Idylls of the King is one of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's most famous works, and has influenced many modern treatments of the Arthurian legends and myths. Components of the epic poem were worked upon as early as 1842, and published between 1859 and 1885.

These quotations are derived primarily from the e-texts of Project Gutenberg as compared with the Oxford University Press edition of Tennyson: Poems and Plays, as well as various 19th and 20th century editions of his poetry.

Dedication

• We have lost him: he is gone:
  We know him now: all narrow jealousies
  Are silent; and we see him as he moved,
  How modest, kindly, all-accomplished, wise,
  With what sublime repression of himself,
  And in what limits, and how tenderly;
  Not swaying to this faction or to that;
  Not making his high place the lawless perch
  Of winged ambitions, nor a vantage-ground
  For pleasure; but through all this tract of years
  Wearing the white flower of a blameless life,
  Before a thousand peering littlenesses,
  In that fierce light which beats upon a throne,
  And blackens every blot

The Coming of Arthur

• For many a petty king ere Arthur came
  Ruled in this isle, and ever waging war
  Each upon other, wasted all the land;
  And still from time to time the heathen host
  Swarmed overseas, and harried what was left.

• And so there grew great tracts of wilderness,
  Wherein the beast was ever more and more,
  But man was less and less, till Arthur came.

• 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,
  But rode a simple knight among his knights,
  And many of these in richer arms than he,
  She saw him not, or marked not, if she saw,
  One among many, though his face was bare.

• What happiness to reign a lonely king,
  Vext — O ye stars that shudder over me,
  O earth that soundest hollow under me,
  Vext with waste dreams? for saving I be joined
  To her that is the fairest under heaven,
  I seem as nothing in the mighty world,
  And cannot will my will, nor work my work
  Wholly, nor make myself in mine own realm
  Victor and lord. But were I joined with her,
  Then might we live together as one life,
  And reigning with one will in everything
  Have power on this dark land to lighten it,
  And power on this dead world to make it live.

• Man's word is God in man:
  Let chance what will, I trust thee to the death.

• Sir, there be many rumours 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:
  And there be those who deem him more than man,
  And dream he dropt from heaven

• When he spake and cheered his Table Round
  With large, divine, and comfortable words,
  Beyond my tongue to tell thee — I beheld
  From eye to eye through all their Order flash
  A momentary likeness of the King.

• I saw mage Merlin, whose vast wit
  And hundred winters are but as the hands
  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,
  Whereby to drive the heathen out

• She dwells
  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
  That rose from out the bosom of the lake,
  And Arthur rowed across and took it — rich
  With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt,
  Bewildering heart and eye — the blade so bright
  That men are blinded by it — on one side,
  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 counselled him,
  "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.

• Descending through the dismal night — a night
  In which the bounds of heaven and earth were lost

• 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
  Roaring, 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 stoopt and caught the babe, and cried "The King!
  Here is an heir for Uther!"

• Rain, 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.
  Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow on the lea!
  And truth is this to me, and that to thee;
  And truth or clothed or naked let it be.
  Rain, 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.

• So Merlin riddling angered me; but thou
  Fear not to give this King thy only child,
  Guinevere: so great bards of him will sing
  Hereafter;

• Merlin in our time
  Hath spoken also, not in jest, and sworn
  Though men may wound him that he will not die,
  But pass, again to come; and then or now
  Utterly smite the heathen underfoot,
  Till these and all men hail him for their king.

• Behold, thy doom is mine.
  Let chance what will, I love thee to the death!

• 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.

• 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
  To drive the heathen from your 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 through that strength the King
  Drew in the petty princedoms under him,
  Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame
  The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reigned.

Gareth and Lynette

• Who should be King save him who makes us free?

• The thrall in person may be free in soul

• 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: …
  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.

• We be tillers of the soil,
  Who leaving share in furrow come to see
  The glories of our King: but these, my men,
  (Your city moved so weirdly in the mist)
  Doubt if the King be King at all, or come
  From Fairyland; and whether this be built
  By magic, and by fairy Kings and Queens;
  Or whether there be any city at all,
  Or all a vision: and this music now
  Hath scared them both, but tell thou these the truth.

• Son, I have seen the good ship sail
  Keel upward, and mast downward, in the heavens,
  And solid turrets topsy-turvy in air:
  And here is truth; but an it please thee not,
  Take thou the truth as thou hast told it me.
  For truly as thou sayest, a Fairy King
  And Fairy Queens have built the city, son…
  And, as thou sayest, it is enchanted, son,
  For there is nothing in it as it seems
  Saving the King; though some there be that hold
  The King a shadow, and the city real:
  Yet take thou heed of him, for, so thou pass
  Beneath this archway, then wilt thou become
  A thrall to his enchantments, for the King
  Will bind thee by such vows, as is a shame
  A man should not be bound by, yet the which
  No man can keep; but, so thou dread to swear,
  Pass not beneath this gateway, but abide
  Without, among the cattle of the field.
  For an ye heard a music, like enow
  They are building still, seeing the city is built
  To music, therefore never built at all,
  And therefore built for ever.

• Know ye not then the Riddling of the Bards?
  Confusion, and illusion, and relation,
  Elusion, and occasion, and evasion?
  I mock thee not but as thou mockest me,
  And all that see thee, for thou art not who
  Thou seemest, but I know thee who thou art.
  And now thou goest up to mock the King,
  Who cannot brook the shadow of any lie.

• Our one white lie sits like a little ghost
  Here on the threshold of our enterprise.

• Full pardon, but I follow up the quest,
  Despite of Day and Night and Death and Hell.

• Say thou thy say, and I will do my deed.

• Damsel, whether knave or knight,
  Far liefer had I fight a score of times
  Than hear thee so missay me and revile.
  Fair words were best for him who fights for thee

• Ay, knave, because thou strikest as a knight,
  Being but knave, I hate thee all the more.

  "Fair damsel, you should worship me the more,
  That, being but knave, I throw thine enemies."

• O damsel, be you wise
  To call him shamed, who is but overthrown?
  Thrown have I been, nor once, but many a time.
  Victor from vanquished issues at the last,
  And overthrower from being overthrown.

• Well hast thou done; for all the stream is freed,
  And thou hast wreaked his justice on his foes,
  And when reviled, hast answered graciously,
  And makest merry when overthrown. Prince, Knight
  Hail, Knight and Prince, and of our Table Round!

• I curse the tongue that all through yesterday
  Reviled thee, and hath wrought on Lancelot now
  To lend thee horse and shield: wonders ye have done;
  Miracles ye cannot

• Here be rules. I know but one —
  To dash against mine enemy and win.

• High on a nightblack horse, in nightblack arms,
  With white breast-bone, and barren ribs of Death,
  And crowned with fleshless laughter — some ten steps —
  In the half-light — through the dim dawn — advanced
  The monster, and then paused, and spake no word.

