SELECTIONS IN ENGLISH POETRY
All night in a waste land, where no one comes,
Or hath come, since the making of the world.
Then murmur'd Arthur, 'Place me in the barge/ 204
And to the barge they came. There those three Queens
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept.
But she, that rose the tallest of them all
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap,
And loosed the shattered casque, and chafed his hands,
And call'd him by-his name, complaining loud, 210
And dropping bitter tears against his brow
Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white
And colourless, and like the wittier'd moon
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east;
And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops 215
Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls—
rl hat made his forehead like a rising sun
High from the dais-throne—were parch'd with dust;
Or, clotted into points and hanging loose,
Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.
So like a shattered column lay the King; -221
Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,
From spur to plume a star of tournament,
Shot thro* the lists at Camelot, and charged
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. 225
Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere,
'Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall.I go?
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?
Fpr now I see the true old times are dead,
When every morning brought a noble chance, 230
And every chance brought out a noble knight.
Such times have been not since the light that icu
The holy Elders with the gift of rnyrrh.
But now the whole ROUND TABLE is dissolved
Which was an image of the mighty world; 235
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