliessin through Logres (1938)

Note: Lamorak was the son of King Pellinore and in some legends the brother of Percivale. He was one of the strongest Knights of the Round Table. Lamorak was the lover of Morgause, whose husband King Lot of Orkney had been killed by Lamorak's father, Pellinore.