And shouts of heathen and the traitor knights, Oaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blasphemies, Sweat, writhings, anguish, laboring of the lungs In that close mist, and cryings for the light, Moans of the dying and voices of the dead.

Last as by some one death-bed, after wail Of suffering, silence follows, or thro' death Or deathlike swoon, thus over all that shore, Save for some whisper of the seething seas, A dead hush fell; but when the dolorous day Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew The mist aside, and with that wind the tide Rose, and the pale king glanced across the field Of battle; but no man was moving there;

Nor any cry of Christian heard thereon,

Nor yet of heathen; only the waste wave

Brake in among dead faces, to and fro

Swaying the helpless hands, and up and down

Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen,

And shiver'd brands that once had fought with Rome,

And rolling far along the gloomy shores

The voice of days of old and days to be.

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere, And whiter than the mist that all day long

Had held the field of battle was the king.

“Hearest thou this great voice that shakes the world,

And wastes the narrow realm whereon we move,

And beats upon the faces of the dead,

My dead, as tho' they had not died for me

O Bedivere, for on my heart hath fall'n
Confusion, till I know not what I am,

Nor whence I am, nor whether I be king.
Behold, I seem but king among the dead."

Then spake the bold Sir Bedivere, "My king, King everywhere! and so the dead have kings,

There also will I worship thee as king.

Yet still thy life is whole, and still I live

Who love thee; but who hates thee, he that brought

The heathen back among us, yonder stands,

Modred, unharm'd, the traitor of thine house."

Then spake the King, "My house hath been my doom.

Who hath but dwelt beneath one roof with me.

My house are rather they who sware my vows,

Yea, even while they brake them, own'd me king.
And well for thee, saying in my dark hour,
When all the purport of my throne hath fail'd,
That quick or dead thou holdest me for king.
King am I, whatsoever be their cry ;

And one last act of kinghood shalt thou see
Yet ere I pass"; and, uttering this, the king
Made at the man: then Modred smote his liege
Hard on that helm, which many a heathen sword
Had beaten thin, while Arthur at one blow

Striking the last stroke with Excalibur,
Slew him, and all but slain himself he fell.

So all day long the noise of battle roll'd Among the mountains by the winter sea; Until King Arthur's table, man by man,

Had fall'n in Lyonesse about their lord,

King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,

The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,

And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,

A broken chancel with a broken cross,

That stood on a dark strait of barren land.
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full.

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : "The sequel of to-day unsolders all

The goodliest fellowship of famous knights Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep

They sleep the men I loved. I think that we

Shall never more, at any future time,

Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,

Walking about the gardens and the halls

Of Camelot, as in the days that were.

I perish by this people which I made,

Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again
To rule once more but let what will be, be,
I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm

That without help I cannot last till morn.

Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur,

Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how In those old days, one summer noon, an arm

Rose up

from out the bosom of the lake,

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,

Holding the sword and how I row'd across
And took it, and have worn it, like a king :

And, wheresoever I am sung or told

In after-time, this also shall be known:

But now delay not: take Excalibur,

And fling him far into the middle mere :

Watch what thou scëst, and lightly bring me word.”