Idylls of the King | Page 3

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Idylls of the King
IN TWELVE BOOKS
by Alfred, Lord
Tennyson
Flos Regum Arthurus (Joseph of Exeter)
Contents
Dedication
The Coming of Arthur
THE ROUND TABLE
Gareth and Lynette
The Marriage of Geraint
Geraint and Enid

Balin and Balan
Merlin and Vivien
Lancelot and Elaine
The Holy
Grail
Pelleas and Ettarre
The Last Tournament
Guinevere
The Passing of Arthur
To the Queen
Dedication
These to His Memory--since he held them dear,
Perchance as finding
there unconsciously
Some image of himself--I dedicate,
I dedicate,
I consecrate with tears--
These Idylls.
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