And slowly answered Arthur from the barge: 'The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfills himself in many ways,
410 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 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,
415 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,
420 If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 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 425 With these thou seest-?if indeed I go (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)? To the island-valley of Avilion;9 Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly: but it lies 430 Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea, Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.'
So said he, and the barge with oar and sail Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan 435 That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
8. I.e., the star that guided the three kings 9. Or Avalon; in Celtic mythology and medieval ('Elders') to the infant Jesus at Bethlehem. See romance, the Vale of the Blessed where heroes Matthew 2.1-12. enjoyed life after death.
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CROSSING THE BAR / 1211
With swarthy webs.? Long stood Sir Bedivere webbed feet Revolving many memories, till the hull Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn,
440 And on the mere the wailing died away.
But when that moan had passed for evermore, The stillness of the dead world's winter dawn Amazed him, and he groaned, 'The King is gone.' And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme,1
445 'From the great deep to the great deep he goes.'
Whereat he slowly turned and slowly clomb The last hard footstep of that iron crag; Thence marked the black hull moving yet, and cried, 'He passes to be King among the dead,
450 And after healing of his grievous wound He comes again; but?if he come no more? O me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat, Who shrieked and wailed, the three whereat we gazed On that high day, when, clothed with living light,
455 They stood before his throne in silence, friends Of Arthur, who should help him at his need?'2
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,
460 Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice Around a king returning from his wars.
Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb Even to the highest he could climb, and saw, Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand,
465 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.
1833-69 1869
Crossing the Bar1
Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar,2 When I put out to sea,
1. In The Coming of Arthur, Merlin speaks a mys-1. Although not the last poem written by Tennyterious prophecy, in verse, concerning Arthur's son, 'Crossing the Bar' appears, at his request, as birth; see lines 402-10 (p. 1198). the final poem in all collections of his work. 2. In The Coming of Arthur, Arthur's half-sister 2. Mournful sound of the ocean beating on a sand Bellicent describes his coronation. See lines 275? bar at the mouth of a harbor. 78 (p. 1196).
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121 2 / EDWARD FITZGERALD
5 But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home. 10Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark; I? For though from out our bourne0 of Time and PlaceThe flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar. boundary
1889 1889
EDWARD FITZGERALD 1809-1883
Omar Khayyam was a twelfth-century mathematician, astronomer, and teacher from Nishapur in Persia. He was also the author of numerous rhymed quatrains, a verse form called in Persian rubai. Omar's four-line epigrams were subsequently brought together in collections called Rubaiydt and recorded in various manuscripts.
More than seven hundred years later, in 1857, an Omar manuscript came into the hands of Edward FitzGerald, who made from it one of the most popular poems of the Victorian period. FitzGerald was a scholar of comfortable means who lived in the country reading the classics and cultivating his garden. He also cultivated his friendships with writers such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Thomas Carlyle, to whom he wrote charming letters. His translations from Greek and Latin were largely ignored and so too, at first, was his translation of Omar's Persian verses, which he published anonymously. In 1859 only two reviewers noticed the appearance of the Rubaiydt of Omar Khayyam, and the book was soon remaindered. Two years later the volume was discovered by D. G. Bossetti; enthusiasm for it gradually spread, until edition after edition was called for. FitzGerald subjected the poem to numerous revisions over the years; the first edition is printed here.