• "Fool, for thou hast, men say, the strength of ten,
  Canst thou not trust the limbs thy God hath given,
  But must, to make the terror of thee more,
  Trick thyself out in ghastly imageries
  Of that which Life hath done with, and the clod,
  Less dull than thou, will hide with mantling flowers
  As if for pity?" But he spake no word;
  Which set the horror higher: a maiden swooned;
  The Lady Lyonors wrung her hands and wept,
  As doomed to be the bride of Night and Death;
  Sir Gareth's head prickled beneath his helm;
  And even Sir Lancelot through his warm blood felt
  Ice strike, and all that marked him were aghast.

• At once Sir Lancelot's charger fiercely neighed,
  And Death's dark war-horse bounded forward with him.
  Then those that did not blink the terror, saw
  That Death was cast to ground, and slowly rose.

• "My fair child,
  What madness made thee challenge the chief knight
  Of Arthur's hall?" "Fair Sir, they bad me do it.
  They hate the King, and Lancelot, the King's friend,
  They hoped to slay him somewhere on the stream,
  They never dreamed the passes could be past."

The Marriage of Geraint

• The Prince's blood spirted upon the scarf,
  Dyeing it; and his quick, instinctive hand
  Caught at the hilt, as to abolish him:
  But he, from his exceeding manfulness
  And pure nobility of temperament,
  Wroth to be wroth at such a worm, refrained
  From even a word, and so returning said:
  "I will avenge this insult, noble Queen,
  Done in your maiden's person to yourself:
  And I will track this vermin to their earths"

• It chanced the song that Enid sang was one
  Of Fortune and her wheel, and Enid sang:

  "Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud;
  Turn thy wild wheel through sunshine, storm, and cloud;
  Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

  Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown;
  With that wild wheel we go not up or down;
  Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great."

Geraint and Enid

• O purblind race of miserable men,
  How many among us at this very hour
  Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves,
  By taking true for false, or false for true;
  Here, through the feeble twilight of this world
  Groping, how many, until we pass and reach
  That other, where we see as we are seen!

• Yea, my lord, I know
  Your wish, and would obey; but riding first,
  I hear the violent threats you do not hear,
  I see the danger which you cannot see:
  Then not to give you warning, that seems hard;
  Almost beyond me: yet I would obey.

• She was deaf
  To blessing or to cursing save from one.

• So died Earl Doorm by him he counted dead.
  And all the men and women in the hall
  Rose when they saw the dead man rise, and fled
  Yelling as from a spectre, and the two
  Were left alone together

• Enid, I have used you worse than that dead man;
  Done you more wrong: we both have undergone
  That trouble which has left me thrice your own:
  Henceforward I will rather die than doubt.
  And here I lay this penance on myself,
  Not, though mine own ears heard you yestermorn —
  You thought me sleeping, but I heard you say,
  I heard you say, that you were no true wife:
  I swear I will not ask your meaning in it:
  I do believe yourself against yourself,
  And will henceforward rather die than doubt.

• Once, when I was up so high in pride
  That I was halfway down the slope to Hell,
  By overthrowing me you threw me higher.

• This work of his is great and wonderful.
  His very face with change of heart is changed.
  The world will not believe a man repents:
  And this wise world of ours is mainly right.
  Full seldom doth a man repent, or use
  Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch
  Of blood and custom wholly out of him,
  And make all clean, and plant himself afresh.
  Edyrn has done it, weeding all his heart
  As I will weed this land before I go.

• The blameless King went forth and cast his eyes
  On each of all whom Uther left in charge
  Long since, to guard the justice of the King:
  He looked and found them wanting; and as now
  Men weed the white horse on the Berkshire hills
  To keep him bright and clean as heretofore,
  He rooted out the slothful officer
  Or guilty, which for bribe had winked at wrong,
  And in their chairs set up a stronger race
  With hearts and hands, and sent a thousand men
  To till the wastes, and moving everywhere
  Cleared the dark places and let in the law,
  And broke the bandit holds and cleansed the land.

Balin and Balan

• To dream
  That any of these would wrong thee, wrongs thyself.
  Witness their flowery welcome. Bound are they
  To speak no evil. Truly save for fears,
  My fears for thee, so rich a fellowship
  Would make me wholly blest: thou one of them,
  Be one indeed: consider them, and all
  Their bearing in their common bond of love,
  No more of hatred than in Heaven itself,
  No more of jealousy than in Paradise.

• The fire of Heaven has killed the barren cold,
  And kindled all the plain and all the wold.
  The new leaf ever pushes off the old.
  The fire of Heaven is not the flame of Hell.

  Old priest, who mumble worship in your quire —
  Old monk and nun, ye scorn the world's desire,
  Yet in your frosty cells ye feel the fire!
  The fire of Heaven is not the flame of Hell.

• The fire of Heaven is on the dusty ways.
  The wayside blossoms open to the blaze.
  The whole wood-world is one full peal of praise.
  The fire of Heaven is not the flame of Hell.

  The fire of Heaven is lord of all things good,
  And starve not thou this fire within thy blood,
  But follow Vivien through the fiery flood!
  The fire of Heaven is not the flame of Hell!

• This fire of Heaven,
  This old sun-worship, boy, will rise again,
  And beat the cross to earth, and break the King
  And all his Table.

• Goodnight! for we shall never bid again
  Goodmorrow — Dark my doom was here, and dark
  It will be there. I see thee now no more.

• We two were born together, and we die
  Together by one doom:

Merlin and Vivien

• As Love, if Love is perfect, casts out fear,
  So Hate, if Hate is perfect, casts out fear.

• He grew
  Tolerant of what he half disdained, and she,
  Perceiving that she was but half disdained,
  Began to break her sports with graver fits,
  Turn red or pale, would often when they met
  Sigh fully, or all-silent gaze upon him
  With such a fixt devotion, that the old man,
  Though doubtful, felt the flattery, and at times
  Would flatter his own wish in age for love,
  And half believe her true.

• Then fell on Merlin a great melancholy;
  He walked with dreams and darkness, and he found
  A doom that ever poised itself to fall,
  An ever-moaning battle in the mist,
  World-war of dying flesh against the life,
  Death in all life and lying in all love,
  The meanest having power upon the highest,
  And the high purpose broken by the worm.

• Who are wise in love
  Love most, say least

• "To what request for what strange boon," he said,
  "Are these your pretty tricks and fooleries,
  O Vivien, the preamble? yet my thanks,
  For these have broken up my melancholy."

• In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours,
  Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers:
  Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.

• Trust me not at all or all in all.

• Merlin looked and half believed her true,
  So tender was her voice, so fair her face,
  So sweetly gleamed her eyes behind her tears
  Like sunlight on the plain behind a shower

• Yet is there one true line, the pearl of pearls:
  Man dreams of Fame while woman wakes to love.

