60 Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth work Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights, In those old days, one summer noon, an arm And fling him far into the middle mere;& 20 30 70 And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: "Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name, Then went Sir Bedivere the second time Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, word."' To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere: 41 "It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept By zigzag paths and juts of pointed rock, How curiously and strangely chased, he smote "And if indeed I cast the brand away, men. What good should follow this, if this were What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey, So might some old man speak in the aftertime Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, But now much honour and much fame were Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men, So spake he, clouded with his own conceit," Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling And hid Excalibur the second time, 111 And so strode back slow to the wounded king. 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 ripple washing in the reeds. To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath: him; Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, 120 And bear me to the margin; yet I fear My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." "Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, 130 I will arise and slay thee with my hands."' Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged Among 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, 140 Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, Three times, and drew him under in the mere. Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath: "Now I see by thine eyes that this is done. Speak out; what is it thou hast heard, or seen?'' 150 170 So saying, from the pavement he half rose, Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears, And would have spoken, but he found not words, 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! 180 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 walk 'd, Larger than human on the frozen hills. Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 191 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 | Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. these Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? Three queens with crowns of gold-and from I have lived my life, and that which I have them rose done May He within himself make pure! but thou, 200 If thou shouldst never see my face again, Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars, Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. And to the barge they came. There those For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, three queens 250 Put forth their hands, and took the king, and | If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer wept, Both for themselves and those who call them friend? But she that rose the tallest of them all And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, And loosed his shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands, 209 And call'd him by his name, complaining loud, And dropping bitter tears against his brow Striped with dark blood; for all his face was white 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 curlsThat made his forehead like a rising sun High from the dais-throne-were parch'd with dust; Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. 220 So like a shatter'd column lay the king; 229 Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere: The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge: "The old order changeth, yielding place to For so the whole round earth is every way swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivers Revolving many memories, till the hull 270 Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, And on the mere the wailing died away. ULYSSES† It little profits that an idle king, not me. 1 Cp. Paradise Lost, II, 1051 (p. 255). * The earthly paradise of medieval romance, corresponding to the Grecian Isles of the Blest. The germ of this poem is found, not in the Odyssey, but in the story which Dante makes Ulysses tell of his adventures (Inferno, XXVI, 91 ff.). It was written shortly after the death of Tennyson's friend, Arthur Hallam (see In Memoriam), and voiced, said Tennyson, his "feelings about the need of going forward and braving the struggle of life more simply than anything in In Memoriam." (Memoir, I. 196). It is an admirable complement to The Lotos-Eaters. Of lines 62-64 Carlyle said: "These lines do not make me weep, but there is in me what would fill whole Lachrymatories as I read." I cannot rest from travel; I will drink For ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, Were all too little, and of one to me 30 Moans round with many voices.* Come, my friends, 60 "T is not too late to seek a newer world. One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 70 LOCKSLEY HALL‡ Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn: Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn. curlews call, For some three suns to store and hoard myself, "T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the This is my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. 40 There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail; There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,— 50 That ever with a frolic welcome took 2 Stars in the constellation Taurus, supposed to be harbingers of rain. Eneid, 1, 744. Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall; Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts. Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime * Successive heavy monosyllables, long vowels, and full pauses, combine to make this a passage of remarkable weight and slowness. Compare note on preceding poem, 1. 259. This was intended to be a purely dramatic poem, giving expression to the conflicting and somewhat morbid feelings characteristic perhaps of introspective youth at any time, but with particular reference both to contemporary social conditions in England (it was published in 1842) and to the fresh spur given to imagination by the discoveries in science and mechanics. Some forty years later. Tennyson wrote a sequel, Locksley Hall Sixty Years After. |