Class _z:z_^i;a£ 
 
 Book _^ . 
 
 GopyrightN? 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr 
 
LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 GEORGE RICE CARPENTER, A.B. 
 
 FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOBITIOK 
 IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 LORD TENNYSON 
 
 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 
 THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
 AND 
 
 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 
 
Longmans' ^nglisl) Clagstcg 
 
 TENNYSON'S 
 
 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 
 
 THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
 AND 
 
 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 
 
 EDITED 
 
 WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 SOPHIE CHANTAL HART, M.A. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION IN WELLESLEV COLLEQB 
 
 LOXGMA]S^S, GREEX, AKD CO. 
 
 FOURTH AVENUE & 30th STREET, NEW YORK 
 PRAIRIE AVENUE & 2oth STREET, CHICAGO 
 
 1915 
 

 5?? 
 
 Copyright, 1915, 
 
 BT 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 O, vV^ 
 
 nr.l -41915 
 C^ci.A41l769 
 
 k^/ 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction 
 
 I. Alfred Tennyson 
 II. The Idylls . 
 
 III. The Coming of Arthur 
 
 IV. The Holy Grail 
 
 V. The Passing op Arthur 
 Idylls of the King, Dedication 
 The Coming of Arthor 
 The Holy Grail 
 The Passing of Arthur 
 To THE Queen 
 Notes .... 
 
 Vll 
 
 xii 
 xix 
 
 XX 
 
 xxiv 
 3 
 7 
 27 
 59 
 77 
 81 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 I. ALFRED TENXYSON. 
 
 Alfred Tennyson was born in 1809 at the rectory at 
 Somersby, Lincolnshire, England. He was the fourth of 
 twelve children, who grew up under the guidance of par- 
 ents singularly high-minded and unworldly of temper and 
 cultivated in their tastes. All through the years he re- 
 tained the tenderest memories of the rectory — of " the 
 Gothic vaulted dining-room, with stained-glass windows 
 making ' butterfly souls ' on the walls ; of the woodbine that 
 climbed into the bay window of his nursery; of the beau- 
 tiful stone chimney-piece carved by his father; of the 
 pleasant little drawing-room lined with bookshelves, and 
 furnished with yellow curtains, sofas, and chairs, and 
 looking out on the lawn." The children who grew up 
 in these attractive surroundings were fond of imaginative 
 ventures of all kinds ; at least three of them wrote 'Verse, 
 and in their games they had jousts and tourneys, or de- 
 lighted themselves in listening to Alfred's stories of knights 
 and heroes among untravelled forests. When Charles 
 Tennyson was between sixteen and eighteen and Alfred 
 betw^een fifteen and seventeen, they wrote their first vol- 
 ume, " Poems by Two Brothers," published in 1837 by a 
 bookseller at Louth. During these formative years of 
 youth, Alfred Tennyson led a very quiet life in the coun- 
 try ; he was taught Greek and Latin by his father ; a well- 
 trained scholar, and given free range of a library which 
 had in it the standard classics. In his own family he had 
 
dii INTRODUCTION 
 
 satisfying intellectual comradeship from his two elder 
 brothers; and from his father he had the counsel and sym- 
 pathy of a man of considerable learning and genial social 
 charm. For a short time the brothers were away at school, 
 but the best of their early education they acquired at the 
 rectory. In the fields and woods about his home Alfred 
 Tennyson came to love Nature, and to be a close and ex- 
 act observer of her ways. The seclusion of the life at 
 the rectory may have done something toward intensify- 
 ing Tennyson's natural reserve, which remained with him 
 to the end of his days. 
 
 In 1828 the two brothers, Charles and Alfred Tenny- 
 son, were matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 where their elder brother Frederic had already made a 
 name for himself by winning the University medal for the 
 best Greek ode. At college the Tennysons fell in with a 
 group of men who became distinguished later — Milnes 
 (Lord Houghton); Merivale; Trench, afterward Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin; Alford, afterward Dean of Canter- 
 bury; Spedding, the biographer of Bacon; and, most sig- 
 nificant of all friends, Arthur Hallam, the son of the great 
 historian. This friendship with Arthur Hallam was one 
 of the profound experiences of Tennyson's life. When 
 Hallam, in the full promise of young manhood, died sud- 
 denly in Vienna in 1833, it seemed as if the world were 
 forever darkened for Tennyson. Out of the depths of his 
 sorrow came the poem "In Memoriam," in which is re- 
 corded the best part of the affection that bound the friends 
 together. At Cambridge, Tennyson was well grounded in 
 the classics; since Milton none of our English poets has 
 "been so diligent a student and lover of classic poetry; he 
 drew much of his inspiration in theme and in verse forma 
 from it. The one honor which came to Tennyson in col- 
 lege was the winning of the University prize (1839) by 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 his poem in blank verse, " Timbuctoo." written at his 
 father's earnest desire. It was noted at the time that 
 this seemed to justify a remark made by Thompson, after- 
 wards the Master of Trinity, when Tennyson first entered 
 the Hall, " That man must be a poet." There was some- 
 thing always striking in his persona? appearance. In his 
 Cambridge days he is described as " six feet high, broad- 
 chested, strong limbed; his face Shakespearian, with deep 
 eyelids ; his forehead ample, crowned with dark wavy hair ; 
 his hands the admiration of sculptors, long fingers with 
 square tips, soft as a child's, but of great size and strength. 
 What struck me most about him was the union of strength 
 with refinement." His friend Spedding once protested: 
 " It is not fair, Alfred, that you should be Hercules as 
 well as Apollo." He could hurl crowbars farther than 
 any of his companions, and is said to have surprised his 
 friends one day by picking up a pony and carrying it across 
 the lawn. This splendid physical vigor of his young man- 
 hood he kept unimpaired to the end, great bodily force ever 
 supporting great intellectual force. 
 
 Tennyson's next volume, " Poems Chiefly Lyrical," came 
 out in 1830, when English poetry was at its lowest ebb. 
 Byron, Shelley, and Keats were dead; Wordsworth's best 
 work was done. The great Murray had ceased to pub- 
 lish poetry. There were some favorable reviews of this 
 new volume, but in general the criticisms were so dras- 
 tic that Tennyson was fairly stung into silence for ten 
 years. Tennyson's own estimate of the poems is indi- 
 cated by the fact that only twentj^-three of the fifty-six 
 poems appeared in his later collected works. The years 
 following 1830 were full of trial. In 1833 came Arthur 
 Hallam's death. Tennyson had little means; he was com- 
 pelled to work for a public apparently hostile and un- 
 appreciative ; he could not even hope to marry the woman 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 he wished to make his wife until he could earn from this 
 same public a sufficient income to support her. In spite 
 of so much that was thwarting, he bent himself with char- 
 acteristic energy to perfecting his art ; " he was making 
 himsel' a' the time " ; writing and rewriting and correct- 
 ing until he was ready to publish the volumes that brought 
 him recognition and the beginning of fame. The poems 
 published in the 1842 volumes showed in their variety of 
 interests the deepening and maturing of the poet's own 
 life. Cordial words of tribute came to Tennyson from 
 many sources; in America we find Hawthorne, Margaret 
 Fuller, Edgar Allan Poe, and Emerson full of praise. 
 Carlyle's letter to Tennyson apropos of the 1842 vol- 
 umes is a striking expression of the general feeling — strik- 
 ing, because Carlyle had always urged Tennyson to give 
 up poetry for prose; and though Carlyle was no compe- 
 tent critic of poetry, his response to the richer human 
 note which these poems sounded is significant : " Truly 
 it is long since in any English book, poetry or prose, I 
 have felt the pulse of a real man's heart as I do in this 
 same. A right valiant, true-fighting, victorious heart; 
 strong as a lion's, yet gentle, loving, and full of music; 
 what I call a genuine singer's heart." 
 
 From this time on, the record of Tennyson's life is one 
 of ever-growing success. In 1845 he received a pension 
 of £200 from the Crown; in 1847 he published "The 
 Princess " ; and in 1850, a memorable year, he married 
 Emily Sellwood, was made poet laureate, and published 
 " In Memoriam.'' He and his young wife on their wed- 
 ding tour visited, among other places, the King Arthur 
 country, Glastonbury, one of the island valleys of Avilion, 
 " set in apple blossoms." Later they established them- 
 selves at Farringford, on the Isle of Wight, where Ten- 
 nyson lived an active outdoor life and wrote incessantly 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 lyrics, idylls, and dramas. The years until his death in 
 1892 were full of productivity in verse; quiet happiness 
 in family life with his wife and two sons, Hallam and 
 Lionel; and keen interest in the political and scientific 
 issues of his day. His enthusiasm for science is note- 
 worthy; science he felt would enrich poetr}', would be the 
 source ultimately of new poetic inspiration. In his circle 
 of friends were Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, and Lord Kel- 
 vin; men of affairs like the Duke of Argyll and Mr. Glad- 
 stone; writers like Mr. and Mrs. Browning, Thackeray, 
 Dickens, Carlyle, Edward Fitzgerald, and Jowett. In 
 frequent visits to London, at the Metaphysical Society, 
 he came in close contact with the men of speculative tem- 
 per who were shaping the current of English thought in 
 philosophy and in social reform. In spite of his reserve, 
 Tennyson seems to have had a positive genius for friend- 
 ship. The picture of his life at Farringford with his 
 children, his ever-coming guests, his long walks over the 
 downs, is one of singular simplicity and beauty. At vary- 
 ing intervals he published new poems : " Maud and Other 
 Poems" in 1855; four "Idylls of the King" in 1859; 
 "Enoch Arden" in 1864; "Queen Mary," "Harold," 
 and other dramas, all having their basis in English his- 
 tory, from 1875 to 1884; " Tiresias and Other Poems" 
 in 1885; " Locksley Hall Sixty Years After" in 1886; 
 " Demeter and Other Poems " in 1889. Honors came 
 rapidly to him, now the foremost literary man of the age. 
 He was made a D.C.L. of the University of Oxford, a 
 Fellow of the Eoyal Society, Honorary Fellow of Trinity 
 College, Cambridge, and in 1884 he was created a peer 
 under the title taken from his two estates. Baron Tenny- 
 son of Aldworth and Farringford. In Westminster Ab- 
 bey he lies buried, next his friend and brother poet, Eob- 
 ert Browning, in front of Chaucer's monument. 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 II. THE IDYLLS. 
 
 Publication. — From the beginning of his career Ten- 
 nyson was, as he tells us, haunted by the greatest of all 
 poetical subjects. King Arthur. Back in 1832, in his early 
 published volume, appeared " The Lady of Shalott,"' a 
 poem which prefigures the idyll of " Lancelot and 
 Elaine." In the same volume were two short lyrical 
 poems, " Sir Galahad " and " Sir Launcelot and Queen 
 Guinevere." In the 1842 volumes " Morte d' Arthur" 
 stands out with peculiar interest for us, since it was 
 taken, almost without change, to form " The Passing of 
 Arthur." In 1859 were published under the title of 
 " The True and the False," four idylls, " Enid," " Vivien," 
 " Elaine," and " Guinevere." In another decade, 1869, 
 there followed "The Coming of Arthur," "The Holy 
 Grail," " Pellcas and Ettarre," and " The Passing of Ar- 
 thur." After three years, in 1872, " The Last Tourna- 
 ment " and " Gareth and Lynette " appeared, and finally, 
 in 1885, " Balin and Balan." The dates are more sig- 
 nificant than dates of publication usually are. They show 
 what is almost a phenomenon in literary production, that 
 for half a century Tennyson held in thought the plan of 
 a great epic which he developed in twelve separate parts. 
 The " Idylls of the King," therefore, gather together all 
 the strands of experience in the poet's life — his youthful 
 vision, his manhood's clearer survey, and the ripe wisdom 
 of old age. The selections in this volume are representa- 
 tive of the three periods. 
 
 A dominant artistic purpose seems slowly to have shaped 
 itself in the poet's mind; to subordinate the idylls to this 
 in a dramatic sequence Tennyson had to add new idylls 
 from time to time to make the necessary linking. Thus 
 it happens that " The Passing of Arthur," which comes 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 last, was written in substance first ; that " Gareth and 
 Lynette/' which was among the latest written, appears at 
 the beginning of the cj^cle. As Dr. Van Dyke tersely 
 expresses it : " That a great poet should be engaged with 
 his largest theme for more than half a century ; that he 
 should touch it first with a lyric ; then with an epical frag- 
 ment and three more lyrics; then with four romantic 
 idylls, followed, ten years later, by four others, and two 
 years later by two others, and thirteen years later by yet 
 another idyll, which is to be placed not before or after the 
 rest, but in the very centre of the cycle; that he should 
 begin with the end, and continue with the beginning, and 
 end with the middle of the stor}^, and produce at last a 
 poem which certainly has more epical grandeur and com- 
 pleteness than anything that has been made in English 
 since Milton died, is a thing so marvellous that no man 
 would credit it save at the sword's point of fact. And 
 yet this is an exact record of Tennyson's dealing with the 
 Arthurian legend." 
 
 Theme. — It is obviously pertinent to ask why the theme. 
 King Arthur, should dominate the thought of England's 
 great poet for half a century. In the old mediaeval stories 
 King Arthur stands for the godlike man, as a kind of 
 dream or hope of what manhood might attain should it 
 ever reach its ideal. This was the view taken by Joseph of 
 Exeter in the twelfth century, who says : " The old world 
 knows not his peer, nor will the future show us his equal : 
 he alone towers over other kings." And in " The Brut ab 
 Arthur " we read : " In short, God has not made since 
 Adam was, the man more perfect than Arthur." It was 
 natural that Tennyson, the passionate lover of the ideal, 
 in attempting to express the aspiration of the spirit to- 
 ward perfection in our modern life, should turn to Arthur, 
 the stainless knight. In the poem at the close of the 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 "Idylls" addressed "To the Queen/' Tennyson phrases his 
 central conception : - 
 
 " Accept this old imperfect tale, 
 New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul, 
 Ideal manhood closed in real man, 
 Rather than that gray king whose name, a ghost, 
 Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak. 
 And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still ; or him 
 Of Geoffrey's book, or him of Malleor's." 
 
 There is, then, obviously, behind the " Idylls " an allegory 
 centring in Arthur, whose name symbolizes the struggle 
 toward the higher life. 
 
 Though Tennyson chose Arthur because tradition linked 
 him with interests akin to the poet's, the allegory follows 
 only remotely, at a distance, and must not be pressed if one 
 would get from the " Idylls " the purest quality of their 
 poetry. Poetry is not, like an exposition, a set of definite 
 facts to be grasped as facts. It is rather a mood of spir- 
 itual receptivity, in which thoughts, suggestions, hints of 
 things beyond the words, flow in upon tlie imagination 
 and quicken it to a new perception of truth. He who 
 would ruthlessly seize from poetr}^ a definite set of syl- 
 logisms must, in the very act. lose all the finer essence of 
 poetry. So, in reading the " Idylls," one should come 
 with a heart open to the magic and the mystery, and be 
 content to apprehend tlie shadowy forms of things that he 
 but half divines. This is hy no means an argument for 
 vague and desultory reading, but rather a plea for read- 
 ing in the spirit in which the creative artist wrought 
 greater things than he knew; it calls for an intensity and 
 self-identification of reader with poet as the initial and 
 necessary step toward reaching his fuller meaning. He 
 
INTRODUCTION XV 
 
 may "be sure of ricli reward who reads " The Idylls of the 
 King " not as history, nor as modern version of ancient 
 legend, nor as allegory of the struggle of man toward 
 perfection, but as poetry holding these separate interests 
 fused into one pattern, as threads inwoven in a splendid 
 tapestry. In the sensuous imagery, which is the natural 
 medium of poetry, will glint myriad meanings of things 
 not to be narrowly defined. Tennyson himself makes 
 earnest protest against a too literal interpretation of his 
 symbolism. " When he was asked once whether the three 
 queens who accompanied King Arthur on his last voy- 
 age were Faith, Hope, and Charity, he answered : ' They 
 mean that and they do not. They are three of the noblest 
 of women. They are also three Graces, but they are much 
 more. I hate to be tied down to say. This means that, 
 because the thought within the image is much more than 
 any one interpretation.' " 
 
 Sources. — " The vision of Arthur had come upon me/* 
 writes Tennyson, " when, little more than a boy, I first 
 lighted upon Malory." Malory's " Morte d' Arthur'* 
 should be the companion book of every one who reads 
 the " Idylls." Of Sir Thomas Malory we know scarcely 
 anything except what is gleaned from his book: his name 
 is mentioned three times with different spelling, Malorye, 
 Malory, and Maieor; he tells us that, in the ninth year 
 of the reign of Edward the Fourth, in 1469, he " compiled 
 the booke oute of certaine bookes of Frensshe, and re- 
 duced it into Englysshe." It was printed sixteen years 
 later by Caxton, the father of English printing. From 
 Malory and from Geoffrey of Monmouth's old Latin his- 
 tory of Britain (written about 1132-1135) Tennyson drew 
 most of his material. Eight years after Geoffrey's his- 
 tory was written it was translated into Norman French by 
 Robert Wace, who, in his " Le Roman du Brut/' added 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 the story of the Eound Table. The Arthurian tales, with 
 various modifications, soon spread over all Europe; in 
 France, in Germany, in Ital}', down even to the court of 
 Sicily, we find trouveres or minstrels carrying the legend- 
 ary story by word of mouth and weaving about it many 
 new elements. There grew up five separate cycles which 
 gradually merged into one: 1, Arthur, Guinevere, and 
 Merlin; 2, The Eound Table; 3, Launcelot; 4, The Holy 
 Grail; 5, Tristram. 
 
 Cretien de Troyes, in France, and Wolfram von Eschen- 
 bach, in Germany, are among those who helj^ed to make 
 the deeds of the Eound Table famous in the poetry and 
 song of the Middle Ages. Never have heroes been more 
 passionately loved by all classes of people than King Ar- 
 thur and his kniglits. Whether there was a real King 
 Arthur, an historic person, matters little. It is a subject 
 of too great dispute to enter into here. Those who hold 
 there was a real King Arthur place him in the sixth cen- 
 tury, as leader of the Celtic tribes against Saxon invaders, 
 and affirm that he met his death in the battle of Badon 
 Hill, near Bath, in 520. This king, however, is but a 
 shadow to the King Arthur of chivalrous tales. 
 
 It has occurred to many, as it did to Euskin, to ask 
 why Tennyson should choose, as the particular medium 
 for expressing his reflection and thought on the life of 
 his day, the medigeval romances of Arthur's Eound Table. 
 As far back as 1832, in the " Morte d' Arthur," Tennyson 
 anticipates the objection 
 
 " That a truth 
 Looks freshest in the fashions of the day." 
 
 Even then there was some critic at his elbow to remind 
 him, 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 "Why take the st3'le of those heroic times? 
 For nature brings not back the mastodon, 
 ISTor we those times ; and why should any man 
 Eemodel models?" 
 
 Tennyson's instinct was, perhaps, wiser than his critics. 
 There is no period in the world's history which is so suf- 
 fused with associations of what is noble and strong and 
 pure as the days of the Eound Table. The very mention 
 of the names of the knights, patterns of courtesy and 
 prowess, sets vibrating' ancient memories. Tennyson 
 felt that material so pregnant with heantj, so strong in 
 its appeal to the sensibilities of generations of men, would 
 best succeed in doing what it is the function of poetry to 
 do, to carry truth " alive into the heart by passion." He 
 was not concerned vrith remodelling models; but rather 
 with using the overtones of old music to enrich his new 
 song. 
 
 Sometimes critics lose sight of the fact that there is 
 this new element in Tennyson's version of the old tales, 
 or else in their short-sightedness censure Tennyson for 
 introducing it. It sliould be borne in mind that every 
 poet who is not a mere translator, writes poetry because 
 he has some thought to give to his generation. Poetry 
 is not a trick of collocating pretty sounds, or a mode of 
 gay and elegant trifling. Like prose, it is a medium for 
 expressing man's deepest insight and understanding of 
 the forces of life, as they have been revealed to him in 
 his day ; only poetry expresses them in a heightened, more 
 significant, more pleasurable form. Full recognition 
 must be given to the truth that Tennyson's poetry, aim- 
 ing to be a criticism of life, infuses into the mediaeval 
 romances something which the older writers could not 
 put there, something which the modern poet cannot escape 
 
xviu INTRODUCTION 
 
 from putting there. Their material he uses in subservi- 
 ence to a new organizing principle,, to a new spiritual 
 import. In Arthur, the king whose perfect work was de- 
 stroyed by the sin that crept in among his followers, we 
 have a reflex of the spiritual struggle of this age in an- 
 cient setting, with the fuller complexity of motive and 
 passion which the nineteenth century has brought into 
 being. It was Tennyson's conviction that his message 
 gained immeasurably in coming to us through material 
 so time-mellowed. 
 