• The Fame that follows death is nothing to us;
  And what is Fame in life but half-disfame,
  And counterchanged with darkness? ye yourself
  Know well that Envy calls you Devil's son,
  And since ye seem the Master of all Art,
  They fain would make you Master of all vice.

• Rather use than fame.

• You, methinks you think you love me well;
  For me, I love you somewhat; rest: and Love
  Should have some rest and pleasure in himself,
  Not ever be too curious for a boon,
  Too prurient for a proof against the grain
  Of him ye say ye love: but Fame with men,
  Being but ampler means to serve mankind,
  Should have small rest or pleasure in herself,
  But work as vassal to the larger love,
  That dwarfs the petty love of one to one.

• Use gave me Fame at first, and Fame again
  Increasing gave me use. Lo, there my boon!
  What other? for men sought to prove me vile,
  Because I fain had given them greater wits:
  And then did Envy call me Devil's son.

• Sweet were the days when I was all unknown,
  But when my name was lifted up, the storm
  Brake on the mountain and I cared not for it.
  Right well know I that Fame is half-disfame,
  Yet needs must work my work.

• I rather dread the loss of use than fame.

• Full many a love in loving youth was mine;
  I needed then no charm to keep them mine.

• Smiling as a master smiles at one
  That is not of his school, nor any school
  But that where blind and naked Ignorance
  Delivers brawling judgments, unashamed,
  On all things all day long, he answered her.

• Thou read the book!
  And ever margin scribbled, crost, and crammed
  With comment, densest condensation,
  To mind and eye; but the long sleepless nights
  Of my long life have made it easy to me.
  And none can read the text, not even I;
  And none can read the comment but myself;
  And in the comment did I find the charm.

• O selfless man and stainless gentleman,
  Who wouldst against thine own eye-witness fain
  Have all men true and leal, all women pure;
  How, in the mouths of base interpreters,
  From over-fineness not intelligible
  To things with every sense as false and foul
  As the poached filth that floods the middle street,
  Is thy white blamelessness accounted blame!

• Her words had issue other than she willed.

• What did the wanton say?
  "Not mount as high;" we scarce can sink as low:
  For men at most differ as Heaven and earth,
  But women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell.

• Nine tithes of times
  Face-flatterer and backbiter are the same.
  And they, sweet soul, that most impute a crime
  Are pronest to it, and impute themselves,
  Wanting the mental range; or low desire
  Not to feel lowest makes them level all;
  Yea, they would pare the mountain to the plain,
  To leave an equal baseness; and in this
  Are harlots like the crowd, that if they find
  Some stain or blemish in a name of note,
  Not grieving that their greatest are so small,
  Inflate themselves with some insane delight,
  And judge all nature from her feet of clay,
  Without the will to lift their eyes, and see
  Her godlike head crowned with spiritual fire,
  And touching other worlds.

• In a wink the false love turns to hate.

Lancelot and Elaine

• Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable,
  Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat,
  High in her chamber up a tower to the east
  Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot;

• These jewels, whereupon I chanced
  Divinely, are the kingdom's, not the King's —
  For public use: henceforward let there be,
  Once every year, a joust for one of these:
  For so by nine years' proof we needs must learn
  Which is our mightiest, and ourselves shall grow
  In use of arms and manhood.

• Thus he spoke:
  And eight years past, eight jousts had been, and still
  Had Lancelot won the diamond of the year,
  With purpose to present them to the Queen,
  When all were won; but meaning all at once
  To snare her royal fancy with a boon
  Worth half her realm, had never spoken word.

• Rapt in this fancy of his Table Round,
  And swearing men to vows impossible,
  To make them like himself: but, friend, to me
  He is all fault who hath no fault at all:
  For who loves me must have a touch of earth;

• The tiny-trumpeting gnat can break our dream
  When sweetest; and the vermin voices here
  May buzz so loud — we scorn them, but they sting.

• Then Lancelot answered young Lavaine and said,
  "Me you call great: mine is the firmer seat,
  The truer lance: but there is many a youth
  Now crescent, who will come to all I am
  And overcome it; and in me there dwells
  No greatness, save it be some far-off touch
  Of greatness to know well I am not great:
  There is the man."

• "Too courteous are ye, fair Lord Lancelot.
  I pray you, use some rough discourtesy
  To blunt or break her passion."

  Lancelot said,
  "That were against me: what I can I will."

• Sweet is true love though given in vain, in vain;
  And sweet is death who puts an end to pain:
  I know not which is sweeter, no, not I.

  Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be:
  Love, thou art bitter; sweet is death to me.
  O Love, if death be sweeter, let me die.
  …
  I fain would follow love, if that could be;
  I needs must follow death, who calls for me;
  Call and I follow, I follow! let me die.

• It is no more Sir Lancelot's fault
  Not to love me, than it is mine to love
  Him of all men who seems to me the highest.

• Daughter, I know not what you call the highest;
  But this I know, for all the people know it,
  He loves the Queen, and in an open shame:
  And she returns his love in open shame;
  If this be high, what is it to be low?

• These are slanders: never yet
  Was noble man but made ignoble talk.
  He makes no friend who never made a foe.

• To doubt her fairness were to want an eye,
  To doubt her pureness were to want a heart —
  Yea, to be loved, if what is worthy love
  Could bind him, but free love will not be bound.

• "Free love, so bound, were freëst," said the King.
  "Let love be free; free love is for the best:
  And, after heaven, on our dull side of death,
  What should be best, if not so pure a love
  Clothed in so pure a loveliness? yet thee
  She failed to bind, though being, as I think,
  Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know."

• What am I? what profits me my name
  Of greatest knight? I fought for it, and have it:
  Pleasure to have it, none; to lose it, pain;
  Now grown a part of me: but what use in it?
  To make men worse by making my sin known?
  Or sin seem less, the sinner seeming great?

• So groaned Sir Lancelot in remorseful pain,
  Not knowing he should die a holy man.

The Holy Grail

• 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
  Within us, better offered up to Heaven.

• The Holy Grail! —
  … What is it?
  The phantom of a cup that comes and goes?

• "Nay, monk! what phantom?' answered Percivale.
  "The cup, the cup itself, from which our Lord
  Drank at the last sad supper with his own.…
  If a man
  Could touch or see it, he was healed at once,
  By faith, of all his ills. But then the times
  Grew to such evil that the holy cup
  Was caught away to Heaven, and disappeared."

• 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.

• Sweet brother, I have seen the Holy Grail…
  The Holy Thing is here again
  Among us, brother, fast thou too and pray,
  And tell thy brother knights to fast and pray,
  That so perchance the vision may be seen
  By thee and those, and all the world be healed.

