springs

Our loyal passion for our temperate kings! For, saving that, ye help to save mankind Till public wrong be crumbled into dust, And drill the raw world for the march of mind,

Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just.

But wink no more in slothful overtrust. 170
Remember him who led your hosts;
He bade you guard the sacred coasts.
Your cannons moulder on the seaward wall;
His voice is silent in your council-hall
For ever; and whatever tempests lour
For ever silent; even if they broke
In thunder, silent; yet remember all
He spoke among you, and the Man who

spoke;

Till in all lands and thro' all human story
The path of duty be the way to glory.
And let the land whose hearths he saved
from shame

For many and many an age proclaim
At civic revel and pomp and game,
And when the long-illumined cities flame,
Their ever-loyal iron leader's fame,
With honor, honor, honor, honor to him,
Eternal honor to his name.

IX

Peace, his triumph will be sung By some yet unmoulded tongue

231

IDYLLS OF THE KING

'Flos Regum Arthurus.' - JOSEPH OF EXETER DEDICATION

THESE 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 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

Break not, O woman's - heart, but still endure;

Break not, for thou art royal, but endure, Remembering all the beauty of that star 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!

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. And ever and anon the wolf would steal The children and devour, but now and then, Her own brood lost or dead, lent her fierce 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 up to wolf-like

And Arthur, passing thence to battle, felt
Travail, and throes and agonies of the life,
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?
What happiness to reign a lonely king, 81
Vext-Ö ye stars that shudder over me,
O earth that soundest hollow under me,
Vext with waste dreams? for saving I be
join'd

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 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 power on this dead world to make it live.'

Thereafter tale

as he speaks who tells the

When Arthur reach'd a field of battle bright

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. 99 So when the King had set his banner broad, At once from either side, with trumpetblast,

And shouts, and clarious shrilling unto blood,

The long-lanced battle let their horses run. And now the barons and the kings prevail'd,

And now the King, as here and there that

yield!'

120

So like a painted battle the war stood
Silenced, the living quiet as the dead,
And in the heart of Arthur joy was lord.
He laugh'd upon his warrior whom he loved
And honor'd most. Thou dost not doubt
me King,

So well thine arm hath wrought for me today.'

'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,

For each had warded either in the fight,

one

190

Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent,
Hath ever like a loyal sister cleaved
To Arthur, but a son she had not borne.
And Uther cast upon her eyes of love;
But she, a stainless wife to Gorloïs,
So loathed the bright dishonor of his love
That Gorloïs and King Uther went to war,
And overthrown was Gorloïs 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 him-
self,