 Tee Poetic Form. — The idyll is commonly defined as 
 a short poem descriptive of some picturesque incident or 
 scene, chiefly in rustic life. This limitation to rustic life 
 is not inlierent, for the idyll may include legends of gods, 
 passages of personal experience, and town life. In that 
 there is a narrator the idyll is like an epic. It is essential, 
 hoAvever, that the scenic background, which in the idyll 
 must always be a conspicuous element, shall not be merely 
 decorative, but shall vitally interpret and give color to 
 the feeling that constitutes the centre of the poem. An 
 edition of Theocritus which came out in Tennyson's col- 
 lege days, and which he read with rapture, may have 
 turned his attention to the idyll as a poetic form. Mil- 
 ton and Shelley had tried it, but with no success. Ten- 
 nyson's first attempts were modelled on the classical idyll; 
 these were followed by idylls of English life. Early in 
 his career, Tennyson with acuteness observed : "If I mean 
 to make my mark at all, it must be by shortness." Eealiz- 
 ing that the age for epics had forever gone, he wrote short 
 idylls, each building up "The Idylls of the King" to- 
 ward an epic unity. The idylls of English life are freer 
 and simpler in metre than the heroic blank verse of " The 
 Idylls of the King." The prevailing measure is, of conrse, 
 iambic, but there are many variations in the use of feet 
 
INTRODUCTION xxv 
 
 the standard of rebellion and proclaimed himself king. 
 Keturning from the JSTorth to punish Modred, Arthur has 
 had his last meeting with the repentant queen, given in 
 the idyll inmiediately before this. Small wonder is it that 
 on this march westward against Modred the world seems 
 dark and confused to the king; trusted friend and wife 
 have been untrue ; the Kound Table is dissolved by the sin 
 that has crept in among the knights. External nature is 
 harmonized with the mood of the saddened king, for whom 
 a blind haze, 
 
 '"ever since I saw 
 One lying in the dust at Almesbury, 
 Hath folded in the passes of the world." 
 
 The account of the great battle is given with a largeness 
 and mystery which intensify the sense of desolation. 
 Friend kills friend or foe, not knowing whom he strikes, 
 until at the close of the day the king is left alone with 
 Bedivere, wounded mortally in the last combat with 
 Modred. The scene which has Excalibur for its centre 
 is built on the model of the old romances, where the hero 
 always takes farewell of the charmed weapon that has 
 made him able to work his will. Tennyson follows Malory 
 very closely here. The whole id3-ll is more archaic than 
 the others in form and diction, even to the ending with 
 the mystic barge and the queens bearing Arthur away 
 to the shadowy world. Yet in spite of this it has some 
 very human and real touches. No one can read the self- 
 accusation of the king, his cry of despair at leaving his 
 work unfulfilled, his pain at the confusion which pre- 
 vails where shining order once had reigned, without feeling 
 the vitality of Tennyson's conception of the man Arthur. 
 It is attained here as nowhere else in the "Idvlls." 
 
SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHEES 
 
 No more delightful material could be put into the hands 
 of young students than the Idylls selected for this 
 volume. It behooves the teacher to re-create with as much 
 vivid detail as possible the old days of chivalry and knight- 
 hood and adventure which most young people naturally 
 enjoy. Given this background, the teacher can carry the 
 class through these old-time medieval stories in their new 
 poetic form with a kindling pleasure. As an element in 
 personal culture, no period in literature makes stronger 
 claim. If the teacher will briefly tell the class something 
 about the custom of holding tournaments and jousts, and 
 the search for the Holy Grail, it will be possible, perhaps, 
 to enlist the student's interest to make some personal in- 
 vestigation for himself. 
 
 Most important of all, the teacher should help the 
 student to read the verse aloud, in such a way as to bring 
 out its melody and meaning at the same time. Tenny- 
 son's verse in a very special sense is meant to be read 
 aloud, if one would get the best effect of it, for Tenny- 
 son had a rarely sensitive ear, and spared no pains to 
 make the singing quality of his verse full and sweet. Pas- 
 sages may be assigned for memorizing, that the student 
 may have occasion to dwell longer on the verse and be 
 trained to reproduce it with appropriate inflection. There 
 can be no better test than this of his understanding of 
 what he reads, of his power of imaginative re-creation of 
 the experience. 
 
 Since it is an essential part of the idyll that the cen- 
 
xxviii SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 
 
 tral feeling of the poem shall be interpreted through images 
 drawn from nature; in other words, that there shall be 
 a richly concrete setting, it is obviously pertinent to have 
 the student note carefully what imagery the poet has 
 drawn from nature; with what aspects of nature he seems 
 sijecially familiar; what passages show particularly the 
 fineness and delicacy of his observation. A close study 
 of such detail will reveal to the student a thousand new 
 apprehensions of beautiful things in the world about him. 
 Tennyson helps us to see almost as much as Euskin helps 
 to lift the scales from our eyes in looking at nature. Ten- 
 nyson was a passionate lover of out-of-doors, and, fortu- 
 nate beyond most men, he spent a good part of his time 
 in the fields and by the sea. It will profit the student to 
 trace as minutely as possible the influence of this out- 
 door life as it is manifested in these poems. 
 
 The following books will be helpful to the teacher to- 
 ward building up that fuller background of knowledge 
 and suggestion which the teacher should bring to the class 
 to quicken intellectual curiosity. 
 
 " Alfred, Lord Tennyson." A Memoir by his Son. 
 
 " Eecords of Tennyson, Browning, and Euskin," by 
 Anne Thackeray Eitchie. 
 
 " Tennyson." English Men of Letters Series. 
 
 " Le Morte d' Arthur," by Malory, edited with an intro- 
 duction by Sir E. Strachey. [Globe edition. Macmillan.] 
 
 " Six Old English Chronicles," containing Nennius's 
 " History of the Britons," Geoffrey of Monmouth's " Brit- 
 ish History." [Bohn Library.] 
 
 " Arthur and the Eound Table," chiefly after the French 
 of Chretien de Troves, by W. W. Newell. 
 
 " Poetry of Tennyson," by H. Van Dyke. 
 
 " Tennyson, His Art in Eelation to Modern Life," by 
 S. A. Brooke, 
 
SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS xxix 
 
 "Essays on Lord Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King/ " by 
 H. Littledale. 
 
 "Handbook of Tennyson's Works," by Morton Luce. 
 
 "Studies in the Legend of the Holy Grail," by Alfred 
 Nutt. 
 
 "The Legend of Sir Gawain," by Jessie Weston, 
 
 "The Growth of tlie Idylls of the King," by Eichard 
 Jones. 
 
 "Tennyson's Idylls of the King and Arthurian Story 
 from the Sixteenth Century," by M. W. Maccallum. 
 
 "The Study of the 'Idylls of the King,'" by H. A. 
 Davidson (to be obtained by addressing The Study Guide 
 Series, Cambridge, Mass.), is an invaluable book for con- 
 stant use in daily class-room work. The present editor is 
 deeply indebted to this excellent little pamphlet. 
 
 The Abbey paintings of the Holy Grail series in the 
 Boston Public Library are reproduced by The Copley 
 Prints Company, Boston, j\Iass, They bear specifically on 
 these three idylls on The Holy Grail. The student's at- 
 tention may well be called to this most recent use of the 
 Arthurian story. 
 
XXX 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 [See Ryland's Chronological Outlines of English Literature, and Whitcomb'a 
 Chronological Outlines of American Literature.'] 
 
 The Life of Tennyson. 
 
 Contemporary Literary History. 
 
 1809. 
 
 Born at Somersby. 
 
 1809. 
 
 1821. 
 
 1824. 
 
 Mrs. Browning, Holmes, Poe, 
 
 win born. 
 Keats died. 
 Byron died. 
 
 Dar. 
 
 1827. 
 
 Poems by Tivo Brothers. 
 
 
 
 
 1828. 
 
 Matriculated at Trinity College, 
 Cambridge. 
 
 1828. 
 
 Rossetti born. 
 
 
 1830. 
 
 Poems Chiefly Lyrical. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1831. 
 
 Whittier, Legends of New England. 
 
 1832. 
 
 Poems 
 
 18;S3. 
 
 Scott died. 
 
 
 1833. 
 
 Deatli of Arthur Hallam. 
 
 1833. 
 
 Robert Browning's Pauline. 
 
 
 184-2. 
 
 Poems. 
 
 1843. 
 
 Wordsworth, Poet Laureate. 
 
 
 1845. 
 
 Pension given by the Crown. 
 
 
 
 
 1847. 
 
 The Princess. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1848. 
 
 Matthew Arnold, The Strayed 
 eller and other Poems. 
 
 Eev- 
 
 1850. 
 
 Poet Laureate. In ]We?no7'ia?H. 
 Married to Emily Selhvood. 
 
 1850. 
 
 Wordsworth died. 
 
 
 1853. 
 
 Takes up residence at Farringford. 
 
 
 
 
 1855. 
 
 Maud and other Poems. D. C. L., 
 from Oxford. 
 
 1858. 
 
 George Eliot's Scenes frmn CU 
 
 Life. 
 Darwin's Origin of Species. 
 
 rical 
 
 1859. 
 
 Four Idylls of the King. 
 
 1859. 
 
 Ma- 
 
 
 
 
 caulay, De Quiucey, Irving died. 
 
 
 
 1863. 
 
 Thaciieray died. 
 
 
 1869. 
 
 The Holy Grail and other Poems. 
 
 1870. 
 
 Dickens died. 
 
 
 1873. 
 
 Gareth and Lynette, and The Last 
 Tournament. 
 
 
 
 
 1875. 
 
 Quee7i Mary. 
 
 
 
 
 187T. 
 
 Harold. 
 
 
 
 
 1879. 
 
 The Lover's Tale. The Falcon, 
 acted at St. James's Theatre. 
 
 
 
 
 1881. 
 
 The Cup, acted at the Lyceum 
 Theatre. 
 
 1681. 
 
 Carlyle and G«orge Eliot died. 
 
 
 1883. 
 
 The Promise of May, acted at the 
 Globe Theatre. 
 
 1882. 
 
 Darwin, Rossetti, Longfellow, 
 erson died. 
 
 Em- 
 
 1885. 
 
 Tiresias and other Poems. 
 
 
 
 
 1886. 
 
 Locksley Hall Sixty Years After. 
 
 1888. 
 
 Matthew Arnold died. 
 
 
 1889. 
 
 Demeter and other Poems. 
 
 1889. 
 
 Robert Browning died. 
 
 
 1892. 
 
 Death of Tennyson at Aldworth. 
 
 1892. 
 
 Whittier died. 
 
 
IDYLLS OF THE KING 
 DEDICATION 
 
IDYLLS OF THE KING 
 
 DEDICATION 
 Flos Regum Arthurus. — Joseph of Exeter 
 
 Tpiese to His Memory — since he held them dear, 
 Perchance as finding there unconsciously 
 Some image of himself — I dedicate. 
 I dedicate, I consecrate with tears — 
 These Idylls. 
 
 And indeed He seems to me 5 
 
 Scarce other than my king's ideal knight, 
 "Who reverenced his conscience as his king; 
 Whose glory was, redressing human wrong ; 
 Who spake no slander, no, nor listen'd to it ; 
 Who loved one only and who clave to her — " 10 
 
 Her — over all whose realms to their last isle. 
 Commingled with the gloom of imminent war. 
 The shadow of His loss drew like eclipse, 
 Darkening the world. We have lost him : he is gone : 
 We know him now : all narrow jealousies 15 
 
 Are silent ; and we see him as he moved, 
 How modest, kindly, all-accomplish'd, wise. 
 With what sublime repression of himself. 
 And in what limits, and how tenderly ; 
 Not swaying to this faction or to that; 20 
 
 Not making his higli place the lawless perch 
 Of wing'd ambitions, nor a vantage-ground 
 For pleasure ; but thro' all this tract of years 
 
 3 
 
,4 DEDICATION 
 
 Wearing the white flower of a blameless life, 
 
 Before a thousand peering littlenesses, 25 
 
 In that fierce light which beats upon a throne. 
 
 And blackens every blot : for where is he. 
 
 Who dares foreshadow for an only son 
 
 A lovelier life, a more unstain'd than his ? 
 
 Or how should England dreaming of his sons 30 
 
 Hope more for these than some inheritance 
 
 Of such a life, a heart, a mind as thine. 
 
 Thou noble Father of her Kings to be. 
 
 Laborious for her people and her poor — 
 
 Voice in the rich dawn of an ampler day — 35 
 
 Far-sighted summoner of War and Waste 
 
 To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace — 
 
 Sweet nature gilded by the gracious gleam 
 
 Of letters, dear to Science, dear to Art, 
 
 Dear to thy land and ours, a Prince indeed, 40 
 
 Beyond all titles, and a household name. 
 
 Hereafter, thro' all times, Albert the Good. 
 
 Break not, woman's-heart, but still endure; 
 Break not, for thou art Eoyal, but endure, 
 Eemembering all the beauty of that star 45 
 
 Which shone so close beside Thee that ye made 
 One light together, but has past and leaves 
 The Crown a lonely splendor. 
 
 May all love, 
 His love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow Thee, 
 The love of all Thy sons encompass Thee, 50 
 
 The love of all Thy daughters cherish Thee, 
 The love of all Thy people comfort Thee, 
 Till God's love set Thee at his side again ! 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR 
 
 Leodograx^ the King of Cameliard, 
 Had one fair daughter, and none other child ; 
 And she was fairest of all flesh on earth, 
 Guinevere, and in her his one delight. 
 
 For many a petty king ere Arthur came 5 
 
 Euled in this isle, and ever waging war 
 Each upon other, wasted all the land ; 
 And still from time to time the heathen host 
 Swarm'd overseas, and harried what was left. 
 And so there grew great tracts of wilderness, 10 
 
 Wherein the beast was ever more and more. 
 But man was less and less, till Arthur came. 
 For first Aurelius lived and fought and died. 
 And after him King Uther fought and died. 
 But either fail'd to make the kingdom one. 15 
 
 And after these King Arthur for a space. 
 And thro' the puissance of his Table Eound, 
 Drew all their petty princedoms under him, 
 Their king and head, and made a realm, and reign'd. 
 
 And thus the land of Cameliard was waste, 20 
 
 Thick with wet woods, and many a beast therein. 
 And none or few to scare or chase the beast; 
 So that wild dog, and wolf and boar and bear 
 Came night and day, and rooted in the fields. 
 And wallow'd in the gardens of the King, 25 
 
8 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 
 
 And ever and anon the wolf would steal 
 
 The children and devour, but now and then. 
 
 Her own brood lost or dead, lent her first teat 
 
 To human sucklings ; and the children, housed 
 
 In her foul den, there at their meat would growl, 30 
 
 And mock their foster-mother on four feet, 
 
 Till, straighten'd, they grew uj) to wolf -like men, 
 
 Worse than the wolves. And King Leodogran 
 
 Groan'd for the Eoman legions here again. 
 
 And Caesar's eagle : then his brother king, 35 
 
 Urien, assail'd him : last a heathen horde, 
 
 Eeddening the sun with smoke and earth with blood. 
 
 And on the spike that split the mother's heart 
 
 Spitting the child, brake on him, till, amazed. 
 
 He knew not whither he should turn for aid, 40 
 
 But — for he heard of Arthur newly crown'd, 
 Tho' not without an uproar made by those 
 Who cried, "He is not Uther's son'" — the King 
 Sent to him, saying, "Arise, and help us thou ! 
 Por here between the man and beast we die." 4.^ 
 
 And Arthur yet had done no deed of arms. 
 But heard the call, and came : and Guinevere 
 Stood by the castle walls to watch him pass ; 
 But since he neither wore on helm or shield 
 The golden symbol of his kinglihood, 50 
 
 But rode a simple knight among his knights. 
 And many of these in richer arms than he. 
 She saw him not, or mark'd not, if she saw. 
 One among many, tho' his face was bare. 
 But Arthur, looking downward as he past, 65 
 
 Pelt the light of her eyes into his life 
 Smite on the sudden, yet rode on, and pitch'd 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR 9 
 
 His tents beside the forest. Then he drave 
 
 The heathen; after, slew the beast, and feli'd 
 
 The forest, letting in the sun, and made 60 
 
 Broad pathways for the hunter and the knight 
 
 And so return'd. 
 
 For while he linger'd there, 
 A doubt that ever smoulder'd in the hearts 
 Of those great Lords and Barons of his realm 
 Flash'd forth and into war : for most of these, 65 
 
 Colleaguing with a score of petty kings, 
 Made head against him, crying, "Who is he 
 That he should rule us? who hath proven him 
 King Uther's son ? for lo ! we look at him. 
 And find nor face nor bearing, limbs nor voice, 70 
 
 Are like to those of Uther whom we knew. 
 This is the son of Gorlois, not the King; 
 This is the son of Anton, not the King." 
 
 And Arthur, passing thence to battle, felt 
 Travail, and throes and agonies of the life, 75 
 
 Desiring to be join'd with Guinevere ; 
 And thinking as he rode, "Her father said 
 That there between the man and beast they die. 
 Shall I not lift her from this land of beasts 
 Up to my throne, and side by side with me ? 80 
 
 What happiness to reign a lonely king, 
 Vext — ye stars that shudder over me, 
 
 earth that soundest hollow under me, 
 
 Vext with waste dreams? for saving I be join'd 
 
 To her that is the fairest under heaven, 85 
 
 1 seem as nothing in the mighty world. 
 And cannot will my will, nor work my work 
 Wholly, nor make myself in mine own realm 
 
10 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 
 
 Victor and lord. But were I join'd with her. 
 
 Then might we live together as one life, 90 
 
 And reigning with one will in everything 
 
 Have power on this dark land to lighten it. 
 
 And jDower on this dead world to make it live." 
 
 Thereafter — as he sj^eaks who tells the tale — 
 When Arthur reach'd a field-of -battle bright 95 
 
 With pitch'd pavilions of his foe, the world 
 Was all so clear about him, that he saw 
 The smallest rock far on the faintest hill. 
 And even in high day the morning star. 
 So when the King had set his banner broad, 100 
 
 At once from either side, with trumpet-blast. 
 And shouts, and clarions shrilling unto blood. 
 The long-lanced bat;tle let their horses run. 
 And now the Barons and the kings prevail'd, 
 And now the King, as here and there that war 105 
 
 Went swaying; but the Powers who walk the world 
 Made lightnings and great thunders over him. 
 And dazed all eyes, till Arthur by main might. 
 And mightier of his hands with every blow. 
 And leading all his knighthood threw the kings 110 
 
 Carados, Urien, Cradlemont of Wales, 
 Claudius, and Clariance of Northumberland, 
 The King Brandagoras of Latangor, 
 With Anguisant of Erin, Morganore, 
 And Lot of Orkney. Then, before a voice 115 
 
 As dreadful as the shout of one who sees 
 To one who sins, and deems himself alone 
 And all he world asleep, they swerved and brake 
 Flying, and Arthur call'd to stay the brands 
 That hack'd among the flyers, "Ho ! they yield !" 130 
 
 So like a painted battle the war stood 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR 11 
 
 Silenced, the living quiet as the dead, 
 
 And in the heart of Artliur joy was lord. 
 
 He laugird upon his warrior whom he loved 
 
 And honor "d most. "Thou dost not doubt me King, 125 
 
 So well thine arm hath wrought for me to-day." 
 
 "Sir and my liege," he cried, "the fire of God 
 
 Descends upon thee in the battle-field : 
 
 I know thee for my King !" Whereat the two, 
 
 Tor each had warded either in the fight, 130 
 
 Sware on the field of death a deathless love. 
 
 And Arthur said, "Man's word is God in man : 
 
 Let chance what will, I trust thee to the death." 
 
 Then Cjuickly from the foughten field he sent 
 TJlfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere, 135 
 
 His new-made knights, to King Leodogran, 
 Saying, "If I in aught have served thee well, 
 Give me thy daughter Guinevere to wife." 
 
 Whom when he heard, Leodogran in heart 
 Debating — "How should I that am a king, 140 
 
 However much he holp me at my need. 
 Give my one daughter saving to a king. 
 And a king's son ?" — lifted his voice, and call'd 
 A hoary man, his chamberlain, to whom 
 He trusted all things, and of him required 145 
 
 His counsel : "Knowest thou aught of Arthur's birth ?" 
 
 Then spake the hoary chamberlain and said, 
 "Sir King, there be but two old men that know : 
 And each is twice as old as I ; and one 
 Is Merlin, the wise man that ever served 150 
 
 King Uther thro' his magic art ; and one 
 Is ^Merlin's master (so they call him) Bleys, 
 
12 THE COMING GF ARTHUR 
 
 Who taught him magic; but the scholar ran 
 
 Before the master, and so far, that Bleys 
 
 Laid magic by, and sat him do\yn, and wrote 155 
 
 All things and whatsoever Merlin did 
 
 In one great annal-book, where after-years 
 
 Will learn the secret of our Arthur's birth/' 
 
 To whom the King Leodogran replied, 
 "0 friend, had I been holpen half as well 160 
 
 By this King Arthur as by thee to-day. 
 Then beast and man had had their share of me : 
 But summon here before us yet once more 
 Ulfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere.'' 
 
 Then, wnen tney came before him, the King said, 165 
 "I have seen the cuckoo chased by lesser fowl. 
 And reason in the chase : but wherefore now 
 Do these your lords stir up the heat of war. 
 Some calling Arthur born of Gorlois, 
 
 Others of Anton? Tell me, ye yourselves, 170 
 
 Hold ye this Arthur for King Uther's son?" 
 