• One there was among us, ever moved
  Among us in white armour, Galahad.

• Galahad, when he heard
  My sister's vision, filled me with amaze;
  His eyes became so like her own, they seemed
  Hers, and himself her brother more than I.

• Sister or brother none had he; but some
  Called him a son of Lancelot, and some said
  Begotten by enchantment — chatterers they,
  Like birds of passage piping up and down,
  That gape for flies — we know not whence they come;
  For when was Lancelot wanderingly lewd?

• "Go forth, for thou shalt see what I have seen,
  And break through all, till one will crown thee king
  Far in the spiritual city:" and as she spake
  She sent the deathless passion in her eyes
  Through him, and made him hers, and laid her mind
  On him, and he believed in her belief.

• Then came a year of miracle...

• In our great hall there stood a vacant chair,
  Fashioned by Merlin ere he past away,
  And carven with strange figures; and in and out
  The figures, like a serpent, ran a scroll
  Of letters in a tongue no man could read.
  And Merlin called it "The Siege perilous,"
  Perilous for good and ill; "for there," he said,
  "No man could sit but he should lose himself..."

• All at once, as there we sat, we heard
  A cracking and a riving of the roofs,
  And rending, and a blast, and overhead
  Thunder, and in the thunder was a cry.

• 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 covered with a luminous cloud.
  And none might see who bare it, and it past.
  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.

• 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,
  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 peaked wings pointed to the Northern Star.

• Twelve great windows blazon Arthur's wars,
  And all the light that falls upon the board
  Streams through the twelve great battles of our King.
  Nay, one there is, and at the eastern end,
  Wealthy with wandering lines of mount and mere,
  Where 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? —
  O there, perchance, when all our wars are done,
  The brand Excalibur will be cast away.

• "Had I been here, ye had not sworn the vow."
  Bold was mine answer, "Had thyself been here,
  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,
  But since I did not see the Holy Thing,
  I sware a vow to follow it till I saw."

• I, Sir Arthur, saw the Holy Grail,
  I saw the Holy Grail and heard a cry —
  "O Galahad", and "O Galahad, follow me."

• "Ah, Galahad, Galahad," said the King, "for such
  As thou art is the vision, not for these."

• Lancelot is Lancelot, and hath overborne
  Five knights at once, and every younger knight,
  Unproven, holds himself as Lancelot,
  Till overborne by one, he learns — and ye,
  What are ye? Galahads? — no, nor Percivales

• One hath seen, and all the blind will see.
  Go, since your vows are sacred, being made.

• How often, O 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,
  Return 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
  The yet-unbroken strength of all his knights,
  Rejoicing in that Order which he made.

• Thou hast not true humility,
  The highest virtue, mother of them all

• Thou hast not lost thyself to save thyself
  As Galahad.

• Saw ye no more? I, Galahad, saw the Grail,
  The Holy Grail, descend upon the shrine:
  I saw the fiery face as of a child
  That smote itself into the bread, and went;
  And hither am I come; and never yet
  Hath what thy sister taught me first to see,
  This Holy Thing, failed from my side, nor come
  Covered, but moving with me night and day.

• In the strength of this I rode,
  Shattering all evil customs everywhere,
  And past through Pagan realms, and made them mine,
  And clashed with Pagan hordes, and bore them down,
  And broke through all, and in the strength of this
  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 shalt see the vision when I go.

• On either hand, as far as eye could see,
  A great black swamp and of an evil smell,
  Part black, part whitened with the bones of men,
  Not to be crost, save that some ancient king
  Had built a way, where, linked with many a bridge,
  A thousand piers ran into the great Sea.
  And Galahad fled along them bridge by bridge,
  And every bridge as quickly as he crost
  Sprang into fire and vanished, though I yearned
  To follow; and thrice above him all the heavens
  Opened and blazed with thunder such as seemed
  Shoutings of all the sons of God: and first
  At once I saw him far on the great Sea,
  In silver-shining armour starry-clear;
  And o'er his head the Holy Vessel hung
  Clothed in white samite or a luminous cloud.

• O'er his head the Holy Vessel hung
  Redder than any rose, a joy to me,
  For now I knew the veil had been withdrawn.

• I saw the spiritual city and all her spires
  And gateways in a glory like one pearl —
  No larger, though 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
  Dwelt, and I knew it was the Holy Grail,
  Which never eyes on earth again shall see.

• All men, to one so bound by such a vow,
  And women were as phantoms.

• I chanced upon a goodly town
  With one great dwelling in the middle of it;
  Thither I made, and there was I disarmed
  By maidens each as fair as any flower

• The Princess of that castle was the one,
  Brother, and that one only, who had ever
  Made my heart leap; for when I moved of old
  A slender page about her father's hall,
  And she a slender maiden, all my heart
  Went after her with longing: yet we twain
  Had never kissed a kiss, or vowed a vow.
  And now I came upon her once again,
  And one had wedded her, and he was dead,
  And all his land and wealth and state were hers.

• 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.

• I rose and fled,
  But wailed and wept, and hated mine own self,
  And even the Holy Quest, and all but her;
  Then after I was joined with Galahad
  Cared not for her, nor anything upon earth.

• Poor men, when yule is cold,
  Must be content to sit by little fires.

• O the pity
  To find thine own first love once more — to hold,
  Hold her a wealthy bride within thine arms,
  Or all but hold, and then — cast her aside,
  Foregoing all her sweetness, like a weed.
  For we that want the warmth of double life,
  We that are plagued with dreams of something sweet
  Beyond all sweetness in a life so rich, —
  Ah, blessd Lord, I speak too earthlywise,
  Seeing I never strayed beyond the cell.

• "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:
  I saw it;" and the tears were in his eyes.

• Our Arthur kept his best until the last;
  "Thou, too, my Lancelot," asked the king, "my friend,
  Our mightiest, hath this Quest availed for thee?"

• O 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,
  Noble, and knightly in me twined and clung
  Round that one sin, until the wholesome flower
  And poisonous grew together, each as each,
  Not to be plucked asunder

• When thy knights
  Sware, I sware with them only in the hope
  That could I touch or see the Holy Grail
  They might be plucked asunder. Then I spake
  To one most holy saint, who wept and said,
  That save they could be plucked asunder, all
  My quest were but in vain

• Forth I went, and while I yearned 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;
  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.

• Blasted and burnt, and blinded as I was,
  With such a fierceness that I swooned away —
  O, yet methought I saw the Holy Grail,
  All palled in crimson samite, and around
  Great angels, awful shapes, and wings and eyes.
  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 veiled
  And covered; and this Quest was not for me.

• Thy holy nun and thou have driven men mad,
  Yea, made our mightiest madder than our least.
  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.
  • Gawain to Arthur

• "Deafer," said the blameless King,
  "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,
  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 through them, could but speak
  His music by the framework and the chord;
  And as ye saw it ye have spoken truth."

