The Last Tournament Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Dagonet the fool whom Gawain in his mood	A
Had made mock knight of Arthur's Table Round	B
At Camelot high above the yellowing woods	C
Danced like a withered leaf before the hall	D
And toward him from the hall with harp in hand	E
And from the crown thereof a carcanet	E
Of ruby swaying to and fro the prize	F
Of Tristram in the jousts of yesterday	E
Came Tristram saying Why skip ye so Sir Fool '	G
	-
For Arthur and Sir Lancelot riding once	H
Far down beneath a winding wall of rock	I
Heard a child wail A stump of oak half dead	E
From roots like some black coil of carven snakes	J
Clutched at the crag and started through mid air	K
Bearing an eagle's nest and through the tree	L
Rushed ever a rainy wind and through the wind	E
Pierced ever a child's cry and crag and tree	L
Scaling Sir Lancelot from the perilous nest	E
This ruby necklace thrice around her neck	M
And all unscarred from beak or talon brought	E
A maiden babe which Arthur pitying took	N
Then gave it to his Queen to rear the Queen	O
But coldly acquiescing in her white arms	P
Received and after loved it tenderly	L
And named it Nestling so forgot herself	Q
A moment and her cares till that young life	R
Being smitten in mid heaven with mortal cold	E
Past from her and in time the carcanet	E
Vext her with plaintive memories of the child	E
So she delivering it to Arthur said	E
Take thou the jewels of this dead innocence	H
And make them an thou wilt a tourney prize '	-
	-
To whom the King Peace to thine eagle borne	S
Dead nestling and this honour after death	T
Following thy will but O my Queen I muse	U
Why ye not wear on arm or neck or zone	V
Those diamonds that I rescued from the tarn	V
And Lancelot won methought for thee to wear '	-
	-
Would rather you had let them fall ' she cried	E
Plunge and be lost ill fated as they were	W
A bitterness to me ye look amazed	E
Not knowing they were lost as soon as given	V
Slid from my hands when I was leaning out	E
Above the river that unhappy child	E
Past in her barge but rosier luck will go	X
With these rich jewels seeing that they came	Y
Not from the skeleton of a brother slayer	W
But the sweet body of a maiden babe	Z
Perchance who knows the purest of thy knights	A2
May win them for the purest of my maids '	-
	-
She ended and the cry of a great jousts	A2
With trumpet blowings ran on all the ways	A2
From Camelot in among the faded fields	A2
To furthest towers and everywhere the knights	A2
Armed for a day of glory before the King	B2
	-
But on the hither side of that loud morn	V
Into the hall staggered his visage ribbed	E
From ear to ear with dogwhip weals his nose	A2
Bridge broken one eye out and one hand off	C2
And one with shattered fingers dangling lame	Y
A churl to whom indignantly the King	B2
	-
My churl for whom Christ died what evil beast	E
Hath drawn his claws athwart thy face or fiend	E
Man was it who marred heaven's image in thee thus '	-
	-
Then sputtering through the hedge of splintered teeth	D2
Yet strangers to the tongue and with blunt stump	E2
Pitch blackened sawing the air said the maimed churl	L
	-
He took them and he drave them to his tower	W
Some hold he was a table knight of thine	V
A hundred goodly ones the Red Knight he	L
Lord I was tending swine and the Red Knight	E
Brake in upon me and drave them to his tower	W
And when I called upon thy name as one	V
That doest right by gentle and by churl	L
Maimed me and mauled and would outright have slain	V
Save that he sware me to a message saying	B2
'Tell thou the King and all his liars that I	F2
Have founded my Round Table in the North	G2
And whatsoever his own knights have sworn	V
My knights have sworn the counter to it and say	A2
My tower is full of harlots like his court	E
But mine are worthier seeing they profess	A2
To be none other than themselves and say	A2
My knights are all adulterers like his own	V
But mine are truer seeing they profess	A2
To be none other and say his hour is come	H2
The heathen are upon him his long lance	A2
Broken and his Excalibur a straw ''	-
	-
Then Arthur turned to Kay the seneschal	L
