'Strike for the King and die! and if thou diest, The King is King, and ever wills the highest. Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign.

'Blow, for our Sun is mighty in his May! Blow, for our Sun is mightier day by day! Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign.

'The King will follow Christ, and we the King In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing. Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign.'

So sang the knighthood, moving to their hall. There at the banquet those great Lords from Rome,

The slowly-fading mistress of the world,
Strode in, and claim'd their tribute as of yore.
But Arthur spake, Behold, for these have sworn
To wage my wars, and worship me their King;
The old order changeth, yielding place to new;
And we that fight for our fair father Christ,
Seeing that ye be grown too weak and old
To drive the heathen from your Roman wall,
No tribute will we pay': so those
great lords
Drew back in wrath, and Arthur strove with

Rome.

And Arthur and his knighthood for a space Were all one will, and thro' that strength the King

Drew in the petty princedoms under him, Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reign'd.

THE last tall son of Lot and Bellicent,
And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring
Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted Pine
Lost footing, fell, and so was whirl'd away.
'How he went down,' said Gareth, as a false
knight

Or evil king before my lance if lance
Were mine to use-O senseless cataract,
Bearing all down in thy precipitancy—

And yet thou art but swollen with cold snows
And mine is living blood: thou dost His will,
The Maker's, and not knowest, and I that know,
Have strength and wit, in my good mother's hall
Linger with vacillating obedience,

Prison'd, and kept and coax'd and whistled to— Since the good mother holds me still a child! Good mother is bad mother unto me!

A worse were better; yet no worse would I. Heaven yield her for it, but in me put force To weary her ears with one continuous prayer, Until she let me fly discaged to sweep

In ever-highering eagle-circles up

To the great Sun of Glory, and thence swoop Down upon all things base, and dash them dead, A knight of Arthur, working out his will,

To cleanse the world. Why, Gawain, when he

came

With Modred hither in the summertime,

Ask'd me to tilt with him, the proven knight.
Modred for want of worthier was the judge.
Then I so shook him in the saddle, he said,
"Thou hast half prevail'd against me," said so-
he-

Tho' Modred biting his thin lips was mute,
For he is always sullen: what care I?'

And Gareth went, and hovering round her chair Ask'd, 'Mother, tho' ye count me still the child, Sweet mother, do ye love the child?' She laugh'd, 'Thou art but a wild-goose to question it.' 'Then, mother, an ye love the child,' he said, 'Being a goose and rather tame than wild, Hear the child's story.' 'Yea, my well-beloved, An 'twere but of the goose and golden eggs.'

And Gareth answer'd her with kindling eyes,
'Nay, nay, good mother, but this egg of mine
Was finer gold than any goose can lay ;
For this an Eagle, a royal Eagle, laid
Almost beyond eye-reach, on such a palm
As glitters gilded in thy Book of Hours.
And there was ever haunting round the palm
A lusty youth, but poor, who often saw
The splendour sparkling from aloft, and thought
"An I could climb and lay my hand upon it,
Then were I wealthier than a leash of kings."
But ever when he reach'd a hand to climb,
One, that had loved him from his childhood, caught
And stay'd him, "Climb not lest thou break thy
neck,

I charge thee by my love," and so the boy,
Sweet mother, neither clomb, nor brake his neck,
But brake his very heart in pining for it,
And past away.'

To whom the mother said, 'True love, sweet son, had risk'd himself and

climb'd,

And handed down the golden treasure to him.'

And Gareth answer'd her with kindling eyes, 'Gold? said I gold ?—ay then, why he, or she, Or whosoe'er it was, or half the world

Had ventured-had the thing I spake of been Mere gold-but this was all of that true steel,