• — 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,
  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, O my knights?
  Was I too dark a prophet when I said
  To those who went upon the Holy Quest,
  That most of them would follow wandering fires,
  Lost in the quagmire? — lost to me and gone,
  And left me gazing at a barren board,
  And a lean Order — scarce returned a tithe —
  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.
  And one hath had the vision face to face,
  And now his chair desires him here in vain,
  However they may crown him otherwhere.

• Some among you held, that if the King
  Had seen the sight he would have sworn the vow:
  Not easily, 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,
  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
  But vision — yea, his very hand and foot —
  In moments when he feels he cannot 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.

• So spake the King: I knew not all he meant.

Pelleas and Ettarre

• Make me thy knight, because I know, Sir King,
  All that belongs to knighthood, and I love.

• While he gazed
  The beauty of her flesh abashed the boy,
  As though it were the beauty of her soul:
  For as the base man, judging of the good,
  Puts his own baseness in him by default
  Of will and nature, so did Pelleas lend
  All the young beauty of his own soul to hers

• She muttered, "I have lighted on a fool,
  Raw, yet so stale!"

• When they reached
  Caerleon, ere they past to lodging, she,
  Taking his hand, "O the strong hand," she said,
  "See! look at mine! but wilt thou fight for me,
  And win me this fine circlet, Pelleas,
  That I may love thee?"

• The men who met him rounded on their heels
  And wondered after him, because his face
  Shone like the countenance of a priest of old
  Against the flame about a sacrifice
  Kindled by fire from heaven: so glad was he.

• Pelleas looked
  Noble among the noble, for he dreamed
  His lady loved him, and he knew himself
  Loved of the King: and him his new-made knight
  Worshipt, whose lightest whisper moved him more
  Than all the rangd reasons of the world.

• Then rang the shout his lady loved: the heat
  Of pride and glory fired her face; her eye
  Sparkled; she caught the circlet from his lance,
  And there before the people crowned herself:
  So for the last time she was gracious to him.

• Said Guinevere, "We marvel at thee much,
  O damsel, wearing this unsunny face
  To him who won thee glory!" And she said,
  "Had ye not held your Lancelot in your bower,
  My Queen, he had not won." Whereat the Queen,
  As one whose foot is bitten by an ant,
  Glanced down upon her, turned and went her way.

• I cannot bide Sir Baby. Keep him back
  Among yourselves. Would rather that we had
  Some rough old knight who knew the worldly way,
  Albeit grizzlier than a bear, to ride
  And jest with: take him to you, keep him off,
  And pamper him with papmeat, if ye will

• "If he fly us,
  Small matter! let him." This her damsels heard,
  And mindful of her small and cruel hand,
  They, closing round him through the journey home,
  Acted her hest, and always from her side
  Restrained him with all manner of device,
  So that he could not come to speech with her.
  And when she gained her castle, upsprang the bridge,
  Down rang the grate of iron through the groove,
  And he was left alone in open field.

• "These be the ways of ladies," Pelleas thought,
  "To those who love them, trials of our faith.
  Yea, let her prove me to the uttermost,
  For loyal to the uttermost am I."

• This persistence turned her scorn to wrath.
  Then calling her three knights, she charged them, "Out!
  And drive him from the walls." And out they came
  But Pelleas overthrew them as they dashed
  Against him one by one; and these returned,
  But still he kept his watch beneath the wall.

• Thereon her wrath became a hate; and once,
  A week beyond, while walking on the walls
  With her three knights, she pointed downward, "Look,
  He haunts me — I cannot breathe — besieges me;
  Down! strike him! put my hate into your strokes,
  And drive him from my walls." And down they went,
  And Pelleas overthrew them one by one;
  And from the tower above him cried Ettarre,
  "Bind him, and bring him in."

• He heard her voice;
  Then let the strong hand, which had overthrown
  Her minion-knights, by those he overthrew
  Be bounden straight, and so they brought him in.

• Then when he came before Ettarre, the sight
  Of her rich beauty made him at one glance
  More bondsman in his heart than in his bonds.
  Yet with good cheer he spake, "Behold me, Lady,
  A prisoner, and the vassal of thy will;
  And if thou keep me in thy donjon here,
  Content am I so that I see thy face
  But once a day: for I have sworn my vows,
  And thou hast given thy promise, and I know
  That all these pains are trials of my faith,
  And that thyself, when thou hast seen me strained
  And sifted to the utmost, wilt at length
  Yield me thy love and know me for thy knight."

• Then she began to rail so bitterly,
  With all her damsels, he was stricken mute;
  But when she mocked his vows and the great King,
  Lighted on words: "For pity of thine own self,
  Peace, Lady, peace: is he not thine and mine?"
  "Thou fool," she said, "I never heard his voice
  But longed to break away. Unbind him now,
  And thrust him out of doors; for save he be
  Fool to the midmost marrow of his bones,
  He will return no more." And those, her three,
  Laughed, and unbound, and thrust him from the gate.

• And after this, a week beyond, again
  She called them, saying, "There he watches yet,
  There like a dog before his master's door!
  Kicked, he returns: do ye not hate him, ye?
  Ye know yourselves: how can ye bide at peace,
  Affronted with his fulsome innocence?
  Are ye but creatures of the board and bed,
  No men to strike? Fall on him all at once,
  And if ye slay him I reck not: if ye fail,
  Give ye the slave mine order to be bound,
  Bind him as heretofore, and bring him in:
  It may be ye shall slay him in his bonds."

• Gawain passing by,
  Bound upon solitary adventure, saw
  Low down beneath the shadow of those towers
  A villainy, three to one: and through his heart
  The fire of honour and all noble deeds
  Flashed, and he called, "I strike upon thy side —
  The caitiffs!" "Nay," said Pelleas, "but forbear;
  He needs no aid who doth his lady's will."

• So Gawain, looking at the villainy done,
  Forbore, but in his heat and eagerness
  Trembled and quivered, as the dog, withheld
  A moment from the vermin that he sees
  Before him, shivers, ere he springs and kills.

• And Pelleas overthrew them, one to three;
  And they rose up, and bound, and brought him in.
  Then first her anger, leaving Pelleas, burned
  Full on her knights in many an evil name
  Of craven, weakling, and thrice-beaten hound

• Lady, for indeed
  I loved you and I deemed you beautiful,
  I cannot brook to see your beauty marred
  Through evil spite: and if ye love me not,
  I cannot bear to dream you so forsworn:
  I had liefer ye were worthy of my love,
  Than to be loved again of you — farewell;
  And though ye kill my hope, not yet my love,
  Vex not yourself: ye will not see me more.

