As such, he smites his own spirit into those who love him, so that, when his knights swear allegiance, into every face there comes A momentary likeness of the king. So carefully, and with such foresight for the rest of the poem, is Arthur hewn out before us by the poet. But another personage needs also to be introduced : Lancelot, friend of the King, yet the lover of the Queen. He first appears with Arthur in the battle for Arthur's rights with the rebellious kings. They each save one another's life, and they swear on the stricken field a deathless love: And Arthur said: "Man' sword is God in man; Let chance what will, I trust thee to the death." Alas! in the trust, and in the friendship, lies hidden all the tragic fate to come; and when we hear that Lancelot is sent by Arthur to fetch Guinevere, we know that the joy, splendour, and hopes of the King are already doomed. The rift is in the lute which will make all the music dumb. What faith has bound together, unfaith unbinds. O tragic world and tragic life of man! Tennyson has lifted to the highest peak in this poem the early inspiration of the King and his people, that our pity may be wrought to fulness by the catastrophe. Only a hint here and there suggests the pain to come, but the hints are clear. There is admirable skill shown in the management of this. Thus the characters are placed in preparation for the whole. The story, as story, is set afloat by the questions of Guinevere's father concerning Arthur's birth. Is he a lawful king or not? Arthur's knights tell Leodogran the old legend of Uther and Ygerne and the siege of Tintagil. Thus Tennyson keeps touch with the tale which is his basis; but after that, for the sake of his allegory, he invents, and Bellicent tells the story of Arthur's coronation, and the mighty oath by which the soul binds all the powers of man to follow him in purity to redress the wrongs of the world. In the midst there arises that fine vision of the Church as the Lady of the Lake-a splendid picture, in which every word is a symbol: A mist Of incense curl'd about her, and her face May shake the world, and when the surface rolls, Then, to restore the humanity of the tale, Arthur's youth with his half-sister, Bellicent, is pictured-one of Tennyson's homely pictures of domestic tenderness; and then, lifting himself easily into more exalted thought, he invents the magic story which signifies the coming of the soul into this world from the high heaven and out of the great deep. The allegory may be let go, but the description of Merlin and Bleys, descending while Uther is dying to the cove below Tintagil Castle, is a piece of noble poetry-half nature and half legend: And then the two Dropt to the cove and watch'd the great sea fall, And down the wave and in the flame was borne A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet, Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cried “The King Of that great breaker, sweeping up the strand, And all at once all round him rose in fire, Scarcely less fine than this is the dream of Leodogran, and the description of the great church in the Maytime, and the stainless knights in white robes, upon the wedding morn-with the one torch, in which so much of tragedy is held, of the drooped eyelids of Guinevere, in whose heart lay Lancelot while her hand was clasped in Arthur's. Lastly, as a piece of glorious literature, there is the marriage and coronation song of the knights. It was not in the first draft of The Coming of Arthur. It embodies the thought of the poem, grips the whole meaning of it together. And its sound is the sound of martial triumph, of victorious weapons in battle, and of knights in arms. We hear in the carefully varied chorus, in the very rattle and shattering of the vowels in the words, the beating of axe on helm and shaft on shield. Rugged, clanging, clashing lines-it is a splendid effort of art. King Olaf might have sung it. Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May ; Shall Rome or Heathen rule in Arthur's realm? Blow, for our Sun is mighty in his May ! Blow, for our Sun is mightier day by day! Clang battle-axe, and clash brand! Let the King reign. The King will follow Christ, and we the King In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing. Fall battle-axe, and flash brand! Let the King reign. We hear its contrast in Merlin's song, as soft and flowing as the other was braying and broken, and we think with gratitude of the artist who could do both with equal ease. The graciousness of the rivulet-music and soft play of Nature is in the lines of this delicate song, and the gaiety of youth; and mingled with these the deep and favourite thought of Tennyson of the preexistence of the soul. It is pleasant to hear it, for we have companied with the shadow of tragedy: Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow in the sky! A young man will be wiser by and by ; An old man's wit may wander ere he die. Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow on the lea! Rain, sun, and rain! and the free blossom blows; In The Coming of Arthur the King is crowned and married, and the land subdued to peace and justice. The heathen and the Romans are driven out; the Round Table established. Arthur sits on the judgmentseat, and there is a sketch of him in Gareth and Lynette doing this work. Knights ride away each day from the Court to deliver the weak from the oppressor; and the young men of noble birth in the kingdom whom Arthur's character has inspired come, like Gareth, to Camelot to join his band, seeking knighthood and high adventure. So everywhere the Order is recruited, the King's power grows, and into all the knights, young and clean and eager, the King pours his spirit : Clear honour shining like the dewy star Of dawn, of faith in their great King, with pure And glory gain'd, and ever more to gain. All is well; and the idyll of Gareth and Lynette represents this golden time. In human affairs, in the history of great causes, in men's lives, in their love, there is a time of glad beginnings, such a beginning as Nature has in spring. Gareth is the image of this pleasant, pro |