Idylls Of The King: The Passing Of Arthur (excerpt) Poem Rhyme Scheme

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That story which the bold Sir Bedivere	A
First made and latest left of all the knights	B
Told when the man was no more than a voice	C
In the white winter of his age to those	D
With whom he dwelt new faces other minds	E
For on their march to westward Bedivere	A
Who slowly paced among the slumbering host	F
Heard in his tent the moanings of the King	G
I found Him in the shining of the stars	H
I mark'd Him in the flowering of His fields	I
But in His ways with men I find Him not	J
I waged His wars and now I pass and die	K
O me for why is all around us here	A
As if some lesser god had made the world	L
But had not force to shape it as he would	M
Till the High God behold it from beyond	N
And enter it and make it beautiful	O
Or else as if the world were wholly fair	A
But that these eyes of men are dense and dim	P
And have not power to see it as it is	Q
Perchance because we see not to the close	R
For I being simple thought to work His will	S
And have but stricken with the sword in vain	T
And all whereon I lean'd in wife and friend	U
Is traitor to my peace and all my realm	V
Reels back into the beast and is no more	A
My God thou hast forgotten me in my death	W
Nay God my Christ I pass but shall not die	K
	-
Then ere that last weird battle in the west	X
There came on Arthur sleeping Gawain kill'd	Y
In Lancelot's war the ghost of Gawain blown	Z
Along a wandering wind and past his ear	A
Went shrilling Hollow hollow all delight	A2
Hail King to morrow thou shalt pass away	B2
Farewell there is an isle of rest for thee	C2
And I am blown along a wandering wind	D2
And hollow hollow hollow all delight	A2
And fainter onward like wild birds that change	E2
Their season in the night and wail their way	B2
From cloud to cloud down the long wind the dream	F2
Shrill'd but in going mingled with dim cries	G2
Far in the moonlit haze among the hills	H2
As of some lonely city sack'd by night	A2
When all is lost and wife and child with wail	I2
Pass to new lords and Arthur woke and call'd	J2
Who spake A dream O light upon the wind	D2
Thine Gawain was the voice are these dim cries	G2
Thine or doth all that haunts the waste and wild	K2
Mourn knowing it will go along with me	C2
	-
This heard the bold Sir Bedivere and spake	L2
O me my King let pass whatever will	S
Elves and the harmless glamour of the field	M2
But in their stead thy name and glory cling	G
To all high places like a golden cloud	N2
For ever but as yet thou shalt not pass	O2
Light was Gawain in life and light in death	W
Is Gawain for the ghost is as the man	P2
And care not thou for dreams from him but rise	G2
I hear the steps of Modred in the west	X
And with him many of thy people and knights	B
Once thine whom thou hast loved but grosser grown	Z
Than heathen spitting at their vows and thee	C2
Right well in heart they know thee for the King	G
Arise go forth and conquer as of old	Q2
	-
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere	A
Far other is this battle in the west	X
Whereto we move than when we strove in youth	R2
And brake the petty kings and fought with Rome	S2
Or thrust the heathen from the Roman wall	T2
And shook him thro' the north Ill doom is mine	U2
To war against my people and my knights	B
The king who fights his people fights himself	V2
And they my knights who loved me once the stroke	W2
That strikes them dead is as my death to me	C2
Yet let us hence and find or feel a way	B2
Thro' this blind haze which ever since I saw	X2
One lying in the dust at Almesbury	A
Hath folded in the passes of the world	L
	-
Then rose the King and moved his host by night	A2
And ever push'd Sir Modred league by league	Y2
Back to the sunset bound of Lyonnesse	X2
A land of old upheaven from the abyss	X2
By fire to sink into the abyss again	Z2
Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt	A3
And the long mountains ended in a coast	F
Of ever shifting sand and far away	B2
The phantom circle of a moaning sea	X2
There the pursuer could pursue no more	A
And he that fled no further fly the King	G
And there that day when the great light of heaven	B3
Burn'd at his lowest in the rolling year	A
On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed	C3
Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight	A2
Like this last dim weird battle of the west	X
A deathwhite mist slept over sand and sea	X2
Whereof the chill to him who breathed it drew	A
Down with his blood till all his heart was cold	Q2
With formless fear and ev'n on Arthur fell	D3
Confusion since he saw not whom he fought	E3
	-
	-
For friend and foe were shadows in the mist	F3
And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew	A
And some had visions out of golden youth	R2
And some beheld the faces of old ghosts	X2
Look in upon the battle and in the mist	F3
Was many a noble deed many a base	X2
And chance and craft and strength in single fights	X2
And ever and anon with host to host	F
Shocks and the splintering spear the hard mail hewn	G3
Shield breakings and the clash of brands the crash	H3
Of battleaxes on shatter'd helms and shrieks	X2
After the Christ of those who falling down	I3
Look'd up for heaven and only saw the mist	F3
And shouts of heathen and the traitor knights	X2
Oaths insult filth and monstrous blasphemies	X2
Sweat writhings anguish labouring of the lungs	X2
In that close mist and cryings for the light	A2
Moans of the dying and voices of the dead	J3
	-
	-
Last as by some one deathbed after wail	I2
Of suffering silence follows or thro' death	W
Or deathlike swoon thus over all that shore	A
Save for some whisper of the seething seas	X2
A dead hush fell but when the dolorous day	B2
Grew drearier toward twilight falling came	K3
A bitter wind clear from the North and blew	A
The mist aside and with that wind the tide	L3
Rose and the pale King glanced across the field	M2
Of battle but no man was moving there	A
Nor any cry of Christian heard thereon	M3
Nor yet of heathen only the wan wave	N3
Brake in among dead faces to and fro	A
Swaying the helpless hands and up and down	I3
Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen	B3
And shiver'd brands that once had fought with Rome	S2
And rolling far along the gloomy shores	X2
The voice of days of old and days to be	X2
	-
	-
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere	A
And whiter than the mist that all day long	O3
Had held the field of battle was the King	G
	-
	-
Hearest thou this great voice that shakes the world	L
And wastes the narrow realm whereon we move	P3
And beats upon the faces of the dead	J3
My dead as tho' they had not died for me	X2
O Bedivere for on my heart hath fall'n	Z2
Confusion till I know not what I am	Q3
Nor whence I am nor whether I be King	G
Behold I seem but King among the dead	J3
	-
	-
Then spake the bold Sir Bedivere My King	G
King everywhere and so the dead have kings	X2
There also will I worship thee as King	G
Yet still thy life is whole and still I live	R3
Who love thee but who hates thee he that brought	E3
The heathen back among us yonder stands	X2
Modred unharm'd the traitor of thine house	X2
	-
	-
Then spake the King My house hath been my doom	S3
But call not thou this traitor of my house	X2
Who hath but dwelt beneath one roof with me	X2
My house are rather they who sware my vows	X2
Yea even while they brake them own'd me King	G
And well for thee saying in my dark hour	A
When all the purport of my throne hath fail'd	T3
That quick or dead thou hottest me for King	G
King am I whatsoever be their cry	A
And one last act of kinghood shalt thou see	X2
Yet ere I pass And uttering this the King	G
Made at the man then Modred smote his liege	U3
Hard on that helm which many a heathen sword	V3
Had beaten thin while Arthur at one bl	A

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Idylls Of The King: The Passing Of Arthur (excerpt) Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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