• While thus he spake, she gazed upon the man
  Of princely bearing, though in bonds, and thought,
  "Why have I pushed him from me? this man loves,
  If love there be: yet him I loved not. Why?
  I deemed him fool? yea, so? or that in him
  A something — was it nobler than myself?
  Seemed my reproach? He is not of my kind.
  He could not love me, did he know me well.
  Nay, let him go — and quickly." And her knights
  Laughed not, but thrust him bounden out of door.

• A rose, but one, none other rose had I,
  A rose, one rose, and this was wondrous fair,
  One rose, a rose that gladdened earth and sky,
  One rose, my rose, that sweetened all mine air —
  I cared not for the thorns; the thorns were there.

• One rose, a rose to gather by and by,
  One rose, a rose, to gather and to wear,
  No rose but one — what other rose had I?
  One rose, my rose; a rose that will not die, —
  He dies who loves it, — if the worm be there.

• "Alas that ever a knight should be so false."
  Then turned, and so returned, and groaning laid
  The naked sword athwart their naked throats,
  There left it, and them sleeping; and she lay,
  The circlet of her tourney round her brows,
  And the sword of the tourney across her throat.

• Let the fox bark, let the wolf yell. Who yells
  Here in the still sweet summer night, but I —
  I, the poor Pelleas whom she called her fool?
  Fool, beast — he, she, or I? myself most fool;
  Beast too, as lacking human wit — disgraced,
  Dishonoured all for trial of true love —

• She, that felt the cold touch on her throat,
  Awaking knew the sword, and turned herself
  To Gawain: "Liar, for thou hast not slain
  This Pelleas! here he stood, and might have slain
  Me and thyself." And he that tells the tale
  Says that her ever-veering fancy turned
  To Pelleas, as the one true knight on earth,
  And only lover; and through her love her life
  Wasted and pined, desiring him in vain.

• "Am I but false as Guinevere is pure?
  Or art thou mazed with dreams? or being one
  Of our free-spoken Table hast not heard
  That Lancelot" — there he checked himself and paused.

• Then fared it with Sir Pelleas as with one
  Who gets a wound in battle, and the sword
  That made it plunges through the wound again,
  And pricks it deeper: and he shrank and wailed,
  "Is the Queen false?" and Percivale was mute.
  "Have any of our Round Table held their vows?"
  And Percivale made answer not a word.

• "O young knight,
  Hath the great heart of knighthood in thee failed
  So far thou canst not bide, unfrowardly,
  A fall from HIM?" Then, for he answered not,
  "Or hast thou other griefs? If I, the Queen,
  May help them, loose thy tongue, and let me know."
  But Pelleas lifted up an eye so fierce
  She quailed; and he, hissing "I have no sword,"
  Sprang from the door into the dark.

• Then a long silence came upon the hall,
  And Modred thought, "The time is hard at hand."

The Last Tournament

• Into the hall staggered, his visage ribbed
  From ear to ear with dogwhip-weals, his nose
  Bridge-broken, one eye out, and one hand off,
  And one with shattered fingers dangling lame,
  A churl, to whom indignantly the King,

  "My churl, for whom Christ died, what evil beast
  Hath drawn his claws athwart thy face? or fiend?
  Man was it who marred heaven's image in thee thus?"

• Lord, I was tending swine, and the Red Knight
  Brake in upon me and drave them to his tower;
  And when I called upon thy name as one
  That doest right by gentle and by churl,
  Maimed me and mauled, and would outright have slain,
  Save that he sware me to a message, saying,
  "Tell thou the King and all his liars, that I
  Have founded my Round Table in the North,
  And whatsoever his own knights have sworn
  My knights have sworn the counter to it — and say
  My tower is full of harlots, like his court,
  But mine are worthier, seeing they profess
  To be none other than themselves — and say
  My knights are all adulterers like his own,
  But mine are truer, seeing they profess
  To be none other; and say his hour is come,
  The heathen are upon him, his long lance
  Broken, and his Excalibur a straw."

• I am but a fool to reason with a fool —

• Harken if my music be not true.

  "Free love — free field — we love but while we may:
  The woods are hushed, their music is no more:
  The leaf is dead, the yearning past away:
  New leaf, new life — the days of frost are o'er:
  New life, new love, to suit the newer day:
  New loves are sweet as those that went before:
  Free love — free field — we love but while we may."

  "Ye might have moved slow-measure to my tune,
  Not stood stockstill. I made it in the woods,
  And heard it ring as true as tested gold."

• When the King
  Had made thee fool, thy vanity so shot up
  It frighted all free fool from out thy heart;
  Which left thee less than fool, and less than swine,
  A naked aught — yet swine I hold thee still,
  For I have flung thee pearls and find thee swine.

• I have had my day.
  The dirty nurse, Experience, in her kind
  Hath fouled me — an I wallowed, then I washed —
  I have had my day and my philosophies —
  And thank the Lord I am King Arthur's fool.
  Swine, say ye? swine, goats, asses, rams and geese
  Trooped round a Paynim harper once, who thrummed
  On such a wire as musically as thou
  Some such fine song — but never a king's fool.

• My brother fool, the king of fools!
  Conceits himself as God that he can make
  Figs out of thistles, silk from bristles, milk
  From burning spurge, honey from hornet-combs,
  And men from beasts — Long live the king of fools!

• So all the ways were safe from shore to shore,
  But in the heart of Arthur pain was lord.

• What rights are his that dare not strike for them?

• Softly laughed Isolt;
  "Flatter me not, for hath not our great Queen
  My dole of beauty trebled?" and he said,
  "Her beauty is her beauty, and thine thine,
  And thine is more to me — soft, gracious, kind —"

• O my soul, be comforted!
  If this be sweet, to sin in leading-strings,
  If here be comfort, and if ours be sin,
  Crowned warrant had we for the crowning sin
  That made us happy: but how ye greet me — fear
  And fault and doubt — no word of that fond tale —
  Thy deep heart-yearnings, thy sweet memories
  Of Tristram in that year he was away.

• Tristram, ever dallying with her hand,
  "May God be with thee, sweet, when old and gray,
  And past desire!" a saying that angered her.

• The greater man, the greater courtesy.

• How darest thou, if lover, push me even
  In fancy from thy side, and set me far
  In the gray distance, half a life away,
  Her to be loved no more? Unsay it, unswear!
  Flatter me rather, seeing me so weak,
  Broken with Mark and hate and solitude,
  Thy marriage and mine own, that I should suck
  Lies like sweet wines: lie to me: I believe.
  Will ye not lie? not swear, as there ye kneel,
  And solemnly as when ye sware to him,
  The man of men, our King — My God, the power
  Was once in vows when men believed the King!
  They lied not then, who sware, and through their vows
  The King prevailing made his realm: — I say,
  Swear to me thou wilt love me even when old,
  Gray-haired, and past desire, and in despair.