 And Ulfius and Brastias answer'd, "Ay." 
 Then Bedivere, the first of all his knights 
 Knighted by Arthur at his crowning, spake — 
 For bold in heart and act and word was he, 175 
 
 Whenever slander breathed against the King — 
 
 "Sir, there be many rumors on this head : 
 For there be those who hate him in their hearts. 
 Call him baseborn, and since his ways are sweet. 
 And theirs are bestial, hold him less than man : 180 
 
 And there be those who deem him more than man, 
 And dream he dropt from heaven : but my belief 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR 13 
 
 In all this matter^ — so je care to learn — 
 
 Sir, for ye know that in King Uther's time 
 
 The prince and warrior Gorlois, he that held 185 
 
 Tintagil castle by the Cornish sea, 
 
 Was wedded with a winsome wife, Ygerne : 
 
 And daughters had she borne him, — one whereof, 
 
 Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent, 
 
 Hath ever like a loyal sister cleaved 190 
 
 To Arthur, — but a son she had not borne. 
 
 And Uther cast upon her eyes of love : 
 
 But she, a stainless wife to Gorloi's, 
 
 So loatlied the bright dishonor of his love. 
 
 That Gorlois and King Uther went to war : 195 
 
 And overthrown was Gorlois and slain. 
 
 Then Uther in his wrath and heat besieged 
 
 Ygerne within Tintagil, where her men. 
 
 Seeing the mighty swarm about their walls. 
 
 Left her and fled, and Uther enter'd in, 200 
 
 And there was none to call to but himself. 
 
 So, compass'd by the power of the King, 
 
 Enforced she was to wed him in her tears, 
 
 And with a shameful swiftness : afterward, 
 
 Not many moons, King Uther died himself, 205 
 
 Moaning and wailing for an heir to rule 
 
 After him, lest the realm should go to wrack. 
 
 And that same night, the night of the new year, 
 
 By reason of the bitterness and grief 
 
 That vext his mother, all before his time 210 
 
 "Was Arthur born, and all as soon as born 
 
 Deliver'd at a secret postern-gate 
 
 To Merlin, to be holden far apart 
 
 Until his hour should come ; because the lords 
 
 Of that fierce day were as the lords of this, 215 
 
 Wild beasts, and surely would have torn the child 
 
14 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 
 
 Piecemeal among them, had they known • for each 
 
 But sought to rule for his own self and hand, 
 
 And many hated Uther for the sake 
 
 Of Gorlois. Wherefore Merlin took the child, 220 
 
 And gave him to Sir Anton, an old knight 
 
 An ancient friend of Uther; and his wife 
 
 Nursed the young prince, and rear'd him with her own ; 
 
 And no man knew. And ever since the lords 
 
 Have foughten like wild beasts among themselves, 225 
 
 So that the realm has gone to wrack : but now. 
 
 This year, when Merlin (for his hour had come) 
 
 Brought Arthur forth, and set him in the hall. 
 
 Proclaiming, 'Here is Uther's heir, your king,' 
 
 A hundred voices cried, 'Away with him ! 230 
 
 No king of ours ! a son of Gorloi's he. 
 
 Or else the child of Anton, and no king. 
 
 Or else baseborn.' Yet Merlin thro' his craft, 
 
 And while the people clamor'd for a king. 
 
 Had Arthur crown'd ; but after, the great lords 235 
 
 Banded, and so brake out in open war." 
 
 Then while the King debated with himself 
 If Arthur were the child of shamefulness. 
 Or born the son of GorloYs, after death. 
 Or Uther's son, and born before his time, 240 
 
 Or whether there were truth in anything 
 Said by these three, there came to Cameliard, 
 With Gawain and young Modred, her two sons. 
 Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent ; 
 Whom as he could, not as he would, the King 245 
 
 Made feast for, saying, as they sat at meat, 
 
 "A doubtful throne is ice on summer seas. 
 Ye come from Arthur's court. Victor his men 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR 15 
 
 Eeport him ! Yea, but ye — think ye this king — 
 
 So many those that hate him, and so strong, 250 
 
 So few his knights, however brave they be — 
 
 Hath body enow to hold his foemen down?" 
 
 "0 King," she cried, "and I will tell thee : few, 
 Few, but all brave, all of one mind with him; 
 For I was near him when the savage yells 255 
 
 Of Uther's peerage died, and Arthur sat 
 Crown'd on the dais, and his warriors cried, 
 'Be thou the king, and we will work thy will 
 Who love thee.' Then the King in low deep tones. 
 And simple words of great authority, 260 
 
 Bound them by so strait vows to his own self. 
 That when they rose, knighted from kneeling, some 
 Were pale as at the passing of a ghost, 
 Some flush'd, and others dazed, as one who wakes 
 Half-blinded at the coming of a light. 265 
 
 "But when he spake and cheer'd his Table Round 
 With large, divine, and comfortable words. 
 Beyond my tongue to tell thee — I beheld ^ 
 
 From eye to eye thro' all their Order flash 
 A momentary likeness of the King: 270 
 
 And ere it left their faces, thro' the cross 
 And those around it and the Crucified, 
 Down from the casement over Arthur, smote 
 Flame-color, vert and azure, in three rays. 
 One falling upon each of three fair queens, 275 
 
 Who stood in silence near his throne, the friends 
 Of Arthur, gazing on him, tall, with bright 
 Sweet faces, who will help him at his need. 
 
 "And there I saw mage Merlin, whose vast wit 
 
16 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 
 
 And liundred winters are but as the hands 280 
 
 Of loyal vassals toiling for their liege. 
 
 "And near him stood the Lady of the Lake, 
 Who knows a subtler magic than his own — 
 Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
 She gave the King his huge cross-hilted sword, 285 
 
 Whereby to drive the heathen out: a mist 
 Of incense curl'd about her, and her face 
 Wellnigh was hidden in the minster gloom ; 
 But there was heard among the holy hymns 
 A voice as of the waters, for she dwells 290 
 
 Down in a deep; calm, whatsoever storms 
 May shake the world, and when the surface rolls. 
 Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord. 
 
 "There likewise I beheld Excalibur 
 Before him at his crowning borne, the sword 295 
 
 That rose from out the bosom of the lake. 
 And Arthur row'd across and took it — rich 
 With jewels, elfin Urim, on tlie hilt. 
 Bewildering heart and eye — the blade so bright 
 That men are blinded by it — on one side, 300 
 
 Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world, 
 'Take me,' but turn the blade and ye shall see, 
 And written in the speech ye speak yourself, 
 'Cast me away !' And sad was Arthur's face 
 Taking it, but old Merlin counsell'd him, 305 
 
 'Take thou and strike ! the time to cast away 
 Is yet far-off.' So this great brand the king 
 Took, and by this will beat his foemen down." 
 
 Thereat Leodogran rejoiced, but thought 
 To sift his doubtings to the last, and ask'd, 310 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR 17 
 
 Fixing full eyes of question on her face, 
 
 "The swallow and the swift are near akin, 
 
 But thou art closer to this noble prince, 
 
 Being his own dear sister"; and she said, 
 
 "Daughter of Gorlois and Ygerne am I"; 315 
 
 "And therefore Arthurs sister?"' ask'd the King. 
 
 She answer'd, "These be secret things," and signed 
 
 To those two sons to pass and let them be. 
 
 And Gawain went, and breaking into song 
 
 Sprang out, and follow'd by his flying hair 320 
 
 Ban like a colt, and leapt at all he saw : 
 
 But Modred laid his ear beside the doors. 
 
 And there half-heard ; the same that afterward 
 
 Struck for the throne, and striking found his doom. 
 
 And then the Queen made answer, "What know I ? 325 
 For dark my mother was in eyes and hair, 
 And dark in hair and eyes am I ; and dark 
 Was Gorloi's, yea and dark was Uther too, 
 Wellnigh to blackness ; but this King is fair 
 Beyond the race of Britons and of men. 330 
 
 Moreover, always in my mind I hear 
 A cry from out the dawning of my life, 
 A mother weeping, and I hear her say, 
 ■^0 that ye had some brother, pretty one. 
 To guard thee on the rough ways of the world.' " 335 
 
 "Ay," said the King, "and hear ye such a cry? 
 But when did Arthur chance upon thee first ?" 
 
 "0 King !" she cried, ''and I will tell thee true : 
 He found me first when yet a little maid : 
 Beaten I had been for a little fault 340 
 
 Whereof I was not guilty ; and out I ran 
 
18 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 
 
 And flung myself down on a bank of heath. 
 
 And hated this fair world and all therein, 
 
 And wept, and wisli'd that I were dead ; and he — 
 
 I know not whether of himself he came, 345 
 
 Or brought by Merlin, who, they say, can walk 
 
 Unseen at pleasure — he was at my side, 
 
 And spake sweet words, and comforted my heart, 
 
 And dried my tears, being a child with me. 
 
 And many a time he came, and evermore 350 
 
 As I grew greater grew with me ; and sad 
 
 At times he seem'd, and sad with him was I, 
 
 Stern too at times, and then I loved liim not, 
 
 But sweet again, and then I loved him well. 
 
 And now of late I see him less and less, 355 
 
 But those first days had golden hours for me, 
 
 For then I surely thought he would be king. 
 
 "But let me tell thee now another tale : 
 For Bleys, our Merlin's master, as they say. 
 Died but of late, and sent his cry to me, 360 
 
 To hear him speak before he left his life. 
 Shrunk like a fairy changeling lay the mage ; 
 And when I enter'd told me that himself 
 And Merlin ever served about the King, 
 ITther, before he died ; and on the night 365 
 
 When Uther in Tintagil past away 
 Moaning and wailing for an heir, the two 
 Left the still King, and passing forth to breathe, 
 Then from the castle gateway by the chasm 
 Descending thro' the dismal night — a night 370 
 
 In which the bounds of heaven and earth were lost — 
 Beheld, so high upon the dreary deeps 
 It seem'd in heaven, a ship, the shape thereof 
 A dragon wing'd, and all from stem to stern 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR 19 
 
 Bright with a shining people on the decks, 375 
 
 And gone as soon as seen. And then the two 
 
 Dropt to the cove, and watch'd the great sea fall. 
 
 Wave after wave, each mightier than the last. 
 
 Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep 
 
 And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged 380 
 
 Eoaring, and all the wave was in a flame : 
 
 And down the wave and in the flame was borne 
 
 A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet. 
 
 Who stooj^t and caught the babe, and cried 'The King ! 
 
 Here is an heir for Uther !' And the fringe 385 
 
 Of that great breaker, sweeping up the strand, 
 
 Lash'd at the wizard as he spake the word. 
 
 And all at once all round him rose in fire. 
 
 So that the child and he were clothed in fire. 
 
 And presently thereafter follow'd calm, 390 
 
 Free sky and stars : 'And this same child,' he said, 
 
 'Is he who reigns ; nor could I part in peace 
 
 Till this were told.' And saying this the seer 
 
 Went thro' the strait and dreadful pass of death, 
 
 Not ever to be question'd any more 395 
 
 Save on the further side ; but when I met 
 
 Merlin, and ask'd him if these things were truth — 
 
 The shining dragon and the naked child 
 
 Descending in the glory of the seas — 
 
 He laugh'd as is his wont, and answer'd me 400 
 
 In riddling triplets of old time, and said: 
 
 " 'Eain, rain, and sun ! a rainbow in the sky ! 
 A young man will be wiser by and by ; 
 An old man's wit may wander ere he die. 
 
 " 'Eain, rain, and sun ! a rainbow on the lea ! 405 
 
 And truth is this to me. and that to thee ; 
 
20 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 
 
 And truth or clothed or naked let it be. 
 
 " 'Eain, sun, and rain ! and the free blossom blows : 
 Sun, rain, and sun ! and where is he who knows ? 
 From the great deep to the great deep he goes.' 410 
 
 "So Merlin riddling anger'd me; but thou 
 Fear not to give this King thine only child, 
 Guinevere : so great bards of him will sing 
 Hereafter; and dark sayings from of old 
 Eanging and ringing thro' the minds of men, 415 
 
 And echo'd by old folk beside their fires 
 For comfort after their wage-work is done. 
 Speak of the King ; and Merlin in our time 
 Hath spoken also, not in jest, and sworn 
 Tho' men may wound him that he will not die, 420 
 
 But pass, again to come ; and then or now 
 Utterly smite the heathen underfoot. 
 Till these and all men hail him for their king." 
 
 She spake and King Leodogran rejoiced. 
 But musing "Shall I answer yea or nay ?" 425 
 
 Doubted, and drowsed, nodded and slept, and saw, 
 Dreaming, a slope of land that ever grew. 
 Field after field, up to a height, the peak 
 Haze-hidden, and thereon a phantom king. 
 Now looming, and now lost ; and on the slope 430 
 
 The sword rose, the hind fell, the herd was driven, 
 Fire glimpsed ; and all tlie land from roof and rick. 
 In drifts of smoke before a rolling wind, 
 Stream'd to the peak, and mingled with the haze 
 And made it thicker ; while the phantom king 435 
 
 Sent out at times a voice ; and here or there 
 Stood one who pointed toward the voice, the rest 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR 21 
 
 Slew on and burnt, crying, "Xo king of ours, 
 
 No son of Uther, and no king of ours" ; 
 
 Till with a wink his dream was changed, the haze 440 
 
 Descended, and the solid earth became 
 
 As nothing, but the King stood out in heaven, 
 
 Crown'd. And Leodogran awoke, and sent 
 
 Ulfius, and Brastias and Bedivere, 
 
 Back to the court of Arthur answering yea. 445 
 
 Then Arthur charged his warrior whom he loved 
 And honor'd most. Sir Lancelot, to ride forth 
 And bring the Queen ; — and watch'd him from the gates : 
 And Lancelot past away among the flowers, 
 (For then was latter April) and return'd 450 
 
 Among the flowers, in May, with Guinevere. 
 To whom arrived, by Dubric the high saint. 
 Chief of the church in Britain, and before 
 The stateliest of her altar-shrines, the King 
 That morn was married, while in stainless white, 455 
 
 The fair beginners of a nobler time. 
 And glorying in their vows and him, his knights 
 Stood round him, and rejoicing in his joy. 
 Far shone the fields of May thro' open door, 
 The sacred altar blossom'd white with May, 460 
 
 The Sun of May descended on their King, 
 They gazed on all earth's beauty in their Queen, 
 Eoird incense, and there past along the hymns 
 A voice as of the waters, while the two 
 Sware at the shrine of Christ a deathless love : 465 
 
 And Arthur said, "Behold, thy doom is mine. 
 Let chance what will, I love thee to the death !" 
 To whom the Queen replied with drooping eyes, 
 "King and my lord, I love thee to the death !" 
 And holy Dubric spread his hands and spake, 470 
 
22 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 
 
 *'Eeign ye, and live and love, and make the world 
 Other, and may thy Queen be one with thee. 
 And all this Order of thy Table i-iound 
 Fulfil the boundless purpose of their King !" 
 
 So Dubric said; but when they left the shrine 475 
 
 Great Lords from Eome before the portal stood. 
 In scornful stillness gazing as they past ; 
 Then while they paced a city all on fire 
 With sun and cloth of gold, the trumpets blew. 
 And Arthur's knighthood sang before the King : — 480 
 
 "Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May ; 
 Blow trumpet, the long night hath roll'd away ! 
 Blow thro' the living world — 'Let the King reign.' 
 
 "Shall Eome or Heathen rule in Arthur's realm? 
 Flash brand and lance, fall battleaxe upon helm, 485 
 
 Fall battleaxe, and flash brand ! Let the King reign. 
 
 "Strike for the King and live ! his knights have heard 
 That God hath told the King a secret word. 
 Fall battleaxe, and flash brand ! Let the King reign. 
 
 "Blow trumpet ! he will lift us from the dust. 490 
 
 Blow trumpet ! live the strength and die the lust ! 
 Clang battleaxe, and clash brand ! Let the King reign. 
 
 "Strike for the King and die ! and if thou diest. 
 The King is King, and ever wills the highest. 
 Clang battleaxe, and clash brand ! Let the King reign. 495 
 
 "Blow, for our Sun is mighty in his May ! 
 Blow, for our Sun is mightier day by day ! 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR 23 
 
 Clang battleaxe, and clash brand ! Let the King reign. 
 
 "The King will follow Christ, and we the King 
 In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing. 500 
 
 Fall battleaxe, and flash brand ! Let the King reign." 
 
 So sang the knighthood, moving to their hall. 
 There at the banquet those great Lords from Rome. 
 The slow-fading mistress of the world. 
 Strode in, and claim'd their tribute as of yore. 505 
 
 But Arthur spake, "Behold, for these have sworn 
 To wage my wars, and worship me their King ; 
 The old order changeth, yielding place to new ; 
 And we that fight for our fair father Christ, 
 Seeing that ye be grown too weak and old 510 
 
 To drive the heathen from 3^our Roman wall, 
 No tribute will we pay" : so those great lords 
 Drew back in wrath, and Arthur strove with Rome. 
 
 And Arthur and his knighthood for a space 
 Were all one will, and thro' that strength the King 515 
 
 Drew in the petty princedoms under him. 
 Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame 
 The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reign'd. 
 
THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
 From noiseful arms, and acts of prowess done 
 
 In tournament or tilt, Sir Percivale, 
 
 Whom Arthur and his knighthood call'd The Pure, 
 
 Had pass'd into the silent life of prayer, 
 
 Praise, fast, and alms; and leaving for the cowl 5 
 
 The helmet in an abbey far away 
 
 From Camelot, there, and not long after, died. 
 
 And one, a fellow-monk among the rest, 
 Ambrosius, loved him much beyond the rest, 
 And honor'd him, and wrought into his heart 10 
 
 A way by love that waken'd love within, 
 To answer that which came; and as they sat 
 Beneath a world-old yew-tree, darkening half 
 The cloisters, on a gustful April morn 
 That puff'd the swaying branches into smoke 15 
 
 Above them, ere the summer when he died. 
 The monk Ambrosius question'd Percivale : 
 
 "0 brother, I have seen this yew-tree smoke. 
 Spring after spring, for half a hundred years : 
 For never have I known the world without, 20 
 
 ISTor ever stray'd beyond the pale : but thee. 
 When first thou earnest — such a courtesy 
 Spake thro' the limbs and in the voice — I knew 
 For one of those who eat in xA.rthur's hall ; 
 For good ye are and bad, and like to coins, 25 
 
 27 
 
28 THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
 Some true, some light, but every one of jou 
 Stamp'd witli the image of the Xing ; and now 
 Tell me, what drove thee from the Table Round, 
 My brother ? was it earthly passion crost ?" 
 
 "Nay/' said the knight ; "for no such passion mine 30 
 But the sweet vision of the Holy Grail 
 Drove me from all vainglories, rivalries, 
 And earthly heats that spring and sparkle out 
 Among us in the jousts, while women watch 
 Who wins, who falls ; and waste the spiritual strength 35 
 Within us, better offer'd up to Heaven." 
 
 To whom the monk : "The Holy Grail ! — I trust 
 We are green in Heaven's eyes ; but here too much 
 We moulder — as to things without I mean — 
 Yet one of your own knights, a guest of ours, 40 
 
 Told us of this in our refectory. 
 But spake with such a sadness and so low 
 We heard not half of what he said. What is it ? 
 The phantom of a cup that comes and goes ?" 
 
 "Nay, monk ! what phantom ?" answer'd Percivale. 45 
 "The cup, the cup itself, from which our Lord 
 Drank at the last sad supper with his own. 
 This, from the blessed land of Aromat — 
 After the day of darkness, when the dead 
 Went wandering o'er Moriah — the good saint 50 
 
 Arimathfpan Joseph, journeying brought 
 To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn 
 Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord. 
 And there awhile it bode ; and if a man 
 Could touch or see it, he was heal'd at once, 55 
 
 By faith, of all his ills. But then the times 
 
THE HOLY GRAIL 29 
 
 Grew to such evil that the holy cup 
 
 Was caught away to Heaven, and disappear'd." 
 
 To whom the monk : "From our old books I know 
 That Joseph came of old to Glastonbury, 60 
 
 And there the heathen Prince, Arviragus, 
 Gave him an isle of marsh whereon to build; 
 And there he built with wattles from the marsh 
 A little lonely church in days of yore. 
 For so they say, these books of ours, but seem 65 
 
 Mute of this miracle, far as I have read. 
 But who first saw the holy thing to-day?" 
 
 "A woman," answer'd Percivale, "a nun, 
 And one no further off in blood from me 
 Than sister ; and if ever holy maid 70 
 
 With knees of adoration wore the stone, 
 A holy maid ; tho' never maiden glow'd. 
 But that was in her earlier maidenhood. 
 With such a fervent flame of human love. 
 Which being rudely blunted, glanced and shot 75 
 
 Only to holy things ; to prayer and praise 
 She gave herself, to fast and alms. And yet, 
 Nun as she was, the scandal of the Court, 
 Sin against Arthur and the Table Round, 
 And the strange sound of an adulterous race, 80 
 
 Across the iron grating of her cell 
 Beat, and she pray'd and fasted all the more. 
 
 And he to whom she told her sins, or what 
 Her all but utter whiteness held for sin, 
 A man wellnigh a hundred winters old, 85 
 
 Spake often with her of the Holy Grail, 
 A legend handed down thro' five or six, 
 
30 THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
 And each of these a hundred winters old, 
 
 From our Lord's time. And when King Arthur made 
 
 His Table Eound, and all men's hearts became 90 
 
 Clean for a season, surely he had thought 
 
 That now the Holy Grail would come again ; 
 
 But sin broke out. Ah, Christ, that it would come. 
 
