Analysis of Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur (excerpt)
That story which the bold Sir Bedivere,
First made and latest left of all the knights,
Told, when the man was no more than a voice
In the white winter of his age, to those
With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds.
For on their march to westward, Bedivere,
Who slowly paced among the slumbering host,
Heard in his tent the moanings of the King:
"I found Him in the shining of the stars,
I mark'd Him in the flowering of His fields,
But in His ways with men I find Him not.
I waged His wars, and now I pass and die.
O me! for why is all around us here
As if some lesser god had made the world,
But had not force to shape it as he would,
Till the High God behold it from beyond,
And enter it, and make it beautiful?
Or else as if the world were wholly fair,
But that these eyes of men are dense and dim,
And have not power to see it as it is:
Perchance, because we see not to the close;--
For I, being simple, thought to work His will,
And have but stricken with the sword in vain;
And all whereon I lean'd in wife and friend
Is traitor to my peace, and all my realm
Reels back into the beast, and is no more.
My God, thou hast forgotten me in my death:
Nay--God my Christ--I pass but shall not die."
Then, ere that last weird battle in the west,
There came on Arthur sleeping, Gawain kill'd
In Lancelot's war, the ghost of Gawain blown
Along a wandering wind, and past his ear
Went shrilling, "Hollow, hollow all delight!
Hail, King! to-morrow thou shalt pass away.
Farewell! there is an isle of rest for thee.
And I am blown along a wandering wind,
And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight."
And fainter onward, like wild birds that change
Their season in the night and wail their way
From cloud to cloud, down the long wind the dream
Shrill'd; but in going mingled with dim cries
Far in the moonlit haze among the hills,
As of some lonely city sack'd by night,
When all is lost, and wife and child with wail
Pass to new lords; and Arthur woke and call'd,
"Who spake? A dream. O light upon the wind,
Thine, Gawain, was the voice--are these dim cries
Thine? or doth all that haunts the waste and wild
Mourn, knowing it will go along with me?"
This heard the bold Sir Bedivere and spake:
"O me, my King, let pass whatever will,
Elves, and the harmless glamour of the field;
But in their stead thy name and glory cling
To all high places like a golden cloud
For ever: but as yet thou shalt not pass.
Light was Gawain in life, and light in death
Is Gawain, for the ghost is as the man;
And care not thou for dreams from him, but rise--
I hear the steps of Modred in the west,
And with him many of thy people, and knights
Once thine, whom thou hast loved, but grosser grown
Than heathen, spitting at their vows and thee.
Right well in heart they know thee for the King.
Arise, go forth and conquer as of old."
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
"Far other is this battle in the west
Whereto we move, than when we strove in youth,
And brake the petty kings, and fought with Rome,
Or thrust the heathen from the Roman wall,
And shook him thro' the north. Ill doom is mine
To war against my people and my knights.
The king who fights his people fights himself.
And they my knights, who loved me once, the stroke
That strikes them dead is as my death to me.
Yet let us hence, and find or feel a way
Thro' this blind haze, which ever since I saw
One lying in the dust at Almesbury,
Hath folded in the passes of the world."
Then rose the King and moved his host by night,
And ever push'd Sir Modred, league by league,
Back to the sunset bound of Lyonnesse--
A land of old upheaven from the abyss
By fire, to sink into the abyss again;
Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt,
And the long mountains ended in a coast
Of ever-shifting sand, and far away
The phantom circle of a moaning sea.
There the pursuer could pursue no more,
And he that fled no further fly the King;
And there, that day when the great light of heaven
Burn'd at his lowest in the rolling year,
On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed.
Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight
Like this last, dim, weird battle of the west.
A deathwhite mist slept over sand and sea:
Scheme ABXXXACDXXXEAFXXXAXXXGXXXAHE IXJAKLMNKXLXOXKXXNOXM XGXDXXHXOIBJMDX AIXXXXBXXMLXAF KXBXXXCLMADXAXKIA Poetic Form Tetractys (20%) Metre 11010111 1101011101 1101111101 0011011111 1111110101 11111101 11010101001 101101101 1110010101 11100100111 1011111111 1111011101 1111110111 1111011101 1111111111 1011011101 0101011100 1111010101 1111111101 01110111111 0101111101 11101011111 0111010101 011110101 1101110111 1101010111 11110101011 1111111111 1111110001 1111010101 011011101 01010010111 111010101 1111011101 111111111 01110101001 0101010101 0101011111 1100010111 1111101101 1101010111 100110101 1111010111 1111010111 1111010101 1101110101 1101011111 1111110101 1101110111 11011101 111111101 1001010101 1011110101 1111010101 1101111111 1110010101 1101011101 0111111111 110111001 01110111001 1111111101 1101011101 1101111101 0111010111 11110111 1101110001 111111101 0101010111 1101010101 0111011111 1101110011 0111110101 0111111101 1111111111 1111011101 1111110111 11000111 1100010101 1101011111 010111111 1101111 011111001 110110100101 1101010101 0011010001 1101010101 0101010101 1001010111 0111110101 01111011110 1111000101 1011101111 1101110101 1111110101 0111101011 Closest metre Iambic pentameter Characters 4,362 Words 816 Sentences 30 Stanzas 5 Stanza Lengths 28, 21, 15, 14, 17 Lines Amount 95 Letters per line (avg) 33 Words per line (avg) 9 Letters per stanza (avg) 634 Words per stanza (avg) 162 Font size:Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 16, 2023
- 4:05 min read
- 95 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur (excerpt)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/992/idylls-of-the-king%3A-the-passing-of-arthur-%28excerpt%29>.
Become a member!
Join our community of poets and poetry lovers to share your work and offer feedback and encouragement to writers all over the world!
The Web's Largest Resource for
Poets, Poems & Poetry
A Member Of The STANDS4 Network
April 2024
Poetry Contest
Join our monthly contest for an opportunity to win cash prizes and attain global acclaim for your talent.
1
day
4
hours
16
minutes
Special Program
Earn Rewards!
Unlock exciting rewards such as a free mug and free contest pass by commenting on fellow members' poems today!
Quiz
Are you a poetry master?
»Who was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry?
A
Sara Teasdale
B
Mona Van Duyn
C
Edith Wharton
D
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Discuss this Alfred Lord Tennyson poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In