• Then Tristram, pacing moodily up and down,
  "Vows! did you keep the vow you made to Mark
  More than I mine? Lied, say ye? Nay, but learnt,
  The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself —
  My knighthood taught me this — ay, being snapt —
  We run more counter to the soul thereof
  Than had we never sworn. I swear no more.

• I swore to the great King, and am forsworn.
  For once — even to the height — I honoured him.
  "Man, is he man at all?"…
  That weird legend of his birth,
  With Merlin's mystic babble about his end
  Amazed me; then, his foot was on a stool
  Shaped as a dragon; he seemed to me no man,
  But Michaël trampling Satan; so I sware,
  Being amazed

• They failed to trace him through the flesh and blood
  Of our old kings: whence then? a doubtful lord
  To bind them by inviolable vows,
  Which flesh and blood perforce would violate

• Can Arthur make me pure
  As any maiden child? lock up my tongue
  From uttering freely what I freely hear?
  Bind me to one? The wide world laughs at it.
  And worldling of the world am I, and know
  The ptarmigan that whitens ere his hour
  Woos his own end; we are not angels here
  Nor shall be

• We love but while we may;
  And therefore is my love so large for thee,
  Seeing it is not bounded save by love.

• Courtesy wins woman all as well
  As valour may, but he that closes both
  Is perfect, he is Lancelot — taller indeed,
  Rosier and comelier, thou — but say I loved
  This knightliest of all knights, and cast thee back
  Thine own small saw, "We love but while we may,"
  Well then, what answer?

• I will love thee to the death,
  And out beyond into the dream to come.

• So then, when both were brought to full accord,
  She rose, and set before him all he willed

• "What art thou?" and the voice about his feet
  Sent up an answer, sobbing, "I am thy fool,
  And I shall never make thee smile again."

Guinevere

• Queen Guinevere had fled the court, and sat
  There in the holy house at Almesbury
  Weeping…
  For hither had she fled, her cause of flight
  Sir Modred; he that like a subtle beast
  Lay couchant with his eyes upon the throne,
  Ready to spring, waiting a chance

• In those days
  No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in scorn;
  But, if a man were halt or hunched, in him
  By those whom God had made full-limbed and tall,
  Scorn was allowed as part of his defect,
  And he was answered softly by the King
  And all his Table.

• She half-foresaw that he, the subtle beast,
  Would track her guilt until he found, and hers
  Would be for evermore a name of scorn.

• O Lancelot, get thee hence to thine own land,
  For if thou tarry we shall meet again,
  And if we meet again, some evil chance
  Will make the smouldering scandal break and blaze
  Before the people, and our lord the King.

• And Lancelot ever promised, but remained,
  And still they met and met. Again she said,
  "O Lancelot, if thou love me get thee hence."
  And then they were agreed upon a night
  (When the good King should not be there) to meet
  And part for ever. Vivien, lurking, heard.
  She told Sir Modred.

• And when she came to Almesbury she spake
  There to the nuns, and said, "Mine enemies
  Pursue me, but, O peaceful Sisterhood,
  Receive, and yield me sanctuary, nor ask
  Her name to whom ye yield it, till her time
  To tell you:" and her beauty, grace and power,
  Wrought as a charm upon them, and they spared
  To ask it.

• O pray you, noble lady, weep no more;
  But let my words, the words of one so small,
  Who knowing nothing knows but to obey,
  And if I do not there is penance given —
  Comfort your sorrows; for they do not flow
  From evil done; right sure am I of that,
  Who see your tender grace and stateliness.
  But weigh your sorrows with our lord the King's,
  And weighing find them less; for gone is he
  To wage grim war against Sir Lancelot there,
  Round that strong castle where he holds the Queen;
  And Modred whom he left in charge of all,
  The traitor — Ah sweet lady, the King's grief
  For his own self, and his own Queen, and realm,
  Must needs be thrice as great as any of ours.

• For me, I thank the saints, I am not great.
  For if there ever come a grief to me
  I cry my cry in silence, and have done.
  None knows it, and my tears have brought me good:
  But even were the griefs of little ones
  As great as those of great ones, yet this grief
  Is added to the griefs the great must bear,
  That howsoever much they may desire
  Silence, they cannot weep behind a cloud:
  As even here they talk at Almesbury
  About the good King and his wicked Queen,
  And were I such a King with such a Queen,
  Well might I wish to veil her wickedness,
  But were I such a King, it could not be.

• Then to her own sad heart muttered the Queen,
  "Will the child kill me with her innocent talk?"

• They found a naked child upon the sands
  Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea;
  And that was Arthur; and they fostered him
  Till he by miracle was approven King:
  And that his grave should be a mystery
  From all men, like his birth; and could he find
  A woman in her womanhood as great
  As he was in his manhood, then, he sang,
  The twain together well might change the world.
  But even in the middle of his song
  He faltered, and his hand fell from the harp,
  And pale he turned, and reeled, and would have fallen,
  But that they stayed him up; nor would he tell
  His vision; but what doubt that he foresaw
  This evil work of Lancelot and the Queen?

• "Of the two first-famed for courtesy —
  And pray you check me if I ask amiss-
  But pray you, which had noblest, while you moved
  Among them, Lancelot or our lord the King?"

  Then the pale Queen looked up and answered her,
  "Sir Lancelot, as became a noble knight,
  Was gracious to all ladies, and the same
  In open battle or the tilting-field
  Forbore his own advantage, and the King
  In open battle or the tilting-field
  Forbore his own advantage, and these two
  Were the most nobly-mannered men of all;
  For manners are not idle, but the fruit
  Of loyal nature, and of noble mind."

• O closed about by narrowing nunnery-walls,
  What knowest thou of the world, and all its lights
  And shadows, all the wealth and all the woe?
  If ever Lancelot, that most noble knight,
  Were for one hour less noble than himself,
  Pray for him that he scape the doom of fire,
  And weep for her that drew him to his doom.

• "Yea," said the little novice, "I pray for both;
  But I should all as soon believe that his,
  Sir Lancelot's, were as noble as the King's,
  As I could think, sweet lady, yours would be
  Such as they are, were you the sinful Queen."

  So she, like many another babbler, hurt
  Whom she would soothe, and harmed where she would heal;
  For here a sudden flush of wrathful heat
  Fired all the pale face of the Queen

• The simple, fearful child
  Meant nothing, but my own too-fearful guilt,
  Simpler than any child, betrays itself.

• I was first of all the kings who drew
  The knighthood-errant of this realm and all
  The realms together under me, their Head,
  In that fair Order of my Table Round,
  A glorious company, the flower of men,
  To serve as model for the mighty world,
  And be the fair beginning of a time.