 And heal the world of all their wickedness ! 
 
 '0 Father !' ask'd the maiden, 'might it come 95 
 
 To me by prayer and fasting ?' 'jSTay,' said he, 
 
 'I know not, for thy heart is pure as snow.' 
 
 And so she pray'd and fasted, till the sun 
 
 Shone, and the wind Ijlew, thro' her, and I thought 
 
 She might have risen and floated when I saw her. 100 
 
 "For on a day she sent to speak with me. 
 And when she came to speak, behold her eyes 
 Beyond my knowing of them, beautiful. 
 Beyond all knowing of them, wonderful, 
 Beautiful in the light of holiness. 105 
 
 And '0 my brother Percivale' she said, 
 'Sweet brother, I have seen the Holy Grail: 
 For, waked at dead of night, I heard a sound 
 As of a silver horn from o'er the hills 
 
 Blown, and I thought, "It is not Arthur's use 110 
 
 To hunt by moonlight" ; and the slender sound 
 As from a distance beyond distance grew 
 Coming upon me— never harp nor horn. 
 Nor aught we blow with breath, or touch with hand, 
 Was like that music as it came; and then 115 
 
 Stream'd thro' my cell a cold and silver beam, 
 And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail, 
 Eose-red with beatings in it, as if alive. 
 Till all the white walls of my cell were dyed 
 With rosy colors leaping on the wall ; 120 
 
THB HOLY GRAIL 31 
 
 And then the music faded, and the Grail 
 
 Past, and tlie beam decay'd, and from the walls 
 
 The rosy quiverings died into the night. 
 
 So now the Holy Thing is here agam 
 
 Among us, brother, fast thou too and pray, 135 
 
 And tell thy brother knights to fast and pra}'', 
 
 That so perchance the vision may be seen 
 
 By thee and those, and all the world be heal'd.' 
 
 "Then leaving the pale nun, I spake of this 
 To all men ; and myself fasted and pray'd 130 
 
 Always, and many among us many a week 
 Fasted and pray'd even to the uttermost, 
 Expectant of the wonder that would be. 
 
 "And one there was among us, ever moved 
 Among us in white armor, Galahad. 135 
 
 'God make thee good as thou art beautiful,' 
 Said Arthur, when he dubb'd him knight ; and none, 
 In so young youth, was ever made a knight 
 Till Galahad; and this Galahad, when he heard 
 My sister's vision, fill'd n>e with amaze ; 140 
 
 His eyes became so like her own, they seem'd 
 Hers, and himself her brother more than I. 
 
 "Sister or brother none had he ; but some 
 Call'd him a son of Lancelot, and some said 
 Begotten by enchantment — chatterers they, 1-45 
 
 Like birds of passage piping up and down, 
 That gape for flies — we know not whence they come ; 
 For when was Lancelot wanderingly lewd? 
 
 "But she, the wan sweet maiden, shore away 
 Clean from her forehead all that wealth of hair 150 
 
32 THE HOLY GRAIL ' 
 
 Which made a silken mat-work for her feet ; 
 
 And out of this she plaited broad and long 
 
 A strong sword-belt, and wove with silver thread 
 
 And crimson in the belt a strange device, 
 
 A crimson grail within a silver beam ; 155 
 
 And saw the bright boy-knight, and bound it on him, 
 
 Saying, 'My knight, my love, my knight of heaven, 
 
 thou, my love, whose love is one with mine, 
 
 I, maiden, round thee, maiden, bind my belt. 
 
 Go forth, for thou shalt see what I have seen, 160 
 
 And break thro' all, till one will crown thee king 
 
 Far in the spiritual city' : and as she spake 
 
 She s.ent her deathless passion in her eyes 
 
 Thro' him, and made him hers, and laid her mind 
 
 On him, and he believed in her belief. 165 
 
 "Then came a year of miracle : brother, 
 In our great hall there stood a vacant chair, 
 Fashion'd by Merlin ere he past away, 
 And carven with strange figures ; and in and out 
 The figures, like a serpent, ran a scroll 170 
 
 Of letters in a tongue no man could read. 
 And Merlin call'd it 'The Siege perilous.' 
 Perilous for good and ill ; 'for there,' he said, 
 ''No man could sit but he should lose liimself.' 
 And once by misadvertence Merlin sat 175 
 
 In his own chair, and so was lost ; but he, 
 Galahad, when he heard of Merlin's doom, 
 Cried, 'If I lose myself, I save my&elf !' 
 
 "Then on a summer night it came to pass, 
 While the great banquet lay along the hall, 180 
 
 That Galahad would sit down in Merlin's chair. 
 
THE HOLY GRAIL 33 
 
 "And all at once, as there we sat, we heard 
 A cracking and a riving of the root's, 
 And rending, and a blast, and overhead 
 Thunder, and in the thunder was a cry. 185 
 
 And in the blast there smote along the hall 
 A beam of light seven times more clear than day : 
 And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail 
 All over cover'd with a luminous cloud. 
 And none might see who bare it, and it past. 1!J0 
 
 But every knight beheld his fellow's face 
 As in a glory, and all the knights arose 
 And staring each at other like dumb men 
 Stood, till I found a voice and sware a vow. 
 
 "I sware a vow before them all, that I, 195 
 
 Because I had not seen the Grail, would ride 
 A twelvemonth and a day in quest of it. 
 Until I found and saw it, as the nun 
 My sister saw it ; and Galahad sware the vow, 
 And good Sir Bors, our Lancelot's cousin, sware, 200 
 
 And Lancelot sware, and many among the knights. 
 And Gawain sware, and louder than the rest." 
 
 The spake the monk Ambrosius, asking him, 
 ""Tiat said the King ? Did Arthur take the vow ?'^ 
 
 "Nay, for my lord," said Percivale, "the King, 205 
 
 Was noL in hall: for early that same day, 
 'Scaped thro' a cavern from a bandit hold. 
 An outraged maiden sprang into the hall 
 Crying on help : for all her shining hair 
 Was smear'd with earth, and either milky arm 210 
 
 Eed-rent with hooks of bramble, and all she wore 
 Torn as a sail that leaves the rope is torn 
 
34 THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
 In tempest : so the King arose and went 
 
 To smoke the scandalous hive of those wild bees 
 
 That made such honey in his realm. Howbeit 215 
 
 Some little of this marvel he too saw, 
 
 Returning o'er the plain that then began 
 
 To darken under Camelot; whence the King 
 
 Look'd up, calling aloud, 'Lo, there ! the roofs 
 
 Of our great hall are roll'd in thunder-smoke ! 220 
 
 Pray Heaven, they be not smitten by the bolt/" 
 
 For dear to Arthur was that hall of ours. 
 
 As having there so oft with all his knights 
 
 Feasted, and as the stateliest under heaven. 
 
 "0 brother, had you known our mighty hall, 2J:5 
 
 Which Merlin built for Arthur long ago ! 
 For all the sacred mount of Camelot, 
 And all the dim rich city, roof by roof. 
 Tower after tower, spire beyond spire. 
 By grove, and garden-lawn, and rushing brook, 230 
 
 Climbs to the mighty hall that Merlin built. 
 And four great zones of sculpture, set betwixt 
 ■ With many a mystic symbol, gird the hall : 
 And in the lowest beasts are slaying men. 
 And in the second men are slaying beasts, 235 
 
 And on the third are warriors, perfect men, 
 And on the fourth are men with growing wings, 
 And over all one statue in the mould 
 Of Arthur, made by Merlin, with a crown. 
 And peak'd wings pointed to the Northern Star. 240 
 
 And eastward fronts the statue, and the crown 
 And both the wings are made of gold, and flame 
 At sunrise till the people in far fields, 
 Wasted so often by the heathen hordes, 
 Behold it, crying, 'We have still a King.' 245 
 
THE HOLY GRAIL 35 
 
 "And, brother, had you known our hall within. 
 Broader and luglier than any in all the lands ! 
 Where twelve great windows blazon Arthurs wars. 
 And all the light that falls upon the board 
 Streams thro' the twelve great battles of our King. 250 
 Nay, one there is, and at the eastern end, 
 Wealthy with wandering lines of mount and mere, 
 Wliere Arthur finds the brand Excalibur. 
 And also one to the west, and counter to it, 
 And blank : and who shall blazon it ? when and how ? — 
 there, perchance, when all our wars are done, 255 
 
 The brand Excalibur will be cast away. 
 
 "So to this hall full quickly rode the King, 
 In horror lest the work by Merlin wrought, 
 Dreamlike, should on tlie sudden vanish, wrapt 260 
 
 In unremorseful folds of rolling fire. 
 And in he rode, and up I glanced, and saw 
 The golden dragon sparkling over all : 
 And many of those who burnt the hold, their arms 
 Hack'd, and their foreheads grimed with smoke, and sear'd, 
 Follow'd, and in among bright faces, ours, 2G5 
 
 Full of the vision, prest : and then the King 
 Spake to me, being nearest, 'Percivale,' 
 (Because the hall w^as all in tumult — some 
 Yowdng, and some protesting), "what is this?' 270 
 
 "0 brother, wdien I told him what had chanced, 
 My sister's vision, and the rest, his face 
 Darken'd, as I have seen it more than once, 
 When some brave deed seem'd to be done in vain, 
 Darken ; and 'Woe is me, my knights,' he cried, 275 
 
 ■^Had I been here, ye had not sworn the vow.' 
 Bold was mine answer, 'Had thyself been here, 
 
36 THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
 My King, thou wouldst have sworn.' 'Yea, Yea,' said he, 
 'Art thou so bold and hast not seen the Grail?' 
 
 " 'Nay, lord, I heard the sound, I saw the light, 280 
 
 But since I did not see the Holy Thing, 
 I sware a vow to follow it till I saw.' 
 
 "Then when he ask'd us, knight by knight, if any 
 Had seen it, all their answers were as one : 
 'Nay, lord, and therefore have we sworn our vows.' 285 
 
 " 'Lo now,' said Arthur, 'have ye seen a cloud ? 
 What go ye into the wilderness to see T 
 
 "Then Galahad on the sudden, and in a voice 
 Shrilling along the hall to Arthur, call'd, 
 'But I, Sir Arthur, saw the Holy Grail, 290 
 
 I saw the- Holy Grail and heard a cry — 
 "0 Galahad, and Galahad, follow me." ' 
 
 " 'Ah, Galahad, Galahad,' said the King, 'for such 
 As thou art is the vision, not for these. 
 Thy holy nun and thou have seen a sign — 295 
 
 Holier is none, my Percivale, than she — 
 A sign to maim this Order which I made. 
 But ye, that follow but the leader's bell' 
 (Brother, the King was hard upon his knights) 
 'Taliessin is our fullest throat of song, 300 
 
 And one hath sung and all the dumb will sing. 
 Lancelot is Lancelot, and hath overborne 
 Five kights at once, and every younger knight, 
 Fnproven, holds himself as Lancelot, 
 
 Till overborne hy one. be learns — and ye, 305 
 
 Wlir.t are ve? Galabads? — no, nor Pcrcivales' 
 
THE HOLY' GRAIL 37 
 
 ( For thus it pleased the King to range me close 
 
 After Sir Gaialiad) ; 'na}'/ said he, 'but men 
 
 With strength and will to right the wroug'd, of power 
 
 To lay the sudden heads of violence flat, 310 
 
 Knights that in twelve great battles splash'd and dyed 
 
 The strong White Horse in his own heathen blood — 
 
 But one hath seen, and all the blind will see. 
 
 Go, since your vows are sacred, being made : 
 
 Yet — for ye know the cries of all my realm 315 
 
 Pass thro' this hall — how often, my knights. 
 
 Your places being vacant at my side. 
 
 This chance of noble deeds will come and go 
 
 Unchallenged, while ye follow wandering fires 
 
 Lost in the quagmire ! Many of you, yea most, 320 
 
 Eeturn no more : ye think I show myself 
 
 Too dark a prophet : come now, let us meet 
 
 The morrow morn once more in one full field 
 
 Of gracious pastime, that once more the King, 
 
 Before ye leave him for this Quest, may count 325 
 
 The yet-unbroken strength of all his knights, 
 
 Rejoicing in that Order which he made.' 
 
 ^'So when the sun broke next from under ground, 
 All the great table of our Arthur closed 
 And clash'd in such a tourney and so full, 330 
 
 So many lances broken — never yet 
 Had Camelot seen the like, since Arthur came; 
 And I myself and Galahad, for a strength 
 Was in us from the vision, overthrew 
 So many knights that all the people cried, 335 
 
 And almost burst the barriers in their heat. 
 Shouting, 'Sir Galahad and Sir Percivale !' 
 
 "But when the next day brake from under ground—* 
 
38 THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
 brother, had you kuowu our Camelot, 
 
 Built by old kings, age after age, so old 340 
 
 The King himself had fears that it would fall. 
 
 So strange, and rich, and dim; for where the roofs 
 
 Totter'd toward each other in the sky. 
 
 Met foreheads all along the street of those 
 
 AYlio watch'd us pass ; and lower, and where the long 345 
 
 Eich galleries, lady-laden, weighed the necks 
 
 Of dragons clinging to the crazy walls. 
 
 Thicker tlian drops from thunder, showers of flowers 
 
 Fell as we past; and men and boys astride 
 
 On wyvern, lion, dragon, grilfin, swan, 350 
 
 At all the corners, named us each by name, 
 
 Calling 'God speed !' but in the ways below 
 
 The knights and ladies wept, and rich and poor 
 
 Wept, and the King himself could hardly speak 
 
 For grief, and all in middle street the Queen, 355 
 
 AYlu) rode by Lancelot, wailVl and shriek'd aloud, 
 
 'This madness has come on us for our sins.' 
 
 So to the Gate of the three Queens we came, 
 
 "Where Arthur's wars are rendered mystically, 
 
 And thence departed every one his way. 360 
 
 "And I was lifted up in heart, and thought 
 Of all my late-shown prowess in the lists, 
 How my strong lance had beaten down the knights. 
 So many and famous names ; and never yet 
 Had heaven appear'd so blue, nor earth so green, 365 
 
 For all my blood danced in me, and I knew 
 That I should light upon the Holy Grail. 
 
 "Thereafter, the dark warning of our King, 
 That most of us would follow wandering fires, 
 Came like a driving gloom across mv mind. 370 
 
THE HOLY GRAIL 39 
 
 Then every evil word I had spoken once, 
 
 And every evil thought I had thought of old, 
 
 And every evil deed 1 ever elid, 
 
 Awoke and cried, 'This Quest is not for thee/ 
 
 And lifting up mine eyes, I found myself 375 
 
 Alone, and in a land of sand and thorns. 
 
 And I was thirsty even unto death ; 
 
 And I, too, cried, 'This Quest is not for thee/ 
 
 "And on I rode, and when I thought my thirst 
 Would slay me, saw deep lawns, and then a brook, 380 
 
 .With one sharp rapid, where the crisf)ing white 
 Play'd ever back upon the sloping wave, 
 And took both ear and eye; and o'er the brook 
 Where apple-trees, and apples by the brook 
 Fallen, and on the lawns. 'I will rest here,' 385 
 
 I said, 'I am not worthy of the Quest' ; 
 But even while I drank the brook, and ate 
 The goodly apples, all these things at once 
 Fell into dust, and I was left alone, 
 And thirsting, in a land of sand and thorns. 390 
 
 "And then behold a woman at a door 
 Spinning; and fair the house whereby she sat. 
 And kind the woman's eyes and innocent, 
 And all her bearing gracious ; and she rose 
 Opening her arms to meet me, as Avho should say, 395 
 
 *Eest here' ; but when I touch'd her, lo ! she, too, 
 Fell into dust and nothing, and the house 
 Became no better than a l)roken shed. 
 And in it a dead babe ; and also this 
 Fell into dust, and I was left alone. 400 
 
 ^^4.nd on I rode, and greater was my thirst. 
 
40 THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
 Then flash'd a yellow gleam across the world, 
 
 And where it smote the plowshare in the held, 
 
 The plowman left his plowing, and fell down 
 
 Before it; where it glittered on her pail, 405 
 
 The milkmaid left her milking, and fell down 
 
 Before it, and I knew not why, but thought 
 
 'The sun is rising,' tho' the sun had risen. 
 
 Then was I ware of one that on me moved 
 
 In golden armor with a crown of gold 410 
 
 About a casque all jewels ; and his horse 
 
 In golden armor jewell'd everywhere : 
 
 And on the splendor came, flashing me blind ; 
 
 And seem'd to me the Lord of all the world, 
 
 Being so huge. But when I thought he meant 415 
 
 To crush me, moving on me, lo ! he, too, 
 
 Open'd his arms to embrace me as he came. 
 
 And up I went and touch'd him, and he, too. 
 
 Fell into dust, and I was left alone 
 
 And wearying in a land of sand and thorns. 420 
 
 "And I rode on and found a mighty hill. 
 
 And on the top, a city wall'd : the spires 
 
 Prick'd with incredible pinnacles into heaven. 
 
 And by the gateway stirr'd a crowd ; and these 
 
 Cried to me climbing, 'Welcome, Percivale ! 425 
 
 Thou mightiest and thou purest among men!' 
 
 And glad was I and clomb, but found at top 
 
 Xo man, nor any voice. And thence I past 
 
 Far thro' a ruinous city, and I saw 
 
 That mail had once dwelt there ; but there I found 430 
 
 u Only one man of an exceeding age. 
 \¥here is that goodly company,' said I, 
 
 'That so cried out upon me ?' and he had 
 
 Scarce any voice to answer, and yet gasp'd. 
 
THE HOLY GRAIL 41 
 
 'Whence and what art thou ?' and even as he spoke 435 
 
 Fell into dust, and disappear'd, and I 
 
 Was left alone once more, and cried in grief, 
 
 'Lo, if I find the Holy Grail itself 
 
 And touch it, it will crumble into dust.' 
 
 "And thence I dropt into a lowly vale, 440 
 
 Low as the hill was high, and where the vale 
 Was lowest, found a chapel, and thereby 
 A holy hermit in a hermitage, 
 To whom I told my phantoms, and he said: 
 
 " '0 son, thou hast not true humility, 445 
 
 The highest virtue, mother of them all ; 
 For when the Lord of all things made Himself 
 Naked of glory for His mortal change, 
 "Take thou my robe," she said, "for all is thine," 
 And all her form shone forth with sudden light 450 
 
 So that the angels were amazed, and she 
 Follow'd Him down, and like a flying star 
 Led on the gray-hair'd wisdom of the east; 
 But her thou hast not known : for what is this 
 Thou thoughtest of thy prowess and thy sins ? . 455 
 
 Thou has not lost thyself to save thyself 
 As Galahad.' When the hermit made an end, 
 In silver armor suddenly Galahad shone 
 Before us, and against the chapel door 
 Laid lance, and enter'd, and we knelt in prayer. 460 
 
 And there the hermit slaked my burning thirst. 
 And at the sacring of the mass I saw 
 The holy elements alone; but he, 
 'Saw ye no more? I, Galahad, saw the Grail, 
 The Holy Grail, descend upon the shrine : 465 
 
 T saw the fierv face as of a child 
 
42 THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
 That smote itself into the breads and went; 
 
 And hither am 1 come ; and never yet 
 
 Hath wliat thy sister taught me first to see, 
 
 Tills Holy Thing, fail'd from my side, nor come 470 
 
 Cover'd, but moving with me night and day, 
 
 Fainter by day, but always in the night 
 
 Blood-red, and sliding down the blaeken'd marsh 
 
 Blood-red and on the naked mountain top 
 
 Blood-red, and in the sleeping mere below 475 
 
 Blood-red. And in the strength of this I rode, 
 
 Sbattering all evil customs everywhere, 
 
 And past thro' Pagan realms, and made them mine. 
 
 And clash'd with Pagan hordes, and bore tliem down. 
 
 And broke thro' all, and in the strength of this 480 
 
 Come victor. But my time is hard at hand. 
 
 And hence I go; and one will crown me king 
 
 Far in the spiritual city; and come thou, too, 
 
 For thou shall see the vision when I go.' 
 
 "Wliile thus he spake, his eye, dwelling on mine, 485 
 Drew me, with power upon me, till I grew 
 One with him, to believe as he believed. 
 Then, when the day began to wane, we went. 
 
 "There rose a hill that none but man could climb, 
 Sca.rr'd with a hundred wintry water-courses — 490 
 
 Storm at the top, and when we gain'd it, storm 
 Round us and death ; for every moment glanced 
 His silver arms and gloom'd : so quick and thick 
 The lightnings here and there to left and right 
 Struck, till the dry old trunks about us, dead, 495 
 
 Yea, rotten with a hundred years of death, 
 Sprang into fire : and at the base we found 
 On either hand, as far as eye could see. 
 
THE HOLY GRAIL 43 
 
 A great black swamp and of an evil smell, 
 
 Part black, part whiten'd with the bones of men, 500 
 
 Not to be crost, save that some ancient king 
 
 Had built a way, where, link'd with many a bridge, 
 
 A thousand piers ran into the great Sea. 
 
 And (jialahad lied along them bridge by bridge. 
 
 And every bridge as quickly as he crost 505 
 
 Sprang into fire and vanish'd, tho' I yearn'd 
 
 To follow ; and thrice above liim all the heavens 
 
 Open'd and blazed with thunder such as seem'd 
 
 Shoutings of all the sons of God : and first 
 
 At once I saw him far on the great Sea, 510 
 
 In silver-shining armor starry-clear; 
 
 And o'er his head the Holy Vessel hung 
 
 Clothed in white samite or a luminous cloud. 
 
