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GLASTONBURY
Whereat once more the ancient eyes were fired:
"I, I was Arthur's bishop, at his court
And in his church I ministered, and thence
When at the last the whole was overthrown
With wrath and ill designings, straight I sought
A place where I might die, too feeble grown
To endure a new beginning to my years
When once the past was lost, and whelmed in tears.
Hither I came, where, in the dawns of time
Dim peoples, that the very stones forget,
Lived, loved, and fought, and wove the riddling rime
On a lake island mystically set.
They passed, and after ages manifold
Came wandering sainted Joseph (even he
That tended God's frail body, and enrolled
In linen clothes of spicèd fragrancy).
He brought the vessel, vanished now from earth
That wrought destruction to the Table Round,
Since many deemed themselves above their worth
And sought in vain, and perished ere they found."
"I, I was Arthur's bishop, at his court
And in his church I ministered, and thence
When at the last the whole was overthrown
With wrath and ill designings, straight I sought
A place where I might die, too feeble grown
To endure a new beginning to my years
When once the past was lost, and whelmed in tears.
Hither I came, where, in the dawns of time
Dim peoples, that the very stones forget,
Lived, loved, and fought, and wove the riddling rime
On a lake island mystically set.
They passed, and after ages manifold
Came wandering sainted Joseph (even he
That tended God's frail body, and enrolled
In linen clothes of spicèd fragrancy).
He brought the vessel, vanished now from earth
That wrought destruction to the Table Round,
Since many deemed themselves above their worth
And sought in vain, and perished ere they found."
Then Bedivere: "Alas the King! I saw
The unstayed overwhelming tide of war:
And when the opposèd standards were unfurled
Of Arthur and of Mordred, his base son,
Ere yet the noise of battle was begun
I heard the heralds crying to the world:
The unstayed overwhelming tide of war:
And when the opposèd standards were unfurled
Of Arthur and of Mordred, his base son,
Ere yet the noise of battle was begun
I heard the heralds crying to the world:
"'Ye that have sought out pallid harmonies
Where never wind blows, save the gentle south:
Ye that have trafficked on the sounding seas
And fear nor cheerless rains, nor scorching drouth:
Where never wind blows, save the gentle south:
Ye that have trafficked on the sounding seas
And fear nor cheerless rains, nor scorching drouth:
"'Ye that have piled the rich, full-ripened crops
Of word and measure, till the rime, grown proud,
Did straight contemn the leaping mountain tops
And lose itself in air, and riven cloud:
Of word and measure, till the rime, grown proud,
Did straight contemn the leaping mountain tops
And lose itself in air, and riven cloud:
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