• I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere,
  I, whose vast pity almost makes me die
  To see thee, laying there thy golden head,
  My pride in happier summers, at my feet.

• The pang — which while I weighed thy heart with one
  Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee,
  Made my tears burn — is also past — in part.
  And all is past, the sin is sinned, and I,
  Lo! I forgive thee, as Eternal God
  Forgives: do thou for thine own soul the rest.

• O imperial-moulded form,
  And beauty such as never woman wore,
  Until it became a kingdom's curse with thee —
  I cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine,
  But Lancelot's: nay, they never were the King's.

• My doom is, I love thee still.
  Let no man dream but that I love thee still.

• Gone — my lord!
  Gone through my sin to slay and to be slain!
  And he forgave me, and I could not speak.
  Farewell? I should have answered his farewell.
  His mercy choked me. Gone, my lord the King,
  My own true lord! how dare I call him mine?

• Shall I kill myself?
  What help in that? I cannot kill my sin,
  If soul be soul; nor can I kill my shame;
  No, nor by living can I live it down.
  The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to months
  The months will add themselves and make the years,
  The years will roll into the centuries,
  And mine will ever be a name of scorn.

• I must not dwell on that defeat of fame.
  Let the world be; that is but of the world.
  What else? what hope? I think there was a hope,
  Except he mocked me when he spake of hope;
  His hope he called it; but he never mocks,
  For mockery is the fume of little hearts.
  And blessd be the King, who hath forgiven
  My wickedness to him, and left me hope
  That in mine own heart I can live down sin
  And be his mate hereafter in the heavens
  Before high God.

• Now I see thee what thou art,
  Thou art the highest and most human too,
  Not Lancelot, nor another. Is there none
  Will tell the King I love him though so late?
  Now — ere he goes to the great Battle? none:
  Myself must tell him in that purer life,
  But now it were too daring. Ah my God,
  What might I not have made of thy fair world,
  Had I but loved thy highest creature here?
  It was my duty to have loved the highest:
  It surely was my profit had I known:
  It would have been my pleasure had I seen.
  We needs must love the highest when we see it

• Here her hand
  Grasped, made her vail her eyes: she looked and saw
  The novice, weeping, suppliant, and said to her,
  "Yea, little maid, for am I not forgiven?"
  Then glancing up beheld the holy nuns
  All round her, weeping; and her heart was loosed
  Within her, and she wept with these and said,

  "Ye know me then, that wicked one, who broke
  The vast design and purpose of the King.
  O shut me round with narrowing nunnery-walls,
  Meek maidens, from the voices crying 'shame.'

  I must not scorn myself: he loves me still.
  Let no one dream but that he loves me still."

• So let me, if you do not shudder at me,
  Nor shun to call me sister, dwell with you;
  Wear black and white, and be a nun like you,
  Fast with your fasts, not feasting with your feasts;
  Grieve with your griefs, not grieving at your joys,
  But not rejoicing; mingle with your rites;
  Pray and be prayed for; lie before your shrines;
  Do each low office of your holy house;
  Walk your dim cloister, and distribute dole
  To poor sick people, richer in His eyes
  Who ransomed us, and haler too than I;
  And treat their loathsome hurts and heal mine own;
  And so wear out in almsdeed and in prayer
  The sombre close of that voluptuous day,
  Which wrought the ruin of my lord the King.

• They took her to themselves; and she
  Still hoping, fearing "is it yet too late?"
  Dwelt with them, till in time their Abbess died.
  Then she, for her good deeds and her pure life,
  And for the power of ministration in her,
  And likewise for the high rank she had borne,
  Was chosen Abbess, there, an Abbess, lived
  For three brief years, and there, an Abbess, past
  To where beyond these voices there is peace.

The Passing of Arthur

• I found Him in the shining of the stars,
  I marked 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.

• O 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 leaned in wife and friend
  Is traitor to my peace, and all my realm
  Reels back into the beast, and is no more.
  My God, thou hast forgotten me in my death;
  Nay — God my Christ — I pass but shall not die.

• Ill doom is mine
  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
  Through this blind haze, which ever since I saw
  One lying in the dust at Almesbury,
  Hath folded in the passes of the world.

• On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed.
  Nor 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 fear; and even on Arthur fell
  Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought.

• For friend and foe were shadows in the mist,
  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 many 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 shattered helms, and shrieks
  After the Christ, of those who falling down
  Looked up for heaven, and only saw the mist;
  And shouts of heathen and the traitor knights,
  Oaths, insults, 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.

• On my heart hath fallen
  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
  Who love thee; but who hates thee, he that brought
  The heathen back among us, yonder stands,
  Modred, unharmed, the traitor of thine house."

• "Well for thee, saying in my dark hour,
  When all the purport of my throne hath failed,
  That quick or dead thou holdest 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 rolled
  Among the mountains by the winter sea;
  Until King Arthur's Table, man by man,
  Had fallen 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.

• The sequel of today 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
  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, —
  Though Merlin sware that I should come again
  To rule once more; but, let what will be, be,
  I am so deeply smitten through the helm
  That without help I cannot last till morn.

• Delay not: take Excalibur,
  And fling him far into the middle mere:
  Watch what thou seëst, and lightly bring me word.

• I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,
  And the wild water lapping on the crag.

• Thou hast betrayed thy nature and thy name,
  Not rendering true answer, as beseemed
  Thy fëalty, nor like a noble knight:
  For surer sign had followed, 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,
  As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing
  I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word.

• If indeed I cast the brand away,
  Surely a precious thing, one worthy 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?
  What harm, undone?…
  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?

• Authority forgets a dying king,
  Laid widowed of the power in his eye
  That bowed 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.

• The great brand
  Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon,
  And flashing round and round, and whirled in an arch,
  Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,…
  So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur:
  But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm
  Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
  And caught him by the hilt, and brandished him
  Three times, and drew him under in the mere.

• Now see I by thine eyes that this is done.
  Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?

• Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems
  Should blind my purpose, for I never saw,
  Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die,
  Not though 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 looked again, behold an arm,
  Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
  That caught him by the hilt, and brandished him
  Three times, and drew him under in the mere.

• 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.…
  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.

• The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
  And God fulfils himself in many ways,
  Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

• If thou shouldst never see my face again,
  Pray for my soul. More 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
  Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

• Farewell. I am going a long way
  With these thou seëst — 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-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns
  And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea,
  Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.

• Then from the dawn it seemed 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
  Around a king returning from his wars.

To the Queen

• That which knows not, ruling that which knows
  To its own harm: the goal of this great world
  Lies beyond sight: yet — if our slowly-grown
  And crowned Republic's crowning common-sense,
  That saved her many times, not fail — their fears
  Are morning shadows huger than the shapes
  That cast them, not those gloomier which forego
  The darkness of that battle in the West,
  Where all of high and holy dies away.