 And with exceeding swiftness ran the boat, 
 
 If boat it were — I saw not whence it came. 515 
 
 And when the heavens open'd and blazed again 
 
 Roaring, I saw him like a silver star — 
 
 And had he set the sail, or had the boat 
 
 Become a living creature clad with wings ? 
 
 And o'er his head the Holy Vessel hung 520 
 
 Redder than any rose, a joy to me, 
 
 For now I knew the veil had been withdrawn. 
 
 Then in a moment when they blazed again 
 
 Opening, I saw the least. of little stars 
 
 Down on the waste, and straight beyond the star 525 
 
 I saw the spiritual city and all her spires 
 
 And gateways in a glory like one pearl — 
 
 No larger, tho' the goal of all the saints — 
 
 Strike from the sea ; and from the star there shot 
 
 A rose-red sparkle to the city, and there 530 
 
 Dwelt, and I know it was the Holy Grail, 
 
 WTiich never eyes on earth again shall see. 
 
44 THE hOLY GRAIL 
 
 Then fell the floods of heaven drowning the deep. 
 
 And how my feet recrost tlie deathfiil ridge 
 
 No memory in me lives ; but that I touch'd 535 
 
 The chapel-doors at dawn I know ; and thence 
 
 Taking my war-horse from the holy mau^ 
 
 Glad that no phantom vext me more, return'd 
 
 To whence I came, the gate of Arthur's wars." 
 
 "O brother," ask'd Ambrosius, — "for in sooth 540 
 
 These ancient books — and they would win thee — teem, 
 Only I find not there this Holy Grail, ■ 
 With miracles and marvels like to these, 
 Kot all unlike ; which oftentime I read, 
 Who read but on my breviary with ease, 545 
 
 Till my head swims ; and then go forth and pass 
 Down to the little thorpe that lies so close, 
 And almost plaster'd like a martin's nest 
 To these old walls — and mingle with our folk; 
 And knowing every honest face of theirs 550 
 
 As well as ever shepherd knew his sheep, 
 And every homely secret in their hearts, 
 Delight myself with gossip and old wives. 
 And ills and aches, and teethings, lyings-in, 
 'And mirthful sayings, children of the place, 555 
 
 That haA'e no meaning half a league away: 
 Or lulling random squabbles when they rise, 
 Chafferings and chatterings at the market-cross, 
 Eejoice, small man, in this small world of mine, 
 Yea, even in their hens and in their eggs — 560 
 
 brother, saving this Sir Galahad, 
 Came ye on none but phantoms in your quest, 
 No man, no woman?" 
 
 Then Sir Percivale: 
 *^A11 men, to one so bound by such a vow, 
 
THE HOLY GRAIL 45 
 
 And women were as phantoms. 0, my brother, 565 
 
 Why wilt thou shame me to confess to thee 
 
 How far I falter'd from my quest and vow ? 
 
 For after I had lain so many nights, 
 
 A bedmate of the snail and eft and snake. 
 
 In grass and burdock, I was changed to wan 570 
 
 And meagre, and the vision had not come ; 
 
 And then I chanced uj^on a goodly town 
 
 With one great dwelling in the middle of it ; 
 
 Thither I made, and there was I disarm'd 
 
 By maidens each as fair as any flower : 575 
 
 But when they led me into hall, behold. 
 
 The Princess of that castle was the one, 
 
 Brother, and that one only, wao had ever 
 
 Made my heart leap ; for wlien 1 nu)\ed of old. 
 
 A slender page about her father's hall, 580 
 
 And she a slender maiden, all my heart 
 
 Went after her with longing : yet we twain 
 
 Had never kiss'd a kiss, or vow'd a vow. 
 
 And now I came upon her once again. 
 
 And one had wedded her, and he was dead, 585 
 
 And all his land and wealth and state were hers. 
 
 And while I tarried, every day she set 
 
 A banquet richer than the day before 
 
 By me ; for all her longing and her will 
 
 Was toward me as of old ; till one fair morn, 590 
 
 I walking to and fro beside a stream 
 
 That flash'd across her orchard underneath 
 
 Her castle-walls, she stole upon my walk. 
 
 And calling me the greatest of all knights, 
 
 Embraced me, and so kiss'd me tlie first time, 595 
 
 And gave herself and all her wealth to me. 
 
 Then I remember'd Arthur's warning word. 
 
 That most of us would follow wandering fires. 
 
4C THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
 And the Quest faded in my heart. Anon, 
 
 The heads of all her people drew to me, 600 
 
 With supplication both of knees and tongue : 
 
 'We have heard of thee : thou art our greatest knight. 
 
 Our Lady says it, and we well believe : 
 
 Wed thou our Lady, and rule over us, 
 
 And thou shalt be as Arthur in our land.' 605 
 
 me, my brother ! but one night my vow 
 
 Burnt me within, so that I rose and fled. 
 
 But waiFd and wept, and hated mine own self. 
 
 And ev'n the Holy Quest, and all but her; 
 
 Then after I was join'd with Galahad 610 
 
 Cared not for her, nor anything upon earth.'"' 
 
 Then said the monk, "Poor men, when yule is cold. 
 Must be content to sit by little fires. 
 And this am I, so that ye care for me 
 
 Ever so little; yea, and blest be Heaven 615 
 
 That brought thee here to this poor house of ours 
 AVhere all the brethren are so hard, to warm 
 My cold heart with a friend : but the pity 
 To find thine own first love once more — to hold, 
 Hold her a wealthy bride within thine arms, 620 
 
 Or all but hold, and then — cast her aside. 
 Foregoing all her sweetness, like a weed. 
 For we that want the Avarmth of double life, 
 We that are plagued with dreams of something sweet 
 Beyond all sweetness in a life so rich, — 625 
 
 Ah, blessed Lord, I speak too earthlywise. 
 Seeing I never stray'd beyond the cell. 
 But live like an old badger in his earth, 
 With earth about him everywhere, despite 
 All fast and penance. Saw ye none beside, 630 
 
 Xone of vour knights?" 
 
THE HOLY GRAIL 47 
 
 "Yea so/' said Percivale : 
 "One night my pathway swerving east, I saw 
 The pelican on the casque of our Sir Bors 
 All in the middle of the rising moon : 
 And toward him spurr'd, and liail'd him, and he me, 635 
 And each made joy of either; then he ask'd, 
 'Where is he? hast thou seen him — Lancelot":' — Once,' 
 Said good Sir Bors, "he dash'd across me — mad. 
 And maddening what he rode : and when I cried, 
 "Eldest thou then so hotly on a cpiest 6-iO 
 
 So holy," Lancelot shouted, "Stay me not! 
 I have been the sluggard, and I ride apace. 
 For now there is a lion in the way." 
 So vanish'd.' 
 
 "Then Si^Bors had ridden on 
 Softly, and sorrowing for our Lancelot, 645 
 
 Because his former madness, once the talk 
 And scandal of our table, had returnM ; 
 For Lancelot's kith and kin so worship him 
 That ill to him is ill to them ; to Bors 
 Beyond the rest: he well had been content 650 
 
 Not to have seen, so Lancelot might have seen, 
 The Holy Cup of healing; and, indeed, 
 Being so clouded with his grief and love. 
 Small heart was his after the Holy Quest : 
 If God would send the vision, well : if not, 655 
 
 The Quest and he were in the hands of Heaven. 
 
 "And then, with small adventure met. Sir Bors 
 Eode to the lonest tract of all tlie realm. 
 And found a people there among tlieir crags, 
 Our race and blood, a remnant that were left 660 
 
 Pavnim amid their circles, and the stones 
 
48 THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
 Tliey pitch up straight to lieaven : and their wise men 
 Were strong m that old magic whicli can trace 
 The wandering of the stars, and scoli"d at him 
 And tliis high Quest as at a simple tuing : 665 
 
 Told him he followed — almost Arthur's words — 
 A mocking fire : 'what other lire than he, 
 Whereby the blood beats, and the blossom blows, 
 And the sea rolls, and all the world is warm'd ?' 
 And when his answer chafed tliem, the rough crowd, 670 
 Hearing he had a difference with their priests, 
 Seized him, and bound and plunged him into a cell 
 Of great jailed stones ; and lying bounden there 
 In darkness thro' innumerable hours 
 
 He heard the hollow-ringing heavens sweep 675 
 
 Over him till by miracle — what else? — 
 Heavy as it was, a great stone slipt and fell. 
 Such as no wind could move : and thro' the gap 
 Glimmer'd the streaming scud : then came a night 
 Still as the day was loud; and thro' the gap 680 
 
 .The seven clear stars of Arthur's Table Kound — 
 For, brother, so one nigiit, because tliey roll 
 Thro' such a round in heaven, we named the stars, 
 Eejoicing in ourselves and in our King — 
 And these, like bright eyes of familiar friends, 685 
 
 In on him shone : 'i^nd then to me, to me,' 
 Said good Sir Bors, 'beyond all hopes of mine, 
 W^io scarce had pray'd or ask'd it for myself— 
 Across the seven clear stars — grace to me — 
 In color like the fingers of a hand 600 
 
 Before a burning ta])er, tlie sweet Grail 
 Glided and past, and close upon it jieal'd 
 A sharp quick thunder.' Afterwards, a maid, 
 Wlio kept our holy faith among her kin 
 In secret, entering, loosed and let him go." 695 
 
THE HOLY GRAIL 49 
 
 To whom the monk : "And I remember now 
 That pelican on the casque : Sir Bors it was 
 Who spaJve so low and sadly at our board ; 
 And mighty reverent at our grace was he : 
 A square-set man and honest ; and his eyes, 700 
 
 An out-door sign of all the warmth within, 
 Smiled with his lips — a smile beneath a cloud. 
 But heaven had meant it for a sunny one : 
 Ay, ay. Sir Bors, who else ? But when ye reach'd 
 The city, found ye all your knights return'd, 705 
 
 Or was there sooth in Arthur's prophecy, 
 Tell me, and what said each, and what the King?" 
 
 Then answer'd Percivale : "And that can I, 
 Brother, and truly ; since the living words 
 Of so great men as Lancelot and our King 710 
 
 Pass not from door to door and out again, 
 But sit within the house. 0, when we reach'd 
 The city, our horses stumbling as they trode 
 On heaps of ruin, hornless unicorns, 
 
 Crack'd basilisks, and splinter'd cockatrices, 715 
 
 And shatter'd talbots, which had left the stones 
 Eaw, that they fell from, brought us to the hall. 
 
 '^And there sat Arthur on the dais-throne. 
 And those that had gone out upon the Quest, 
 Wasted and worn, and hut a tithe of them, 720 
 
 And those that had not, stood before the King, 
 Who, when he saw me, rose, and bade me hail. 
 Saying, 'A welfare in thine eye reproves 
 Our fear of some disastrous chance for thee 
 On hill, or plain, at sea, or flooding ford. 725 
 
 So fierce a gale made havoc here of late 
 Among the strange devices of our kings ; 
 
50 THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
 Yea, shook this newer, stronger hall of ours. 
 And from the statue Merlin moulded for us 
 Half-wrench'd a golden wing; but now — the Quest, 730 
 This vision — hast thou seen the HoJy Cup, 
 That Joseph brought of old to Glastonbury?' 
 
 ■ "So when I told him all thyself hast heard, 
 Ambrosius, and my fresh but fixt resolve 
 To pass away into the quiet life, 735 
 
 He answer'd not, but^ sharply turning, ask'd 
 Of Gawain, 'Gawain, was this Quest for thee ?' 
 
 " 'Nay, lord,' said Gawain, 'not for such as I. 
 Therefore I communed with a saintly man. 
 Who made me sure the Quest was not for me ; 740 
 
 For I was much awearied of the Quest: 
 But found a silk pavilion in a field. 
 And merry maidens in it; and then this gale 
 Tore my pavilion from the tenting-pin. 
 And blew my merry maidens all about 745 
 
 With all discomfort ; yea, and but for this, 
 My twelvemonth and a day were pleasant to me/ 
 
 "He ceased ; and Arthur turn'd to whom at first 
 He saw not, for Sir Bors, on entering, push'd 
 Athwart the throng to Lancelot, caught his hand, 750 
 
 Held it, and there, half -hidden by him, stood. 
 Until the King espied him, saying to him, 
 'Hail, Bors ! if ever loyal man and true 
 Could see it, thou hast seen the Grail' ; and Bors, 
 'Ask me not, for I may not speak of it : 755 
 
 I saw it' ; and the tears were in his eyes. 
 
 "Then there remain'd but Lancelot, for the rest 
 
THE HOLY GRAIL 51 
 
 Sj^ake but of sundry perils in tlie storm ; 
 
 Perhaps, like him of Cana in Holy Writ, 
 
 Our Arthur kept his best until the last ; 760 
 
 'Thou, too, my Lancelot,' ask'd the King, 'my friend, 
 
 Our mightiest, hath this Quest avail'd for thee ?' 
 
 " 'Our mightiest !' answer d Lancelot, with a groan ; 
 '0 King !' — and when he paused, methought I spied 
 A dying fire of madness in his eyes — 765 
 
 '0 King, my friend, if friend of thine I be. 
 Happier are those that welter in their sin, 
 Swine in the mud, that cannot see for slime. 
 Slime of the ditch : but in me lived a sin 
 So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure, 770 
 
 Xoble, and knightly in me twined and clung 
 Eound that one sin, until the wholesome flower 
 And poisonous grew together, each as each, 
 Not to be pluck'd asunder ; and when thy knights 
 Sware, I sware with them only in the hope 775 
 
 That could I touch or see the Holy Grail 
 They might be pluck'd asunder. Then I spake 
 To one most holy saint, who wept and said, 
 That save they could be pluck'd asunder, all 
 "My quest were but in vain ; to whom I vow'd 780 
 
 That I would work according as he will'd. 
 And forth I went, and while I yearn'd and strove 
 To tear the twain asunder in my heart. 
 My madness came upon me as of old. 
 And whipt me into waste fields far away; 785 
 
 There was I beaten down by little men, 
 Mean knights, to whom the moving of my sword 
 And shadow^ of my spear had been enow 
 To scare them from me once ; and then I came 
 All in my folly to the naked shore, 790 
 
52 THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
 Wide flats, where nothing but coarse grasses grew; 
 
 But such a blast, my King, began to blow. 
 
 So loud a blast along the shore and sea. 
 
 Ye could not hear the waters for the blast, 
 
 Tho' heapt in mounds and ridges all the sea 795 
 
 Drove like a cataract, and all the sand 
 
 Swept like a river, and the clouded heavens 
 
 Were shaken with the motion and the sound. 
 
 And blackening in the sea-foam sway'd a boat, 
 
 Half-swallow'd in it, anchored with a chain; 800 
 
 And in my madness to myself I said, 
 
 "I will embark and I will lose myself. 
 
 And in the great sea wash away my sin." 
 
 I burst the chain, I sprang into the boat. 
 
 Seven days I drove along the dreary deep, 805 
 
 And W' ith me drove the moon and all the stars ; 
 
 And the wind fell, and on the seventh night 
 
 I heard the shingle grinding in the surge. 
 
 And felt the boat shock earth, and looking up, 
 
 Behold, the enchanted towers of Carbonek, 810 
 
 A castle like a rock upon a rock, 
 
 With chasm-like portals open to the sea, 
 
 And steps that met the breaker ! there was none 
 
 Stood near it but a lion on each side 
 
 That kept the entry, and the moon was full. 815 
 
 Then from the boat I leapt, and up the stairs. 
 
 There drew my sword. With sudden flaring manes 
 
 Those two great beasts rose upright like a man. 
 
 Each gript a shoulder, and I stood between ; 
 
 And, ^yhen I would have smitten them, heard a voice, 820 
 
 "Doubt not, go forward ; if thou doubt, the beasts 
 
 Will tear thee piecemeal." Then with violence 
 
 The sword was dash'd from out my hand, and fell. 
 
 And up into the sounding hall I past ; 
 
THE HOLY GRAIL 53 
 
 But nothing in the sounding hall I saw, 825 
 
 No bench nor table, painting on the wall 
 
 Or shield of knight ; only the rounded moon 
 
 Thro' the tall oriel on the rolling sea. 
 
 But always in the quiet house I heard, 
 
 Clear as a lark, high o'er me as a lark, 830 
 
 A sweet voice singing in the topmost tower 
 
 To the eastward : up I clinib'd a thousand steps 
 
 With pain : as in a dream I seem'd to climb 
 
 For ever : at the last I reach'd the door, 
 
 A light was in the crannies, and I heard, 835 
 
 "Glory and joy and honor to our Lord 
 
 And to the Holy Vessel of the Grail." 
 
 Then in my madness I essay'd the door; 
 
 It gave ; and thro' a stormy glare, a heat 
 
 As from a seventimes-heated furnace, I, 840 
 
 Blasted and burnt, and blinded as I was, 
 
 With such a fierceness that I swoon'd away — 
 
 0, yet methought I saw the Holy Grail, 
 
 All pall'd in crimson samite, and around 
 
 Great angels, awful shapes, and wings and eyes. 845 
 
 And but for all my madness and my sin, 
 
 And then my swooning, I had sworn I saw 
 
 That which I saw ; but what I saw was veil'd 
 
 And cover'd; and this Quest was not for me.' 
 
 "So speaking, and here ceasing, Ijancelot left 850 
 
 The hall long silent, till Sir Gawain — nay, 
 Brother, I need not tell thee foolish words, — 
 A reckless and irreverent knight was he. 
 Now bolden'd.by the silence of his King, — 
 Well, I tell thee : '0 King, my liege,' he said, 855 
 
 'Hath Gawain f ail'd in any quest of thine ? 
 When have I stinted stroke in f oughten field ? 
 
54 THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
 But as for thine, mj good friend Percivale, 
 
 Thy holy nun and thou iiave driven men mad. 
 
 Yea, made our mightiest madder tlian our lea;-L 860 
 
 But by mine eyes and by mine ears I swear, 
 
 I will be deafer than the blue-eyed cat, 
 
 And thrice as blind as any noonday owl. 
 
 To holy virgins in their ecstasies, 
 
 Henceforward/ 
 
 " 'Deafer,' said the blameless King 865 
 
 *Gawain, and blinder unto holy things, 
 Hope not to make thyself by idle vows, 
 Being too blind to have desire to see. 
 But if indeed there came a sign from heaven. 
 Blessed are Bors, Lancelot and Percivale, 870 
 
 For these have seen according to their sight. 
 For every fiery prophet in old times, 
 And all the sacred madness of the bard. 
 When God made music thro' them, could but speak 
 His music by the framework and the chord; 875 
 
 And as ye saw it ye have spoken truth. 
 
 " 'N"ay — but thou errest, Lancelot; never yet 
 Could all of true and noble in knight and man 
 Twine round one sin, whatever it might be. 
 With such a closeness, but apart there grew, 880 
 
 Save that he were the swine thou spakest of, 
 Some root of knighthood and pure nobleness; 
 Whereto see thou, that it may bear its flower. 
 
 " 'And spake I not too truly, my knights ? 
 Was I too dark a prophet when I said 885 
 
 To those who went upon the Holy Quest, 
 That most of them w^ould follow wandering fires, 
 
THE HOLY GRAIL 55 
 
 Lost in the quagmire ? — lost to me and gone. 
 
 And left me gazing at a barren board, 
 
 And a lean Order — scarce return'd a tithe — 890 
 
 And out of those to whom the vision came 
 
 My greatest hardly will believe he saw ; 
 
 Another hath beheld it afar off, 
 
 And leaving human wrongs to right themselves. 
 
 Cares but to pass into the silent life. 895 
 
 And one hath had the vision face to face, 
 
 And now his chair desires him here in vain. 
 
 However they may crown him otherwhere. 
 
 " ^And some among you lield that if the King 
 Had seen the sight he would have sworn the vow : 900 
 
 Not easil}", seeing that the King must guard 
 That which he rules, and is but as the hind 
 To whom a space of land is given to plow. 
 Who may not wander from the allotted field 
 Before his work be done ; but, being done, 905 
 
 Let visions of the night or of the day 
 Come, as they will ; and many a time they come. 
 Until this earth he walks on seems not earth. 
 This light that strikes his eyeball is not light. 
 This air that smites his forehead is not air 910 
 
 But vision — yea, his very hand aiid foot — 
 In moments when he feels he canuot die. 
 And knows himself no vision to himself. 
 Nor the high God a vision, nor that One 
 Who rose again : ye have seen what ye have seen.' 915 
 
 "So spake the King : I knew not all he meant." 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 
 
 That story which the bold Sir Bedivere, 
 First made and latest left of all the kuights, 
 Told, when the man was no more than a voice 
 In the white winter of his age, to those 
 With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds. 
 
