Idylls of the King

Excerpt

               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 listened to it;
  Who loved one only and who clave to her—'
  Her—over all whose realms to their last isle,
  Commingled with the gloom of imminent war,
  The shadow of His loss drew like eclipse,
  Darkening the world. We have lost him: he is gone:
  We know him now: all narrow jealousies
  Are silent; and we see him as he moved,
  How modest, kindly, all-accomplished, wise,
  With what sublime repression of himself,
  And in what limits, and how tenderly;
  Not swaying to this faction or to that;
  Not making his high place the lawless perch
  Of winged ambitions, nor a vantage-ground
  For pleasure; but through all this tract of years
  Wearing the white flower of a blameless life,
  Before a thousand peering littlenesses,
  In that fierce light which beats upon a throne,
  And blackens every blot: for where is he,
  Who dares foreshadow for an only son
  A lovelier life, a more unstained, than his?
  Or how should England dreaming of his sons
  Hope more for these than some inheritance
  Of such a life, a heart, a mind as thine,
  Thou noble Father of her Kings to be,
  Laborious for her people and her poor—
  Voice in the rich dawn of an ampler day—
  Far-sighted summoner of War and Waste
  To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace—
  Sweet nature gilded by the gracious gleam
  Of letters, dear to Science, dear to Art,
  Dear to thy land and ours, a Prince indeed,
  Beyond all titles, and a household name,
  Hereafter, through all times, Albert the Good.

     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 splendour.

                               May all love,
  His love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow Thee,
  The love of all Thy sons encompass Thee,
  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!

The Coming of Arthur

  Leodogran, the King of Cameliard,
  Had one fair daughter, and none other child;
  And she was the fairest of all flesh on earth,
  Guinevere, and in her his one delight.

     For many a petty king ere Arthur came
  Ruled in this isle, and ever waging war
  Each upon other, wasted all the land;
  And still from time to time the heathen host
  Swarmed overseas, and harried what was left.
  And so there grew great tracts of wilderness,
  Wherein the beast was ever more and more,
  But man was less and less, till Arthur came.
  For first Aurelius lived and fought and died,
  And after him King Uther fought and died,
  But either failed to make the kingdom one.
  And after these King Arthur for a space,
  And through the puissance of his Table Round,
  Drew all their petty princedoms under him.
  Their king and head, and made a realm, and reigned.

     And thus the land of Cameliard was waste,
  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 wallowed 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,
  And mock their foster mother on four feet,
  Till, straightened, they grew up to wolf-like men,
  Worse than the wolves. And King Leodogran
  Groaned for the Roman legions here again,
  And Caesar's eagle: then his brother king,
  Urien, assailed him: last a heathen horde,
  Reddening the sun with smoke and earth with blood,
  And on the spike that split the mother's heart
  Spitting the child, brake on him, till, amazed,
  He knew not whither he should turn for aid.

     But—for he heard of Arthur newly crowned,
  Though not without an uproar made by those
  Who cried, 'He is not Uther's son'—the King
  Sent to him, saying, 'Arise, and help us thou!
  For here between the man and beast we die.'

     And Arthur yet had done no deed of arms,
  But heard the call, and came: and Guinevere
  Stood by the castle walls to watch him pass;
  But since he neither wore on helm or shield
  The golden symbol of his kinglihood,
  But rode a simple knight among his knights,
  And many of these in richer arms than he,
  She saw him not, or marked not, if she saw,
  One among many, though his face was bare....