Take thou my churl and tend him curiously	L
Like a king's heir till all his hurts be whole	L
The heathen but that ever climbing wave	I2
Hurled back again so often in empty foam	J2
Hath lain for years at rest and renegades	A2
Thieves bandits leavings of confusion whom	K2
The wholesome realm is purged of otherwhere	W
Friends through your manhood and your fealty now	V
Make their last head like Satan in the North	G2
My younger knights new made in whom your flower	W
Waits to be solid fruit of golden deeds	A2
Move with me toward their quelling which achieved	E
The loneliest ways are safe from shore to shore	W
But thou Sir Lancelot sitting in my place	A2
Enchaired tomorrow arbitrate the field	E
For wherefore shouldst thou care to mingle with it	E
Only to yield my Queen her own again	V
Speak Lancelot thou art silent is it well '	-
	-
Thereto Sir Lancelot answered It is well	L
Yet better if the King abide and leave	L2
The leading of his younger knights to me	L
Else for the King has willed it it is well '	-
	-
Then Arthur rose and Lancelot followed him	M2
And while they stood without the doors the King	B2
Turned to him saying Is it then so well	L
Or mine the blame that oft I seem as he	L
Of whom was written 'A sound is in his ears'	A2
The foot that loiters bidden go the glance	A2
That only seems half loyal to command	E
A manner somewhat fallen from reverence	A2
Or have I dreamed the bearing of our knights	A2
Tells of a manhood ever less and lower	W
Or whence the fear lest this my realm upreared	E
By noble deeds at one with noble vows	A2
From flat confusion and brute violences	A2
Reel back into the beast and be no more '	-
	-
He spoke and taking all his younger knights	A2
Down the slope city rode and sharply turned	E
North by the gate In her high bower the Queen	V
Working a tapestry lifted up her head	E
Watched her lord pass and knew not that she sighed	E
Then ran across her memory the strange rhyme	N2
Of bygone Merlin Where is he who knows	A2
From the great deep to the great deep he goes '	-
	-
But when the morning of a tournament	E
By these in earnest those in mockery called	E
The Tournament of the Dead Innocence	A2
Brake with a wet wind blowing Lancelot	E
Round whose sick head all night like birds of prey	W
The words of Arthur flying shrieked arose	A2
And down a streetway hung with folds of pure	W
White samite and by fountains running wine	V
Where children sat in white with cups of gold	E
Moved to the lists and there with slow sad steps	A2
Ascending filled his double dragoned chair	W
	-
He glanced and saw the stately galleries	A2
Dame damsel each through worship of their Queen	V
White robed in honour of the stainless child	E
And some with scattered jewels like a bank	O2
Of maiden snow mingled with sparks of fire	W
He looked but once and vailed his eyes again	V
	-
The sudden trumpet sounded as in a dream	P2
To ears but half awaked then one low roll	L
Of Autumn thunder and the jousts began	V
And ever the wind blew and yellowing leaf	Q2
And gloom and gleam and shower and shorn plume	K2
Went down it Sighing weariedly as one	V
Who sits and gazes on a faded fire	W
When all the goodlier guests are past away	W
Sat their great umpire looking o'er the lists	A2
He saw the laws that ruled the tournament	E
Broken but spake not once a knight cast down	V
Before his throne of arbitration cursed	E
The dead babe and the follies of the King	B2
And once the laces of a helmet cracked	E
And showed him like a vermin in its hole	L
Modred a narrow face anon he heard	E
The voice that billowed round the barriers roar	W
An ocean sounding welcome to one knight	E
But newly entered taller than the rest	E
And armoured all in forest green whereon	V
There tript a hundred tiny silver deer	W
And wearing but a holly spray for crest	E
With ever scattering berries and on shield	E
A spear a harp a bugle Tristram late	E
From overseas in Brittany returned	E
And marriage with a princess of that realm	R2
Isolt the White Sir Tristram of the Woods	A2

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Last Tournament Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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