 For on their march to westward, Bedivere, 
 Who slowly paced among the slumbering host. 
 Heard in his tent the moanings of the King: 
 
 " I found Him in the shining of the stars, 
 I mark'd Him in the flowering of His fields. 
 But in His ways with men I find Him not. 
 I waged His wars, and now I pass and die. 
 me! for why is all around us here 
 As if some lesser god had made the world. 
 But had not force to shape it as he would. 
 Till the High God behold it from beyond. 
 And enter it, and make it beautiful? 
 Or else as if the world were wholly fair, 
 But that these eyes of men are dense and dim, 
 And have not power to see it as it is: 
 Perchance, because we see not to the close; — 
 For I, being simple, thought to work His will, 
 And have but stricken with the sword in vain; 
 And all whereon I lean'd in wife and friend 
 Is traitor to my peace, and all my realm 
 
 59 
 
60 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 
 
 Eeels back into the beast, and is no more. 
 My God, thou hast forgotten me in my death: 
 Xay — God my Christ — I i>ass but shall not die." 
 
 Ihen, ere the last weird battle in the west. 
 There came on Arthur sleeiDing, Gawain kill'd 30 
 
 In Lancelot's war, the ghost of Gawain blown 
 Along a wandering wind, and past his ear 
 Went shrilling, " Hollow, hollow all delight! 
 Hail, King! to-morrow thou shalt pass away. 
 Farewell! there is an isle of rest for thee. 
 And I am blown along a wandering wind, 
 And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight." 
 And fainter onward, like wild birds that change 
 Their season in the night and wail their way 
 From cloud to cloud, down the long wind the dream 40 
 Shrill'd; but in going mingled with dim cries 
 Far in the moonlight haze among the hills, 
 As of some lonely city sack'd by night, 
 When all is lost, and wife and child with wail 
 Pass to new lords; and Arthur woke and call'd, 
 "Who spake? A dream. light upon the wind^ 
 Thine, Gawain, was the voice — are these dim cries 
 Thine? or doth all that haunts the waste and wild 
 Mourn, knowing it will go along with me? " 
 
 This heard the bold Sir Bedivere and spake: 50 
 
 " me, my King, let pass whatever will. 
 Elves and the harmless glamour of the field; 
 But in their stead thy name and glory cimg 
 To all high places like a golden cloud 
 For ever: but as yet thou shalt not pass. 
 Light was Gawain in life, and light in death 
 Is Gawain, for the ghost is as the man; 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 61 
 
 And care not thou for dreams from him, but rise — 
 
 I hear the steps of Modred in the west. 
 
 And with him many of thy people, and knights 60 
 
 Once thine, whom thou hast loved, but grosser grown 
 
 Than heathen, spitting at their vows and thee. 
 
 Eight well in heart they know thee for the King. 
 
 Arise, go forth and conquer as of old." 
 
 Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 
 " Far other is this battle in the west 
 Whereto we move, than when we strove in youth. 
 And brake the petty kings, and fought with Eome, 
 Or thrust the heathen from the Eoman wall. 
 And shook him thro' the north. Ill doom is mine 70 
 To war against my people and my knights. 
 The king who fights his people fights himself. 
 And they my knights, who loved me once, the stroke 
 That strikes them dead is as my death to me. 
 Yet let us hence, and find or feel a way 
 Thro' this blind haze, which ever since I saw 
 One lying in the dust at Almesbury, 
 Hath folded in the passes of the world." 
 
 Then rose the King and moved his host by night, 
 And ever push'd Sir Modred, league by league, 80 
 
 Back to the sunset bound of Lyonnesse — 
 A land of old upheaven from the abyss 
 By fire, to sink into the abyss again; 
 Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt. 
 And the long mountains ended in a coast 
 Of ever-shifting sand, and far away 
 The phantom circle of a moaning sea. 
 There the pursiier could pursue no more. 
 And he that fled no further fly the King; 
 
62 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 
 
 And there, that day ^yhen the great light of heaven 90 
 
 Burn'd at his lowest in the rolling year, 
 
 On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed. 
 
 ISTor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight 
 
 Like this last, dim, weird battle of the west. 
 
 A deathwhite mist slept over sand and sea: 
 
 Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew 
 
 Down with his blood, till all his heart was cold 
 
 With formless tear; and ev'n on Arthur fell 
 
 Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought. 
 
 For friend and foe were shadows in the mist, 100 
 
 And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew; 
 
 And some had visions out of golden youth. 
 
 And some beheld the faces of old ghosts 
 
 Look in upon the battle; and in the mist 
 
 Was man}^ a noble deed, many a base, 
 
 And chance and craft and strength in single fights, 
 
 And ever and anon with host to host 
 
 Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn. 
 
 Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash 
 
 Of battleaxes on shatter'd helms, and shrieks 110 
 
 After the Christ, of those who falling down 
 
 Look'd up for heaven, and only saw the mist; 
 
 And shouts of heathen and the traitor knights, 
 
 Oaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blasphemies. 
 
 Sweat, writhings, anguish, labouring of the lungs 
 
 In that close mist, and cryings for the light. 
 
 Moans of the dying, and voices of the dead. 
 
 Last, as by some one deathbed after wail 
 Of suffering, silence follows, or thro' death 
 Or deathlike swoon, thus over all that shore, 120 
 
 Save for some whisper of the seething seas, 
 A dead hush fell; but when the dolorous day 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 63 
 
 Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came 
 
 A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew 
 
 The mist aside, and with that wind the tide 
 
 Eose, and the jjale King glanced across the field 
 
 Of battle: but no man was moving there; 
 
 Nor any cry of Christian heard thereon, 
 
 Nor yet of heathen; only the wan wave 
 
 Brake in among dead faces, to and fro 130 
 
 Swaying the helpless hands, and up and down 
 
 Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen, 
 
 And shiver'd brands that once had fought with Eome, 
 
 And rolling far along the gloomy shores 
 
 The voice of days of old and da3's to be. 
 
 Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere, 
 And whiter than the mist that all day long 
 Had held the field of battle was the King: 
 
 " Hearest thou this great voice that shakes the world, 
 And wastes the narrow realm whereon we move, 140 
 
 And beats upon the faces of the dead. 
 My dead, as tho' they had not died for me ? — 
 Bedivere, for on my heart hath fall'n 
 Confusion, till I know not what I am, 
 Nor whence I am, nor whether I be King. 
 Behold, I seem but King among the dead." 
 
 Then spake the bold Sir Bedivere: " My King, 
 King everywhere! and so the dead have kings, 
 There also will I worship thee as King. 
 Yet still thy life is whole, and still I live 150 
 
 Who love thee; but who hates thee, he that brought 
 The heathen back among us, yonder stands, 
 Modred, unharm'd, the traitor of thine house." 
 
64 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 
 
 Then spake the King: " My house hath been my doom. 
 But call not thou this traitor of my house 
 Who hath but dwelt beneath one roof with me. 
 My house are rather they who sware my vows, 
 Yea, even while they brake them, own'd me King. 
 And well for thee, saying in my dark hoiir, 
 When all the purport of my throne hath fail'd, 160 
 
 That quick or dead thou boldest me for King. 
 King am I, whatsoever be their cry; 
 And one last act of kinghood shalt thou see 
 Yet, ere I pass." And uttering this the King 
 Made at the man : then Modred smote his liege 
 Hard on that helm which many a heathen sword 
 Had beaten thin; while Arthur at one blow^, 
 Striking the last stroke with Excalibur, 
 Slew him, and all but slain himself, he fell. 
 
 So all day long the noise of battle roll'd 170 
 
 Among the mountains by the winter sea; 
 Until King Arthur's Table, man by man, 
 Had fall'n in Lyonnesse about their lord. 
 King Arthur. Then, because his wound was deep. 
 The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him. 
 And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, 
 A broken chancel with a broken cross. 
 That stood on a dark strait of barren land: 
 On one side lay the Ocean, and on one 
 Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 180 
 
 Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 
 " The sequel of to-day unsolders all 
 The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 
 Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep 
 They sleep — the men I loved. I think that we 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 65 
 
 Shall never more, at any future time, 
 
 Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, 
 
 "Walking about the gardens and the halls 
 
 Of Camelot, as in the days that were, 
 
 I perish by this people which I made, — 190 
 
 Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again 
 
 To rule once more; but, let what will be, be, 
 
 I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm 
 
 That without help I cannot last till morn. 
 
 Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, 
 
 Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how 
 
 In those old days, one summer noon, an arm 
 
 Rose up from out the bosom of the lake. 
 
 Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
 
 Holding the sword — and how I row'd across 200 
 
 And took it, and have worn it, like a king; 
 
 And, wheresoever I am sung or told 
 
 In aftertime, this also shall be known: 
 
 But now delay not: take Excalibur, 
 
 And fling him far into the middle mere: 
 
 Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word.'^ 
 
 To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere: 
 " It is not meet. Sir King, to leave thee thus. 
 Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm — 
 A little thing may harm a wounded man; 210 
 
 Yet I thy hest will all perform at full. 
 Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word/* 
 
 So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept. 
 And in the moon athwart the place of tombs. 
 Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men. 
 Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang 
 Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down 
 
66 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 
 
 By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock. 
 Came on the shining levels of the lake. 
 
 There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, 230 
 
 And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, 
 Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth 
 And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: 
 For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks. 
 Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work 
 Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long 
 That both his eyes were dazzled as he stood, 
 This way and that dividing the swift mind. 
 In act to throw: but at the last it seeni'd 
 Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd 230 
 
 There in the many-knotted waterflags. 
 That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. 
 So strode he back slow to the wounded King. 
 
 Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 
 " Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave? 
 What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard? " 
 
 And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 
 " I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 
 And the wild water lapping on the crag." 
 
 To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale: 240 
 
 " Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name, 
 Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd 
 Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight: 
 For surer sign had follow'd, either hand. 
 Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. 
 This is a shameful thing for men to lie. 
 Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again, 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 67 
 
 As thou art lief and dear, and. do the thing 
 
 I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word." 
 
 Then went Sir Bedivere the second time 250 
 
 Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere. 
 Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought; 
 But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, 
 How curiously and strangely chased, he smote 
 His palms together, and he cried aloud: 
 
 " And if indeed I cast the brand away. 
 Surely a precious thing, one worthy of note. 
 Should thus be lost for ever from the earth. 
 Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. 
 "What good should follow this, if this were done? 260 
 
 What harm, undone? Deep harm to disobey. 
 Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 
 Were it well to obey then, if a king demand 
 An act unprofitable, against himself? 
 The King is sick, and knows not what he does. 
 What record, or what relic of my lord 
 Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 
 And rumours of a doubt ? But were this kept. 
 Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings. 
 Some one might show it at a joust of arms, 270 
 
 Saying, ' King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, 
 Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. 
 Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 
 Upon the hidden bases of the hills.' 
 So might some old man speak in the aftertime 
 To all the people, winning reverence. 
 But now much honour and much fame were lost." 
 
 So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, 
 
68 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 
 
 And hid Excalibur the second time, 
 
 And so strode back slow to the wounded King. 280 
 
 Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily: 
 ""' What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard? " 
 
 And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 
 '" I heard the water lapping on the crag, 
 And the long ripples washing in the reeds." 
 
 To whom replied King Arthur, miTch in wrath: 
 '" Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, 
 XTnfcnightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me! 
 Authority forgets a dying king, 
 
 Laid widow'd of the power in his eye 290 
 
 That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art, 
 For thou, the latest-left of all my knights. 
 In whom should meet the offices of all. 
 Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt; 
 Either from lust of gold, or like a girl 
 Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. 
 Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, 
 And the third time may prosper, get thee hence: 
 But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, 
 I will arise and slay thee with my hands." 300 
 
 Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, 
 And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged 
 A.mong the bulrush beds, and clutch'd the sword, 
 And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand 
 Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon. 
 And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch, 
 Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, 
 •Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 69 
 
 By night, with noises of the Northern Sea. 
 
 So ilash'd and fell the brand Excalibur: 310 
 
 But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm 
 
 Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
 
 And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 
 
 Three times, and drew him under in the mere. 
 
 And lightly went the other to the King. 
 
 Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath: 
 " Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. 
 Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen? " 
 
 And answer" made the bold Sir Bedivere: 
 " Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems 320 
 
 Should blind my purpose, for I never saw. 
 Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, 
 Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men. 
 So great a miracle as yonder hilt. 
 Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him; 
 But when I look'd again, behold an arm, 
 Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
 That caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 
 Three times, and drew him under in the mere." 
 
 And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard: 330 
 " My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone. 
 JMr.ke broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, 
 And bear me to the margin; yet I fear 
 My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." 
 
 So saying, from the pavement he half rose. 
 Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm. 
 And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 
 
70 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 
 
 As in a picture. Him -Sir Bedivere 
 
 Eemorsefully regarded thro' his tears. 
 
 And would have spoken, but lie found not words; 340 
 
 Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee. 
 
 O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands. 
 
 And rising- bore him thro' the place of tombs. 
 
 But, as he walk'd. King Arthur panted hard, 
 Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed 
 When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King, 
 Muttering and murmuring at his ear, " Quick, quick! 
 I fear it is too late, and I shall die." 
 But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, 
 Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walked, 350 
 Larger than human on the frozen hills. 
 He heard the deep behind him, and a cry 
 Before. His own thought drove him like a goad. 
 Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves 
 And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
 The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based 
 His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 
 Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels — 
 And on a sudden, lol the level lake. 
 And the long glories of the winter moon, 360 
 
 Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge. 
 Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern. 
 Beneath them; and descending they were ware 
 That all the decks were dense with stately forms, 
 Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream — ^by these 
 Three Queens with crowns of gold: and from them rose 
 A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars. 
 And, as it were one voice, an agony 
 Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 71 
 
 All night in a waste land, where no one comes, 370 
 
 Or hath come, since the making of the world. 
 
 Then murmur'd Arthur, " Place me in the barge." 
 So to the barge they came. There those three Queens 
 Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. 
 But she, that rose the tallest of them all 
 And fairest, laid his head upon her lap. 
 And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands, 
 And call'd him by his name, complaining loud. 
 And dropping bitter tears against a brow 
 Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white 380 
 And colourless, and like the wither'd moon 
 Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east; 
 And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops 
 Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls — 
 That made his forehead like a rising sun 
 High from the dais-throne — were pareh'd with dust; 
 Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, 
 Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. 
 So like a shatter'd column lay the King; 
 Kot like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, 390 
 
 From spur to plume a star of tournament. 
 Shot thro' the lists at Camelot. and charged 
 Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. 
 
 Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere: 
 " Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go? 
 Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? 
 For now I see the true old times are dead. 
 When every morning brought a noble chance. 
 And every chance brought out a noble knight. 
 Such times have been not since the light that led 400 
 
 The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
 
72 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 
 
 But now the whole Round Table is dissolved 
 Which was an image of the mighty world. 
 And I, the last, go forth companionless, 
 And the days darken round me, and the years. 
 Among new men, strange faces, other minds." 
 
 And slowly answered Arthur from the barge: 
 " The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
 And God fulfils himself in many ways, 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 410 
 
 Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? 
 I have lived my life, and that which I have done 
 May He within himself make pure! but thou. 
 If thou shouldst never see my face again, 
 Pray for my soul. IMore things are wrought by prayer 
 Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice 
 Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
 For what are men better than sheep or goats 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain. 
 If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 420 
 
 Both for themselves and those who call them friend? 
 For so the whole round earth is every way 
 Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 
 But now farewell. I am going a long way 
 With these thou seest — if indeed I go 
 (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) — 
 To the island-valley of Avilion; 
 Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
 Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies 
 Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns 430 
 
 And bowery hollows crnwn'd with summer sea, 
 Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.-" 
 
 So said he, and the barge with oar and sail 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 73 
 
 Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan 
 
 That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 
 
 Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 
 
 With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere 
 
 Revolving many memories, till the hull 
 
 Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, 
 
 And on the mere the wailing died away. 440 
 
 But when that moan had past for evermore, 
 The stillness of the dead world's winter dawn 
 Amazed him, and he groan'd, " The King is gone." 
 And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme, 
 " From the great deep to the great deep he goes." 
 
 Whereat he slowly turn'd and slowly clomb 
 The last hard footstep of that iron crag; 
 Thence mark'd the black hull moving yet, and cried, 
 " He passes to be King among the dead. 
 And after healing of his grievx)us wound 450 
 
 He comes again; but — if he come no more — 
 me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat. 
 Who shriek'd and wail'd, the three whereat we gazed 
 On that high day, when, clothed with living light. 
 They stood before his throne in silence, friends 
 Of Arthur, who should help him at his need? " 
 
 Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint 
 As from beyond the limit of the world. 
 Like the last echo born of a great cry, 
 
 Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice 460 
 
 Around a king returning from his wars. 
 
 Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb 
 Ev'n to the highest he could climb, and saw, 
 
74 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 
 
 Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand, 
 Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King, 
 Down that long water opening on the deep 
 Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go 
 From less to less and vanish into light. 
 And the new sun rose bringing the new year. 
 
TO THE QUEEN 
 
TO THE QUEEN 
 
 LOYAL to the royal in thyself, 
 
 And loyal to thy land, as this to thee- 
 
 Bear witness, that rememberable day, 
 
 When, pale as yet, and fever-worn, the Prince 
 A\'lio scarce had pluck'd his flickering life again 5 
 
 From halfway down the shadow of the grave, 
 Past with thee thro' thy people and their love. 
 And London roU'd one tide of joy thro' all 
 Her trebled millions, and loud leagues of man 
 And welcome ! witness, too, the silent cry, 10 
 
 The prayer of many a race and creed, and clime — 
 Thunderless lightnings striking under sea 
 From sunset and sunrise of all thy realm, 
 And that true Xorth, whereof we lately heard 
 A strain to shame us "keep you to yourselves; 1-j 
 
 So loyal is too costly ! friends — your love 
 Is but a burthen : loose the bond, and go." 
 Is this the tone of empire ? here the faith 
 That made us rulers ? this, indeed, her voice 
 And meaning, whom the roar of Hougoumont 20 
 
 Left mightiest of all peoples under heaven? 
 What shock has fool'd her since, that she should speak 
 So feebly ? wealthier — wealthier — hour by hour ! 
 The voice of Britain, or a sinking land. 
 Some third-rate isle half-lost among her seas? 25 
 
 There rang her voice, when the full city peal'd 
 Thee and thy Prince ! The loyal to their crown 
 
 77 
 
78 TO THE QUEEN 
 
 Are loyal to their own far sons, who love 
 
 Our oeeaii-empire with her boundless homes 
 
 For ever-broadening England, and her throne 30 
 
 In our vast Orient, and one isle, one isle, 
 
 That knows not her own greatness : if she knows 
 
 And dreads it we are falFn. But thou, my Queen, 
 
 Xot for itself, but thro' thy living love 
 
 For one to whom I made it o'er his grave 35 
 
 Sacred, accept this old imperfect tale. 
 
 New-old, and shadowing Sense a war with Soul 
 
 *Ideal manhood closed in real man, 
 
 Eather than that gray king, whose name, a ghost, 
 
 Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak, 40 
 
 And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still ; or him 
 
 Of Geoffrey's book, or him of Malleor's, one 
 
 Touch'd by the adulterous finger of a time 
 
 That hover'd between war and wantonness, 
 
 And crownings and dethronements : take withal 45 
 
 Thy poet's blessing, and his trust that Heaven 
 
 Will blow the tempest in the distance back 
 
 From thine and ours : for some are scared, who mark. 
 
 Or wisely or unwisely, signs of storm, 
 
 AYaverings of every vane with every wind, 50 
 
 And wordy trucklings to the transient hour, 
 
 Aud fierce or careless looseners of the faith. 
 
 And Softness breeding scorn of simple life. 
 
 Or Cowardice, the child of lust for gold, 
 
 Or Labor, with a groan and not a voice, 55 
 
 Or Art with poisonous honey stol'n from France. 
 
 And that which knows, but careful for itself, 
 
 An^l that which knows not, ruling that which knows 
 
 To its own harm : the goal of this great world 
 
 * This line was added by Tennyson in 1891. 
 
TO THE QUEEN 79 
 
 Lies beyond sight : 5-et — if our slowly-grown 60 
 
 And crown'd Bepiiblic's crowning common-sense, 
 
 That saved her many times, not fail — their fears 
 
 Are morning shadows htiger than the shapes 
 
 That cast them, not those gloomier which forego 
 
 The darkness of that battle in the West, 65 
 
 Where all of high and holy dies awav. 
 
NOTES 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 Flos Regum Arthurus. Artlmr, the flower of kings. 
 
 Joseph of Exeter. A native of Exeter; one of the best mediseval 
 Latin poets in England. He went to the Holy Land on a crusade 
 in 1188. 
 
 1. His Memory. In memory of Albert, Prince Consort, the hus- 
 band of Queen Victoria, who died (1861), eight years before the 
 publication of the volume containing the following Idylls. Prince 
 Albert was a man of cultivated tastes and wide interests, and of 
 fine integrity of character. 
 
 12. Imminent war. The Trent Affair in 1861 seemed likely 
 to involve the United States and Great Britain in war. 
 
 37. To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace. The Prince Consort 
 was active in promoting the first International Exhibition in 1851 
 and was active in furthering the second (1862) when death came. 
 
 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 
 
 The Coming of Arthur, The Holy Grail, Pellcas and Ettarre, and 
 The Passing of Arthur were published in a volume which appeared 
 in 1869. 
 
 Section I. (lines 1-138). 
 
 For the old story, Arthur's early life and birth, Morte D'Arfhur 
 (Globe ed.) Bk. i., ch. 1-7, 19. For the struggle with the vassals, 
 i., 12-15. For Arthur's love for Guinevere, i., 16 and iii., 1-2. 
 For Arthur's sword and the Lady of the Lake, i., 23. Marriage of 
 Arthur, iii., 5. Arthur's strife with Rome, tribute, i., 21; v., 1-2. 
 
