ever pushed Sir Modred, league by league, Back to the sunset bound of Lyonnesse7? A land of old upheaven from the abyss By fire, to sink into the abyss again; Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelled, 85 And the long mountains ended in a coast Of ever-shifting sand, and far away The phantom circle of a moaning sea. There the pursuer could pursue no more, And he that fled no further fly the King; 90 And there, that day when the great light of heaven Burned at his lowest in the rolling year, 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. 95 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. IOO For friend and foe were shadows in the mist, And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew;s 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 105 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,0 the crash swords 110 Of battleaxes on shattered helms, and shrieks After the Christ, of those who falling down
5. Hadrian's Wall, built in northern Britain, by the 8. Cf. the description of a battle by the Greek 2nd-century Roman emperor Hadrian as a defense writer Thucydides (ca. 455-ca. 400 B.C.E.) in his against invaders from the north. History of the Peloponnesian War (7.44), in which 6. The convent to which Guinevere withdraws in the invaders become confused by darkness and the eleventh idyll; during the king's farewell visit slaughter many of their own men, and Matthew to her there, she lies in the dust at his feet. Arnold's 1851 reworking of this scene in 'Dover 7. Legendary land, extending west from Cornwall, Beach,' lines 35-37 (p. 1369). that sank into the sea.
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1 138 / ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
Looked up for heaven, and only saw the mist; And shouts of heathen and the traitor knights, Oaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blasphemies,
115 Sweat, writhings, anguish, laboring 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 through death
120 Or deathlike swoon, thus over all that shore, Save for some whisper of the seething seas, A dead hush fell; but when the dolorous day Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew
125 The mist aside, and with that wind the tide Rose, and the pale 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
BO Rrake in among dead faces, to and fro Swaying the helpless hands, and up and down Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen, And shivered brands that once had fought with Rome, And rolling far along the gloomy shores
135 The voice of days of old and days to be.
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Redivere, 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,
140 And wastes the narrow realm whereon we move, And beats upon the faces of the dead, My dead, as though they had not died for me?? O Redivere, for on my heart hath fallen Confusion, till I know not what I am,
145 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.
150 Yet still thy life is whole, and still I five Who love thee; but who hates thee, he that brought The heathen back among us, yonder stands, Modred, unharmed, the traitor of thine house.'
Then spake the King: 'My house hath been my doom.
155 But call not thou this traitor of my house Who hath but dwelled beneath one roof with me. My house are rather they who sware my vows, Yea, even while they brake them, owned0 me King. ackncnvledged And well for thee, saying in my dark hour,
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THE PASSING OF ARTHUR / 1205
160 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
165 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.
170 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,
175 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
i8o Lay a great water, and the moon was full.
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 'The sequel of today unsolders all The goodliest fellowship of famous knights Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep
185 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.
190 I perish by this people which I made,? Though Merlin sware that I should come again To rule once more;9 but, let what will be, be, I am so deeply smitten through the helm That without help I cannot last til morn.
