TO THE POETICAL WORKS OF ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1908 All rights reserved APPENDIX. SOME passages of the Idylls were first written in prose and among my father's manuscripts I find prosesketches for part of The Holy Grail, Pelleas and Ettarre, Gareth and Lynette, and for Balin and Balan. I give as a specimen the last-mentioned, which he dictated to Sir James Knowles, almost without a pause. The "Dolorous Stroke." There came a rumour to the King of two knights who sat beside a fountain near Camelot, and had challenged every knight that passed, and overthrown them. These things were told the King, and early one morning the spirit of his youth returned upon him, and he armed himself, and rode out till he came to the fountain, and there sat two knights, Balin and Balan; and the fountain bubbled out among hart's-tongue and lady-fern, and on one side of the fountain sat Balan and on the other side sat Balin, and on the right of Balan was a poplar-tree, and on the left of Balin was an alder-tree, and the horse of Balan was tied to the poplar-tree, and the horse of Balin to the alder-tree. And Arthur said, "Fair sirs, what do ye here?" And they said, "We sit here for the sake of glory, and we 425 |