 1. Cameliard, a vague region in southeast England. 
 
 5. Many a petty king. Among these kings mentioned by Geoffrey 
 of Monmouth in his Chronicle are two referred to in Milton's 
 Comus, Brutus or " Brute " and two referred to by Shakespeare, — 
 
 81 
 
82 NOTES 
 
 Leir (Lear) and Cassibelaunus (Cassibelan of Cymbeline). Britain 
 at this time, as the context implies, was divided into many petty 
 tribal kingdoms or great clans with their chief or king. 
 
 8. The heathen host. The Angles and Saxons during the fifth 
 and sixth centuries made fierce incursions into Britain. 
 
 11. The beast. The beast is used by Tennyson to represent 
 the lower, sensual, brutish parts of life, — barbarism and man's 
 animal nature. In like manner, music is to represent the spiritual 
 elements of culture and civilization, which Arthur would bring 
 into his kingdom. Camelot, where Arthur held court, is built 
 to music, because music represents the principle of harmony and 
 beauty; it is a symbol, after the beast has been slain, of the per- 
 fect ordering of the forces of life in this spiritual city. See Gareth 
 and Lynelie, 234-274. 
 
 13. Aurelius. Geoffrey of Monmouth's Chronicle has for the 
 subject of its fifth book the reign of Aurelius, who lived about 
 440. He drove back the Saxon invaders. He was descended from 
 the last Roman general Constantine, who was elected emperor 
 of Britain, Gaul, and Spain. 
 
 14. Uther. See the sixth book of Geoffrey of Monmouth's 
 Chronicle for an account of King Uther. Uther had two golden 
 dragons made, one of which he used as a royal standard; hence 
 his title, Pen-Dragon, Dragon's head. It is referred to in the last 
 scene between Arthur and Guinevere, when Arthur bids the nuns 
 to care for the Queen: 
 
 " And while he spake to these his helm was lower' d, 
 To which for crest the golden dragon clung 
 Of Britain; so she did not see the face, 
 Which then was as an angel's, but she saw, 
 Wet with the mists and smitten by the lights, 
 The dragon of the great Pendragonshi]^ 
 Blaze, making all the night a stream of fire." 
 
 Guinevere, 590-596. 
 
 17. Puissance. Strength or power. 
 
 17. Table Round. This was an order of knighthood established 
 by King Arthur. In legendary history it was a table made by 
 Merlin for Uther Pendragon and given to Arthur, along with one 
 hundred knights, as a wedding gift from Guinevere's father. It 
 seated one hundred and fifty knights. Of the fifty remaining 
 
NOTES 83 
 
 places, about thirty were filled by Merlin and the other twenty 
 left open to those who might win a place by their knightliness. 
 The knights of the Round Table of whom Tennyson writes in the 
 Idylls are: 
 
 " Bedivere — ' First made and latest left of all the knights '; 
 Lancelot — ' His warrior whom he lov'd and honor'd most '; 
 Gawain — ' A reckless and irreverent knight was he ' ; 
 Modred — ' Struck for the throne, and striking found his doom '; 
 Gareth — ' Underwent the sooty yoke of kitchen vassalage ' ; 
 Kay — ' No mellow master of the meats and drinks ' ; 
 Geraint — ' A tributary prince of Devon,' married to Enid ; 
 Balin — ' The Savage; and Balan, his brother.' 
 Percivale — ' Whom Arthur and his knighthood call'd The Pure '; 
 Galahad — ' But I, Sir Arthur, saw the Holy Grail '; 
 Bors — ' A square-set man and honest,' of Lancelot's kin; 
 Pelleas — ' Of the Isles '; enamoured of Ettarre; 
 Tristram — 'Of the Woods'; slain by Mark, Isolt's husband; 
 also Ulfias, Brastias, Valence, and Sagramore." 
 
 — Rowe. 
 
 29. To human sucklings. Many legends refer to the suckling 
 of human children by wolves, of which Romulus and Remus are the 
 best known. Kipling's Mowgli is a case of human child running 
 with a pack of wolves. A few authenticated cases similar are 
 reported in India. In old superstition men were sometimes 
 turned into wolves retaining human intelligence. A man so 
 transformed became particularly cruel and was called a werwolf. 
 See Mrs. Josephine Peabody Marks's The Wolf of Gubbio; the 
 Wolf in the beginning symbolizes cruel, vengeful, fierce qualities. 
 
 34. Groan'd for the Roman legions. The Romans conquered 
 Britain in the first century b.c. and held dominion over it as a 
 province for four or five centuries. For is used in the sense of 
 on account of. 
 
 36. Urien. A king of North Wales " who made great war upon 
 Leodogrance." 
 
 43. Uther's son. For accounts of Arthur's birth, see 184-224, 
 366-401 of this Idyll. A popular tradition says that Arthur was 
 carried to the island of Avalon by his sister, Morgan le Fay (the 
 fairy queen), who held court there. " In the romance of Ogier 
 le Danois, when Ogier, who Morgue la Fay determines shall be her 
 
84 NOTES 
 
 lover, arrives at the palace of Avalon, he found there, besides 
 Morgue la Fay, her brother King Arthur and her brother Auberon, 
 the Oberon of fairy romances." 
 
 55-57. Note the effect of Guinevere upon Arthur, and Guine- 
 vere's failure to notice Arthur, and in 89-93 Arthur's dream of 
 what they two, as king and queen, might accomplish together. 
 
 72. Gorlols. Gorlois, duke of Tintagel, married Ygerne, who, 
 after his death, married Uther. Whether Arthur was son of 
 Gorlois, or son of Uther, or son of the knight Anton who was his 
 care-taker, was disputed by his barons and questioned by Leodo- 
 gran before giving his daughter to wed with Arthur. 
 
 96. Pitched pavilions. Tents pitched or set up. 
 
 99. High day. The planet Venus is sometimes seen at high 
 noon. 
 
 102. Shrilling unto blood. Stirring up the blood violently. 
 
 124. His warrior. Lancelot. 
 
 127. Liege. ■ The superior to whom one owes feudal allegiance 
 and service. 
 
 131-133. In the plot of the cycle of the Idylls of the King, this 
 oath sworn between Arthur and Lancelot is highly important. 
 It was because Lancelot was untrue to the perfect faith of the 
 king — in Lancelot's guilty love of Queen Guinevere — that the 
 dissolution of the Round Table was finally brought about. 
 
 In this first section, the narrative has accomplished certain 
 things: it has introduced, in the first place, Guinevere, " fairest 
 of all flesh on earth," and by giving her the place of prominence, 
 which the opening is, has indicated the important role she is to 
 play in this Idyll and indeed in the whole cycle of The Idylls of 
 the King. This is followed (5-45) by what is technically called 
 antecedent material, that is, material which explains how things 
 are prior to the beginning of the real action of the narrative. The 
 condition of the kingdom of Leodogran creates an occasion or a 
 motive for calling upon Arthur to help him; with Arthur's coming, 
 and catching sight of Guinevere, and desiring her hand, the 
 action of the Idyll is technically launched. Plot action depends 
 on the existence of two opposing forces, for obviously if the hero 
 got, without any difficulty, what he wanted, there would be no 
 story to tell, only instantaneous fulfillment. Here the opposing 
 force or obstacle to Arthur's desire is Leodogran, who may not, 
 if the doubt as to whether Arthur is really king is not dispelled, 
 
NOTES 85 
 
 give his daughter's hand to Arthur. Note how this obstacle 
 is introduced in 62-73. When Arthur makes his formal request 
 for Guinevere's hand, this obstacle at once comes to the front, 
 in the next section. 
 
 Section II. (139-445). 
 
 150. Merlin. The enchanter of Arthurian romance was of 
 miraculous birth, and an adept in magic, but finally came into 
 the toils of Vivien, through whom he met his death, as related in 
 the idyll bearing their names. 
 
 " The most famous man of all those times, 
 Merlin, who knew the range of all their arts. 
 Had built the king his havens, ships, and halls, 
 Was also Bard, and knew the starry heavens; 
 The people called him Wizard." 
 
 — Merlin and Viiien. 
 
 " And so Bleise wrote the battle, word for word- as MerHn told 
 him." 
 
 — Malory, I., 15. 
 
 160-161. Note the king's way of telling the chamberlain his 
 remarks are of little help. 
 
 167. Reason in the chase. Because the cuckoo throws out of a 
 nest the eggs of the owner and leaves its own eggs to be hatched 
 there instead. 
 
 186. Tintagil. In Cornwall, near the sea. Close by is the reputed 
 birthplace of Arthur, Tintagil castle. 
 
 208. And that same night. 
 
 " And that night the bard 
 Sang Arthur's glorious wars, and sang the King 
 As well-nigh more than man, and rail'd at these 
 Who call'd him the false son of Gorlois: 
 For there was no one knew from whence he came; 
 But after tempest, when the long wave broke 
 All down the thimdering shores of Bude and Bos, 
 There came a day as still as heaven, and then 
 They found a naked child upon the sands 
 Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea, 
 
86 NOTES 
 
 And that was Arthur; and they foster'd him 
 Till he by miracle was approven King." 
 
 —Guinevere, 283-294. 
 
 243. Gawain. In the old chronicle, Gawain stands equal to 
 Lancelot in honor. In Lancelot and Elaine his " courtesy with 
 a touch of traitor in it " is developed by Tennyson, 552-720; and 
 in The Passmg of Arthur, 30-49. In Guinevere is a spirited 
 description of Modred which should be read in full. The passage 
 begins, — 
 
 " For thus it chanced one morn when all the court, 
 Green-suited, but with plumes that mock'd the May, 
 Had been — their wont — a-maying and return'd, 
 That Modred still in green, all ear and eye, 
 Climb 'd to the high top of the garden- wall 
 To sp3' some secret scandal if he might. 
 
 Sir Lancelot passing by 
 Spied where he couch' d, and as the gardener's hand 
 Picks from the colewort a green caterpillar, 
 So from the high wall and the flowering grove 
 Of grasses Lancelot pluck' d him by the heel, 
 And cast him as a worm upon the way." 
 
 In the older romances of the Arthurian cycle, Gawain is the 
 beau ideal of courage and courtesy, but as time goes on, he suffers 
 deterioration at the hands of the writers and by Tennyson is changed 
 into a boaster and flippant intriguer. 
 
 251-252. Note the question Leodcgran puts to Bellicent and 
 note whether it is answered later. 
 
 256. Uther's peerage. The peers under Uther. 
 
 259-270. Note the effect on the knights of their vows to Arthur. 
 
 " I made them lay their hands in mine and swear 
 To reverence the king as if he were 
 Their conscience, and their conscience as their King. 
 To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 
 To ride abroad redressing human wrongs. 
 To speak no slander or to listen to it, 
 To honor his own word as if his God's, 
 To lead sweet lives in purest chastity. 
 
NOTES 87 
 
 To love one maiden only, cleave to her 
 
 And worship her by years of noble deeds. 
 
 Until they won her . . . 
 
 Not only to keep down the base in man, 
 
 But teach high thought and amiable words 
 
 And courtliness, and the desire of fame. 
 
 And love of truth, and all that makes a man." 
 
 — Guinevere, 464-480. 
 
 275. Three Fair Queens. See Introduction, xv, and The Passing 
 of Arthur, 365-380. 
 
 282. The Lady of the Lake. Symbolizes the church or religion. 
 See Malory, i., 22. 
 
 284. Samite. " From two Greek words meaning six and thread, 
 hexamitum, literally six threaded. (Cf. dimity, two threaded.) 
 Originally a heavy sillc material, each thread of which was sup- 
 posed to be twisted of six fibres. Later, rich heavy silk of any 
 kind." 
 
 288. Minster. Originally a monastery; afterwards the church 
 of a monastery; and since many such churches became later 
 cathedrals, the word became a general term for cathedral, — York 
 minster. 
 
 293. To walk the waters. " And in the fourth watch of the night 
 he came unto them, walking upon the sea. And when the dis- 
 ciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled." Matt. 
 xiv., 25-26. See Mark, vi., 49-50. 
 
 294. Excalihur. The sword given Arthur by the Lady of the 
 Lake, — an enchanted weapon. " For while ye have the scabbard 
 upon you, ye shall lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded." 
 Malory, i., 23. For an account of the way Arthur got the sword, 
 see The Passing of Arthur, 196. A hst of over thirty swords of great 
 heroes is given in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, under 
 " Sword." A few of the most notable are: 
 
 C«esar's Crocea Mors. 
 
 Charlemagne's La Joyeuse. 
 
 The Cid's Colada. 
 
 Lancelot's Aroundight. 
 
 Roland's Durindale. 
 
88 NOTES 
 
 Compare Longfellow's lines: — 
 
 " It is a sword of a good knight, ^ 
 
 Though homespun be his mail; 
 What matter if it be not hight 
 Joyeuse, Colada, Durindale, 
 Excalibur, or Aroundight." 
 
 298. Urim. Lights. " And thou shalt put on thy breast plate 
 of judgment the Urim and Thummim; and they shall be upon 
 Aaron's breast, when he goeth in before Jehovah." Exodus, 
 xxviii. 30. The Urim of the Jewish High Priest are supposed to 
 have been precious stones, but no one knows. The element of 
 vagueness is fitting here. 
 
 301. The oldest tongue. Tennyson has in mind Hebrew, but 
 no one knows what is the oldest tongue. 
 
 322. Note the characteristics ascribed to Modred. See The 
 Passing of Arthur, 151-170. 
 
 342. Heath. Heather. 
 
 362. Shrunk like a fairy changeling. In popular superstition 
 the fairies sometimes took one child and left another in its place. 
 The child left by the fairies was always ugly, wretched looking and 
 stupid; the child taken was always beautiful and full of promise. 
 
 " But only changeling out of Fairyland." 
 
 Gareth and Lynette, 200. 
 
 379. Ninth wave. The ninth wave was often spoken of by the 
 old Welsh poets as larger than the others, just as the tenth wave 
 was spoken of by the Romans as larger than the others. On 
 the beach near Edinburgh, De Quincey and John Wilson tried to 
 verify the superstition as to the greater height of the tenth wave; 
 needless to say, without success. 
 
 401. Riddling triplets. " The most ancient of the Cambrian 
 bards wrote in stanzas of three rhyming lines, or the Warrior's 
 Triplet. Hence are said to have sprung the Welsh Triads, which 
 contain the Cymric systems of theology, ethics, history, juris- 
 prudence, and bardism." — Rovje. The mysterious and baffling 
 character of these triads is usually emphasized. 
 
 421. Again to come. The belief in a " second coming " is found 
 in the legends of many heroes, e.g., Charlemagne and Barbarossa^ 
 See The Passing of Arthur, Notes, 1. 28. 
 
NOTES 89 
 
 This section is devoted to the obstacles which stand in the way 
 of Arthur's attaining the hand of Guinevere. Leodogran first 
 demands from his hoary chamberlain the story of Arthur's birth; 
 the answer is so vague that Leodogran next asks Arthur's envoys, 
 for whom Sir Bedivere speaks, recounting the various rumors of 
 Arthur's birth. Then follows the story of Queen Bellicent, 
 Arthur's sister. Leodogran's question to her is slightly different, — ■ 
 " A doubtful throne is ice on summer seas " — and concerns itself 
 with finding out whether Arthur, with his few knights, can " hold 
 his foemen down." This creates an occasion for Bellicent to tell 
 about the knights and the founding of the Round Table, as well 
 as to tell the story of Arthur's miraculous birth. Moreover, 
 she has the advantage of being a narrator nearer the events she 
 narrates than the others: she saw Arthur crowned, saw Merlin, 
 The Lady of the Lake, and the sword Excalibur. Tennyson 
 desired to get this material before the reader and invented this 
 device for introducing it. Bellicent had the story of Arthur's 
 birth direct from the lips of Bleys before he died. Leodogran, 
 still debating, has a dream which leads him to favorable decision 
 of Arthur's request, and the last obstacle is removed. 
 
 Section III (1. 446-518). 
 
 449-451. See the poem Lancelot and Queen Guinevere for what 
 is condensed into these two lines. See Malorj', iii., ch. 1-2. 
 
 460. While with May. A kind of hawthorn with a perfect 
 white bloom. 
 
 466. Doom. From an old Teutonic root, meaning that which 
 is put or set up; hence an enactment or decision. 
 
 481-501. Blow trumpet, etc. " It (this coronation song) em- 
 bodies the thought of the poem, grips the whole meaning of it 
 together. And its sound is the sound of martial triumph, of 
 victorious weapons in battle, and of knights in anns. We hear 
 in the carefully varied chorus, in the very rattle and shattering 
 of the vowels in the words, the beating of axe on helm and shield 
 on shield. Rugged, clanging, clashing lines — it is a splendid 
 effort of art. King Olaf might have sung it."— Stopford Brooke. 
 
 504. The slow-fading mistress. Weakened by invasion and in- 
 ternal strife, Rome was losing, by the fifth and sixth centuries, 
 her dominion over Britain. 
 
 514. For a space. Before sin came in to break the fellowship. 
 
90 NOTES 
 
 when the knights were all pledged " to live the strength and die 
 the lust," in obedience to the King. 
 
 517. Twelve great battles. Nennius, writing in the ninth century, 
 speaks of the twelve battles won by Arthur over the Saxon hordes. 
 See Lancelot and Elaine, 285-309. 
 
 The section concerns itself with the fulfillment of Arthur's desire, 
 his marriage with Guinevere, and the founding of his strong, united 
 kingdom. The close brings us back to the idea uppermost in the 
 beginning, the ravaged and disrupted state of the land, now to be 
 fused under Arthur into a kingdom of peace, of noble service, 
 and of ideal manhood, — his knights the pattern of triie courtesy. 
 
 THE HOLY GRAIL 
 
 For the old story read Le Morte d' Arthur. For Percivale, — Bk. 
 i., 1; X., 22; xi., 7-8, 11-14; xiv., 1-6, 10; xxvii., 9-11; for 
 Galahad,— Bk. xi., 1, 2, 6, 8; Bk. xiii., 1-5; 9-17; xviii., 1-14; 
 18-23; for Gawain, — Bk. xvi., 1-5; for Bors,^Bk. xvi., 6-17. 
 
 Section I. (lines 1-337). 
 
 7. Camelot. A legendary place in England where Arthur had 
 his palace, his court, and Round Table. It is variously placed in 
 Cornwall, in Somersetshire, and in or near Winchester in Hamp- 
 shire. At Queen's Camel (Somersetshire) certain large intrench- 
 ments there are called by the inhabitants the ruins of " King 
 Arthur's palace." 
 
 15. Branches into smoke. The pollen of the yew tree resembles 
 smoke. " There has been a great deal of smoke in the yew trees 
 this year. One day there was such a cloud that it seemed to be 
 a fire in the shrubbery." Lady Tennyson's Journal, April, 1868. 
 Lord Hallam Tennyson adds: " It was here that he (Tennyson) 
 wrote the speech of Ambrosius in The Holy Grail, with the lines about 
 this ' smoke '; that is, the pollen of the yew blown and scattered 
 by the wind." Cf. In Memoriam, xxxix: 
 
 " Old warder of these buried bones, 
 
 And answering now my random stroke 
 With fruitful cloud and living smoke, 
 Dark yew, that graspest at the stones." 
 Cf. Wordsworth's poem, Few; Trees. 
 
NOTES 91 
 
 21. Beyond the pale. Beyond the limits or the enclosure of the 
 monastery. 
 
 " To walk the cloister's studious pale." 
 
 — Milton, II Penseroso, 176. 
 
 28. Round Table. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 1. 17. 
 
 31. Holy Grail. The Holy Grail was the cup in which Joseph 
 of Arimathea caught the blood from the wounds of the crucified 
 Christ. The sight of the Holy Grail was said to cure men of their 
 wounds. For the chief romances of the Holy Grail, see Alfred 
 Nutt: Studies in the Legends of the Holy Grail, pp. 1-4. Among 
 the best known are: Perceval le Gallois ou Le Conte del Graal, 
 a French poem of 60,000 verses, of which 10,000 are by Chretien 
 de Troyes; Parzival, a German poem by Wolfram von Eschen- 
 bach, 1.3th century; Roman des Diverses Quetes de San Graal, 
 by Walter Mapes. See also The High History of the Holy Grail, 
 Temple Classics Series. Dent and Co., London. 
 
 38. Green in Heaven's eyes. We are quick with life, quick 
 in response to things that relate to heaven, but dead to other things. 
 
 46. The cup. " And he took the cup and gave thanks, and gave 
 it to them, saying. Drink ye all of it." Matt, xxvi, 27. 
 
 48. Arojnat. A poetic form for Arimathea in Palestine; prob- 
 ably the modern city of Ramleh. 
 
 49. 'Day of darkness. When Jesus was crucified there was dark- 
 ness over the land. Matt, xxvii, 50. 
 
 50. Moriah. A hill in Jerusalem; the site of Solomon's temple. 
 
 51. Arimathvean Joseph. " When the even was come, there came 
 a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was 
 Jesus' disciple. He went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus." 
 Matt, xxvii, 53-68. 
 
 Cf. " Yet true it is, that long before that day 
 Hither came Joseph of Arimathy, 
 Who brought with him the holy grayle, they say, 
 And preacht the truth." 
 
 — Spenser: Faerie Queene. 
 
