Speak out what is it thou hast heard or

seen?'

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere :
'Sir, King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems
Should blind my purpose, for I never saw,
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die,
Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men,
So great a miracle as yonder hilt.

Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling

him ;

But when I look'd again, behold an arm, Cloth'd in white samite, mystic, wonderful, That caught him by the hilt and brandish'd him

Three times, and drew him under in the mere.'

And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard: 'My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone. Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight,

And bear me to the margin; yet I fear
My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die.'

So saying, from the pavement he half rose,
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm;
And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes
As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere
Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears,

And would have spoken, but he found not words;

Then took with care, and kneeling on one

knee,

O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands,

And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs.

But, as he walk'd, King Arthur panted hard, Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed When all the house is mute. So sighed the king,

Muttering and murmuring at his ear, 'Quick, quick!

I fear it is too late and I shall die.'

But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge,

Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walked,

Larger than human on the frozen hills.

He heard the deep behind him, and a cry Before. His own thought drove him like a goad.

Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves
And barren chasms, and all to left and right
The bare black cliff clang'd round him as he

based

His feet on juts of slipping crag that rang

Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heelsAnd on a sudden, lo! the level lake,

And the long glories of the winter moon.

Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, Beneath them; and descending they were

ware

That all the decks were dense with stately forms,

Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream —

by these

Three queens with crowns of gold: and from them rose

A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars,
And, as it were one voice, an agony

Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills

All night in the waste land, where no one

comes,

Or hath come, since the making of the world.

Then murmur'd Arthur, 'Place me in the

barge.'

So 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 shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands,

And call'd him by his name, complaining loud, And dropping bitter tears against a brow Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white

And colorless, and like the wither'd moon
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east ;
And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with
drops

Of onset ; and the light and lustrous curls —
That made his forehead like a rising sun
High from the dais-throne-were parch'd
with dust;

Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, Mixed with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.

So like a shattered column lay the king;
Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,
From spur to plume a star of tournament,
Shot through the lists at Camelot, and charged
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings."

Malory describes in this way the death of Launcelot :

"Then Sir Launcelot, ever after, eat but little meat, nor drank, but continually mourned until he was dead; and then he sickened more

and more, and dried and dwindled away. For the bishop, nor none of his fellows, might not make him to eat, and little he drank, that he was soon waxed shorter by a cubit than he was, that the people could not know him. For evermore day and night he prayed (taking no rest), but needfully as nature required: sometimes he slumbered a broken sleep; and always he was lying grovelling upon King Arthur's and Queen Guenever's tomb; and there was no comfort that the bishop, nor Sir Bors, not none of all his fellows could make him; it availed nothing.

"And so, within fifteen days, they came to Joyous Guard, and there they laid his corpse in the body of the quire, and sung and read many psalters and prayers over him and about him; and even his visage was laid open and naked, that all folk might behold him. For such was the custom in those days, that all men of worship should so lie with open visage till that they were buried. And right thus as they were at their service there came Sir Ector de Maris, that had sought seven years all England, Scotland, and Wales, seeking his brother, Sir Launcelot.

"And then Sir Ector threw his shield, his sword, and his helm from him; and when he