"Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name,

Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight: For surer sign had follow'd, 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."

Then went Sir Bedivere the second time

Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere;

Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought;

But when he saw the wonder of the hilt.

How curiously and strangely chased, he smote

His palms together, and he cried

aloud.

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

"Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me!

Authority forgets a dying king,
Laid widow'd of the power in his eye

That bow'd 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

breathing hard :

"My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone.

Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight,

And bear me to the margin; yet I fear

My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die."

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!

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. He heard the deep behind him, and a cry

Before. His own thought drove him

like a goad.

Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves And barren chasms, and all to left and right

The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based

His feet on juts of slippery crag that

rang Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels

That all the decks were dense with

stately forms Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream-by these

Three Queens with crowns of goldand from them rose

A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars,
And, as it were one voice, an agony
Of lamentation, like a wind, that
shrills

All night in a waste land, where no one comes,

Or hath come, since the making of the world.

Then murmur'd Arthur, "Place me in the barge,"

And to the barge they came. There those three Queens

Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept.

But she, that rose the tallest of them all

And fairest, laid his head upon her lap,

And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands,

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 colorless, 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 curls

That made his forehead like a rising

sun

High from the daïs-throne -were parch'd with dust;

Or, clotted into points and hanging loosc,

Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.

So like a shatter'd column lay the King;

Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,

From spur to plume a star of tournament,

Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged

Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. Then loudly cried the bold £ir Bedivere,

"Ah! 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.

Such times have been not since the light that led

The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 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."

And slowly answered Arthur from barge:

"The older order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfils himself in many ways, 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,

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?

For so the whole round earth is every

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail

Moved from the brink, like some fullbreasted swan

That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood

With swar hy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere

Revolving many memories, till the hull Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn,

And on the mere the wailing died away

Here ended Hall, and our last light, that long

Had wink'd and threaten'd darkness, flared and fell:

At which the Parson, sent to sleep with sound,

And waked with silence, grunted "Good!" but we

Sat rapt it was the tone with which he read

Perhaps some modern touches here and there

Redeem'd it from the charge of nothingness

Or else we loved the man, and prized his work;

I know not: but we sitting, as I said, The cock crew loud; as at that time

of year

The lusty bird takes every hour for dawn:

Then Francis, muttering, like a man ill-used,

"There now-that's nothing!" drew a little back,

And drove his heel into the smoulder'd

Such touches are but embassies of love, To tamper with the feelings, ere he found

Empire for life? but Eustace painted her,

And said to me, she sitting with us then,

"When will you paint like this?" and I replied,

(My words were half in earnest, half in jest,)

""Tis not your work, but Love's. Love, unperceived,

A more ideal Artist he than all, Came, drew your pencil from you, made those eyes

Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair

More black than ashbuds in the front of March."

And Juliet answer'd laughing, "Go and see

The Gardener's daughter: trust me, after that,

You scarce can fail to match his masterpiece."

And up we rose, and on the spur we went..

Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite

Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love.

News from the humming city comes to it

In sound of funeral or of marriage bells;

And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear

The windy clanging of the minster clock;

Although between it and the garden lies

A league of grass, wash'd by a slow broad stream,

That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar,

Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on,
Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge
Crown'd with the minster-towers.
The fields between
Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-ud-
der'd kine,

And all about the large lime feathers low,

The lime a summer home of murmurous wings.

In that still place she, hoarded in herself,

Grew, seldom seen: not less among us lived

Her fame from lip to lip. Who had not heard

Of Rose, the Gardener's daughter? Where was he,

So blunt in memory, so old at heart, At such a distance from his youth in grief,

That, having seen, forgot? The common mouth,

So gross to express delight, in praise of her

Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love, And Beauty such a mistress of the world.

And if I said that Fancy, led by Love, Would play with flying forms and im

For ever in itself the day we went To see her. All the land in flowery squares,

Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind,

Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud

Drew downward: but all else of Heaven was pure

Up to the Sun, and May from verge to verge.

And May with me from head to heel. And now,

As tho' 'twere yesterday, as tho' it

were

The hour just flown, that morn with all its sound,

(For those old Mays had thrice the life of these,)

Rings in mine ears. The steer forgot to graze,

And, where the hedge-row cuts the pathway, stood,

Leaning his horns into the neighbor field.

And lowing to his fellows. From the woods

Came voices of the well-contented doves.

The lark could scarce get out his notes for joy,

But shook his song together as he near'd

His happy home, the ground. To left and right,

The cuckoo told his name to all the hills;

The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm; The redcap whistled; and the nightingale

Sang loud, as tho' he were the bird of day.

And Eustace turn'd, and smiling said

to me,

"Hear how the bushes echo! by my life, These birds have joyful thoughts.

Think you they sing

Like poets, from the vanity of song? Or have they any sense of why they sing?

And would they praise the heavens for what they have?"

And I made answer. "Were there nothing else

For which to praise the heavens but only love,

That only love were cause enough for praise."

Lightly he laugh'd, as one that read my thought,

And on we went; but ere an hour had pass'd,

We reach'd a meadow slanting to the North:

Down which a well-worn pathway courted us

To one green wicket in a privet hedge; This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk Thro' crowded lilac-ambush trimly

pruned.