 " Next holy Joseph came . . . 
 The Saviour of mankind in sepulchre that laid; 
 That to the Britons was the apostle." 
 
 — Drayton. 
 
92 NOTES 
 
 52. Glastonbury. A town in Somersetshire. The Abbey of 
 Glastonbury is said to have been founded by Joseph of Arimathea, 
 and became the largest and wealthiest outside Westminster. In 
 439 St. Patrick came to Glastonbury, founded a monastery, lived 
 many years there and died there. King Arthur, according to some 
 legends, is buried there. Extensive ruins of a much later Abbey, 
 destroyed by fire in the reign of Henry II., still exist and are 
 among the most beautiful in England. Here Guinevere was buried 
 by the side of Arthur; Sir Lancelot swooned for sorrow when she 
 was " put in the earth." 
 
 52. Winlerthorn. Joseph, according to the legend, put into the 
 ground at Glastonbury his staff of thorn, which blossoms on Christ- 
 mas eve. 
 
 [Here] " trees in winter bloom and bear their summer's green." 
 
 — Drayton. 
 
 61. Arviragus. A mythical younger son of Cymbeline, King of 
 Britain, in the first century a.d. 
 
 63. Wattles. Twigs or branches interlaced into a frame-work. 
 
 70. Than sister. " Percivale's sister is admirably drawn. All 
 the main characteristics of the female mystic saint are embodied 
 in her; and the picture is made by scattered touches given with 
 apparent lightness throughout the story." — Stopford Brooke. 
 
 Cf. " And the house midway hanging, see 
 That saw Saint Catherine bodily. 
 Felt on its floors her sweet feet move. 
 And the live light of fiery love 
 Burn from her beautiful strange face." 
 
 Swinburne: Siena. 
 
 Cf. Tennyson's St. Agnes' Eve and Crashaw's Ode to Saint 
 Theresa for similar studies. 
 
 135. Galahad. He was the purest of the knights. His shield, 
 which came indirectly from Joseph of Arimathea, was snow white, 
 with a cross in red of Joseph's blood. He saw the Holy Grail. 
 " A great multitude of angels bear his soul up to heaven "; . . 
 — Malory: History of Prince Arthur, III, 101-103. " Sithence was 
 never no man that could say he had seen the sangreal." — 
 Malory. 
 
 135. In white armour. The Grail hero usualh^ wears red in 
 mediaeval romance. Galahad is painted with red attire in the 
 Abbey pictures. 
 
NOTES 93 
 
 138. In so young youth. The romances make him only fifteen. 
 
 168. Merlin. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 1. 150. 
 
 172. Siege perilous. A seat of the Round Table reserved for 
 the knight who should be successful in the quest of the Holy Grail; 
 no other person could sit in it without peril, without the earth's 
 swallowing him up. 
 
 202. Gmcain. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 1. 243. In 
 one version, Quest of the Sangreal, the knights draw lots for the 
 directions they shall take: 
 
 " Sir Launcelot drew the north, that fell domain, 
 Where fleshly man must brook the airy fiend, .... 
 The south fell softly to Sir Perceval's hand: 
 Some shadowy angel breathed a silent sign: 
 That so that blameless man, that courteous knight, 
 Might mount and mingle with the happy host. 
 Of God's white army in their native land! 
 But hark the greeting! ' Tristan for the West! ' 
 Sir Galahad holds the Orient arrow's name: 
 His chosen hand unbars the gate of day! 
 O! blessed East! 'mid visions such as thine, 
 'Twere well to grasp the Sangraal and die." 
 Cf. also Lowell's The Vision of Sir Launfal: 
 "My golden spurs now bring to me. 
 
 And bring to me my richest mail, 
 
 For to-morrow I go over land and sea 
 
 In search of the Holy Grail; 
 
 Shall never a bed for me be spread. 
 
 Nor shall a pillow be under my head. 
 
 Till I begin my vow to keep; 
 
 Here on the rushes will I sleep. 
 
 And perchance there may come a vision true 
 
 Ere day create the world anew." 
 
 209. Crying on help. Gave the cry for help. 
 228. The dim rich city. Cf.: 
 
 ' They sat and communed of things past : what state 
 King Arthur, yet unwarred upon by fate. 
 Held high in hall at Camelot, like one 
 Whose lordly life was as the mounting sun 
 
94 NOTES 
 
 That climbs and pauses on the point of noon, 
 Sovereign." 
 
 — Swinburne: Tristram of Lyonesse. 
 
 250. Twelve great battles. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 
 1. 517. 
 
 253. Excalibur. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 1. 294. 
 
 263. The golden dragon. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 
 1. 14. 
 
 276. Had I been here. Explain Arthur's attitude. 
 
 287. Wilderness to see. " And as these went their way, Jesus 
 began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went 
 ye out into the wilderness to behold? a reed shaken with the 
 wind? "—Matt, xi, 7. 
 
 300. Taliessin. Son of St. Henwig, chief of the bards of the 
 West, in the time of King Arthur. The Mabinogian gives the 
 legends concerning him. Some of his poems are still in existence. 
 
 " That Taliessin, once which made the rivers dance 
 And in his rapture raised the mountains from their trance. 
 Shall tremble in my verse." 
 
 — Drayton. 
 
 310. Heads of violence. Sudden insurrections. 
 
 312. Strong White Horse. The white horse was the Saxon symbol. 
 
 " The Lords of the White Horse 
 Heathen, the herd by Hengist left." 
 
 — Guinevere, 15. 
 
 This section introduces Sir Percivale, and in the first seven lines 
 gives in brief his life-history, — his leaving the Round Table for a 
 monastery and his death there. Thus the author hints by elimina- 
 ting the element of suspense, that the interest centers not primarily 
 in Percivale, but in something with which he was connected — the 
 Holy Grail, the title of the Idyll. , The monk Ambrosius is a device 
 to draw from Percivale, by well-directed questions, the fact of the 
 existence of the Holy Grail, its coming to England, its being seen 
 by a holy nun, as a reward of her fasting, prayers, and pure life, 
 and, in consequence, the desire of others to see this wonder, and 
 their vows to go in search of it. The return of the king and his 
 dark warning and disapproval of such vows for most of the knights, 
 
NOTES 95 
 
 give the first hint of trouble. Note 293-294 especially. The 
 section closes with the • tourney of the knights on the eve of 
 departure. 
 
 Section II. (lines 338-539). 
 
 350. Wyvern. In heraldry a wyvern is a monster resembling 
 a dragon. 
 
 358. The Gate of the three Queens: Cf. Gareth and Lynette: 
 
 " And there was no gate like it under heaven. 
 For barefoot on the keystone, which was lined 
 And rippled like an ever-fleeting wave, 
 The Lady of the Lake stood : all her dress 
 Wept from her sides as water flowing away; 
 But like the cross her great and goodly arms 
 Stretch'd under all the cornice and upheld: 
 And drops of water fell from either hand; 
 And down from one a sword was hung, from one 
 A censer, ei^^her worn with wind and storm; 
 And o'er her breast floated the sacred fish; 
 And in the space to left of her, and right, 
 Were Arthur's wars in weird devices done, 
 New things and old co-twisted, as if Time 
 Were nothing, so inveterately, that men 
 Were giddy gazing there; and over all 
 High on the top were those three Queens, the friends 
 Of Arthur, who should help him at his need." 
 
 361-457. Both Malory and Tennyson make the cause of failure 
 of Percivale's quest his lack of humility. 
 
 370-378. " Percivale starts full of joy in his own bravery, but, 
 as he goes, Arthur's warning that his knights in this quest are 
 following wandering fires occurs to him, and he drops down into 
 despair. Then he sees a series of visions. A burning thirst con- 
 sumes him; it is the symbol of the thirst for union with God." — 
 Brooke, p. 333. 
 
 380-390. " It is the symbol of the thirsty soul trying to find 
 in the beauty of nature its true home, and failing." — Ibid., p. 334. 
 
 401-420. " It is the symbol of the soul seeking to be satisfied 
 with the glory of the earth, chiefly to be attained in war." — Ibid. 
 
 421-450. "It is the symbol of the soul seeking to slake its thirst 
 
96 . NOTES 
 
 by popular applause, and especially in the fame of a ruler of men, 
 but all is thirst and desolation as before." — Ibid. 
 
 453. Gray-haired wisdom of the East. Cf. Matt, ii., 1-9. 
 
 " Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, of Judea, in the days 
 of Herod the king, behold there came wise men from the east to 
 Jerusalem, . . . and lo, the star which they saw in the east, went 
 before them till it came and stood over where the young child was." 
 
 462. Sacring of the 7nass. The consecration of the host in the 
 mass, when the bread and wine according to the view of the 
 Roman church, become transformed into the body and blood of 
 Christ. 
 
 509. Sons of God. " When the morning stars sang together, 
 and all the sons of God shouted for joy." — Job xxxviii., 7. 
 
 518-519. Boat . . . wings. Cf. the boat approaching over the 
 mystic sea, in Dante's Purgatorio, with its holy pilot: 
 
 " Appeared to me ... a light along the sea coming so swiftly 
 that no flight equals its motion. . . . Again I saw it brighter 
 become and larger. Then on each side of it appeared to me a 
 something, I know not what, white, and beneath, little by little, 
 another came forth from it. My Master still said not a \/ord, 
 until the first white things showed themselves wings; then, when 
 he clearly recognized the pilot, he cried out, ' Mind, mind thou 
 bend thy knees. Lo, the Angel of God : fold thy hands ' . . . . See 
 how he scorns human means, so that he wills not oar, or other 
 sail than his own wings between such distant shores." — Norton's 
 Dante, Pur., ii. 
 
 526-530. The spiritual city. Reminiscent of the verse, — " And 
 he carried me away in the spirit to a mountain great and high, 
 and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven 
 from God." — Revelations, xxi., 10. Cf. the celestial city in Para- 
 dise Lost: 
 
 " Far off the empyreal heaven, extended wide 
 In circuit, undetermined square or round, 
 With opal towers and battlements adorn'd 
 Of living sapphire." 
 
 This section shows Percivale on his quest, each thing as it comes 
 to him turning into ashes, — the material delight of the brook and 
 the apples, the pleasantness of domestic love, the plowman, the 
 figure in golden armor, the old man in the ruins. For Percivale 
 
NOTES 97 
 
 has been thinking of himself and his prowess, as the hermit points 
 out, and so has been denied sight of the Grail, which must be sought 
 in the spirit of true humility. Galahad, possessing humility, sees 
 the Grail at the very moment that Percivale looking sees naught; 
 but Galahad gives Percivale promise of the vision to come. The 
 account of the vision (489-5.39), of that which is mystical in 
 essence, is given in large, vague, splendid imagery, befitting the 
 majesty of theidea^ — a series of pictures intentionally indeterminate. 
 
 Section III. (lines .540-916). 
 
 545-563. Tennyson presents an interesting contrast here in 
 the monk Ambrosius, who does not follow glamorous visions, but 
 spends a life of toil and piety in the care of the people in his village. 
 It has a rich homely charm — this description of a small village and 
 its people and its priest. 
 
 545. Breviary. A book containing the prayers or offices of the 
 church to be read at certain times. The Roman breviary is made 
 up largely of the Psalms, passages of the Old and the New Testa- 
 ment and the Christian Fathers, hymns, anthems, all in Latin, 
 arranged for the various occasipns and festivities of the church. 
 
 547. Thorpe. Village. 
 
 558. Market-cross. A cross set up where a market is held. In 
 England and Scotland most market-towns had a market cross. 
 
 " Proclaim'd at market-crosses, read in churches." 
 
 — / Henry iv., v, 1, 73. 
 
 569. Eft. A newt. 
 
 612. Yule. Refers to the Yule log which is burned at Christmas. 
 The poor man must have his fire at Christmas even if he goes 
 without it the rest of the year; or have small ones, is the thought 
 of the context here. 
 
 646. His former madness. See Malory, xi., 9, for an account 
 of the madness during two years which fell upon Lancelot when 
 he thought Guinevere angry with him on the supposition that he 
 loved Elaine, daughter of King Pelles (not Elaine of Astolat). 
 The Holy Grail cured Lancelot of his madness. 
 
 661. Paynim amid their circles. Refers to such circles as Stone- 
 henge, built by Druids, who were pagans. 
 
 667. What other fire than he. Refers to the sun, worshipped by 
 the Druids. 
 
98 NOTES 
 
 681. The seven clear stars. The seven stars of the Great Bear, 
 commonly called " the dipper." 
 
 715-716. Basilisks, cockatrice, talhot. Heraldic devices. The 
 basiUsk is a fabulous creature, in heraldry represented as an animal 
 resembling a cockatrice, with its tail terminating in a dragon's 
 head. Its breath and even its look were supposed to be fatal. 
 The cockatrice is a fabulous monster reputed to be hatched by a 
 serpent from a cock's egg. In heraldry it is represented as having 
 the head, legs, and feet of a cock, a serpent's body or tail, and a 
 dragon's wings. Talbot is a kind of dog; in heraldry represented 
 as a mastiff. 
 
 759. Of Cana. A reference to the miracle of turning water into 
 wine at a marriage feast at Cana of Galilee. See John ii., 9-11. 
 
 810. Carbcnek. " Then said they all that he was in the castle 
 of Carbonek." — Malory, xvii., 16. This refers to Lancelot's 
 inquiry as to where he was, after having lain four and twenty 
 days as if dead. 
 
 844. PalVd in crimson samite. Compare the different appear- 
 ances and forms of the Holy Grail: Percivale's sister, 11. 116-118. 
 Galahad, 11. 466, 473-476; Percivale, 1. 521; Bors, 11. 690-692, 
 
 The material of this section is called forth by the question of 
 Ambrosius as to what else besides phantoms Percivale saw on his 
 quest. Its function is to round out the Idyll by telling what 
 happened to the other knights — to Sir Bors, who saw the Grail; to 
 Gawain, who did not see it; to Lancelot, who for his sin suffered 
 madness and hardship, and saw the Holy ^G rail, if he saw it, veiled 
 and covered. That Percivale met more than phantoms, that 
 he met and girded himself against the temptation of the princess 
 and her people who wished him to stay and be their ruler is told 
 briefly. The inner cogency of the vow, as a safeguard against 
 temptation, is twice referred to in this connection. The Idyll closes 
 by recurring to the note of warning spoken by Arthur in the 
 beginning, now justified, — for to only a few of the knights has the 
 vision been granted; the others have followed wandering fires, 
 and have missed the chance to do useful work at home, where 
 they were needed. The structure of this Idyll is very simple, — 
 an account of the Holy Grail and the knights who went to seek 
 it, and what happened to them, developed by means of leading 
 questions asked by the monk of the chief narrator. 
 
NOTES 99 
 
 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 
 For the old story read Le Morte d' Arthur, Bk. xxi., 1-7. 
 Section I. (1-239). 
 
 "The first Idyll and the last, I have heard Mr. Tennyson say, are 
 intentionally more archaic than the others." — Mrs. A. T. Ritchie. 
 This is seen in the use of fixed epithets, as "the bold Sir Bedi- 
 vere," "clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful "; in the mode 
 of introducing speeches, as "Then spake the King"; "To him 
 replied the bold Sir Bedivere"; and in archaic forms of words. 
 
 26. The beast. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 11. 
 
 28. / pass, but shall not die. The belief in a "second coming" 
 (see 450) is found in the legends of many heroes, e.g., Charlemagne 
 and Barbarossa. Malory writes (xxi, 7) : 
 
 "Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur 
 is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another 
 place; and men say that he shall come again, and he shall win 
 the holy cross. I will not say it shall be so, but rather I will say, 
 here in this world he changed his life. But many men say that 
 there is written upon his tomb this verse: Hie jacet Arthurus rex, 
 quondam Rex que futurus." 
 
 30. Gawain. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 243, There is, 
 perhaps, a poetical irony in making Gawain, who is represented 
 by Tennyson as always seeking the pleasant paths of life, proclaim: 
 
 "HoUow, hollow, all delight!" 
 
 35. An isle of rest. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 43. 
 
 59. Modred. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 243. For a 
 full characterization of him and his perfidy, see Guinevere, 24flf. 
 
 77. One lying in the dust at Almesbury. Guinevere had fled to 
 the nuns of the abbey of Almesbury after Modred's spreading 
 of the scandal. Almesbury is near Salisbury. The ruins of the 
 abbey are still pointed out. 
 
 81. Lyonnesse. A mythical region, supposed to be the exten- 
 sion of Cornwall, now covered by forty fathoms of water, between 
 Land's End and the Scilly Isles. 
 
 95. This last dim battle in the west should be compared with 
 
100 NOTES 
 
 the joyous song of the knights at the close of The Coming of 
 Arthur, 481-501. 
 
 170. With this hne the Morte d' Arthur, written in 1842, begins. 
 
 178. Strait, a narrow strip of land. 
 
 199. Samite. See The Passing of Arthur, Notes, 284. 
 
 206. Lightly, quickly, nimbly. 
 
 The passage in Mallory is as follows: 
 
 "'Therefore,' said Arthur, 'take thou my good sword Excalibur, 
 and go with it to yonder water-side. And when thou comest there, 
 I charge thee throw my sword in that water and come again and 
 tell me what thou there seest.' 'My lord,' said Bedivere, 'your 
 commandment shall be done, and lightly will I bring you word 
 again.' So Sir Bedivere departed, and by the way he held that 
 noble sword, that the pommel and the haft was all of precious 
 stones, and then he said to himself, 'If I throw this rich sword in 
 the water, thereof shall never come good, but harm and loss.' 
 And then Sir Bedivere hid Excalibur under a tree." 
 
 "In the poem the bare statement, 'So Sir Bedivere departed,' 
 is expanded into a beautiful picture. He steps 
 
 'Athwart the place of tombs. 
 Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men. 
 Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang 
 Shrill, chill.' 
 
 "We see nim passing by 'zig-zag paths, and juts of pointed 
 rock,' till he comes to 'the shining levels of the lake.' The line 
 which simply tells how 'the pommel and the haft were of precious 
 stone' reappears as: 
 
 'AH the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, 
 Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work 
 Of subtlest jewellery;' 
 
 and the effect is still more heightened by their being seen in the 
 light 'of the winter moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud.' 
 The 'under a tree' becomes 
 
 ' The many-knotted water-flags 
 That whistled stiff and dry about the marge.' 
 
NOTES 101 
 
 A few lines further on, the sentence 'I saw nothing but the waters 
 wap and the waves wan,' is transmuted into two hues containing 
 two of the finest onomatopoeic effects in our language: 
 
 'I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 
 And the wild water lapping on the crag.'" 
 — Churton Collins: "Illustrations of Tennyson," p. 154. 
 
 224. Haft, handle. 
 
 225. Jacinth = hyacinth. Among the ancients, a gem supposed 
 to be sapphire. In modern usage a gem of reddish orange color. 
 Some varieties of garnet and topaz also receive this name (Century 
 Dictionary). 
 
 226. Subtlest jewellery, finely or exquisitely wrought in intricate 
 design. 
 
 Section II. (240-469). 
 
 248. Lief, beloved. 
 
 301-315. Compare in detail Tennyson's and Malory's version 
 of this incident, and note what Tennyson has added. 
 
 "Then Sir Bedivere departed and went to the sword, and lightly 
 took it up and went to the water-side, and then he bound the 
 girdle about the hilts, and then he threw the sword as far into the 
 water as he might, and there came an arm and a hand above the 
 water, and met it and caught it, and so shook it thrice and bran- 
 ished, and then vanished away the hand with the sword in the 
 water." 
 
 349-360. Notice the description in these lines. 
 
 366. Three Queens. See The Coming of Arthur, 270-278. 
 
 401. See Matthew ii. 2, 3. 
 
 411. Malory's version is: "Comfort thyself," said the king, "and 
 do as well as thou may est, for in me is no trust to trust in. For 
 I will enter the vale of Avilion to heal me of my grievous wound; 
 and if thou hear never more of me, pray for my soul." 
 
 423. The idea of the earth being bound to heaven by chains 
 of gold is to be found in Homer, Iliad, viii., 256. It occurs also 
 in Plato's Thcetetus, ch. iii., 10; and in Bacon's Advancement of 
 Learning. 
 
 435. The notion that the swan sings just before its death is 
 of wide popular belief, but is in reality without foundation. "I 
 will play the swan and die in music" {Othello). Mr. Nichol says 
 
102 NOTES 
 
 of the Cygnus musicus, "Its note resembles the tones of a violin, 
 though somewhat higher. Each note occurs after a long interval. 
 The music presages a thaw in Iceland, and hence one of its greatest 
 charms." 
 
 445. See The Coming of Arthur, 140. 
 
 455. See The Coming of Arthur, 275. 
 
 TO THE QUEEN 
 
 The edition of 1872-73 of the Poems had this dedication inserted. 
 
 3. That rememorable day. Refers to the great public Thanks- 
 giving to celebrate the recovery of the Prince of Wales (Edward 
 VII) from a critical case of typhoid fever. 
 
 12. Thunderless lightnings. Messages by cable. 
 
 14. That true North. Refers to the question of the separation 
 of Canada from the Empire, then under discussion. 
 
 20. Hougoumont. A chateau on the battlefield of Waterloo, 
 hence figuratively Waterloo. 
 
 56. Stol'n from France. Tennyson was out of sympathy with 
 the extremes of French art, which he regarded as pernicious. 
 
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