Famous Long King Arthur Poems

Famous Long King Arthur Poems. Long King Arthur Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best King Arthur long poems

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 So all day long the noise of battle roll'd
Among the mountains by the winter sea;
Until King Arthur's table, man by man,
Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord,
King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,
Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land.
On one side lay the ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
"The sequel of to-day unsolders all
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep
They sleep--the men I loved. I think that we
Shall never more, at any future time,
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,
Walking about the gardens and the halls
Of Camelot, as in the days that were.
I perish by this people which I made,--
Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again
To rule once more--but let what will be, be,
I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm
That without help I cannot last till morn.
Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur,
Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how
In those old days, one summer noon, an arm
Rose up...
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 In Arthur's house whileome was I
When happily the time went by
In midmost glory of his days.
He held his court then in a place
Whereof ye shall not find the name
In any story of his fame:
Caerliel good sooth men called it not,
Nor London Town, nor Camelot;
Yet therein had we bliss enow.
--Ah, far off was the overthrow
Of all that Britain praised and loved;
And though among us lightly moved
A love that could but lead to death,
Smooth-skinned he seemed, of rosy breath,
A fear to sting a lady's lip,
No ruin of goodly fellowship, 
No shame and death of all things good.

Forgive the old carle's babbling mood;
As here I sit grey-haired and old,
My life gone as a story told,
Ye bid me tell a story too;
And then the evil days and few, 
That yet were overlong for me
Rise up so clear I may not see
The pictures of my minstrel lore.

Well hearken! on a day of yore
From prime of morn the court did ride
Amidmost of the summertide
To search the dwellings of the deer
Until the heat of noon was near;
Then slackening speed awhile they went
Adown a ragged thorn-bushed bent
At whose feet grew a tangled wood
Of oak and holly nowise good:
But therethrough with some pain indeed
And rending of the ladies'...
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 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...
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 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 marked 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...
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 Leodogran, the King of Cameliard, 
Had one fair daughter, and none other child; 
And she was the fairest of all flesh on earth, 
Guinevere, and in her his one delight. 

For many a petty king ere Arthur came 
Ruled in this isle, and ever waging war 
Each upon other, wasted all the land; 
And still from time to time the heathen host 
Swarmed overseas, and harried what was left. 
And so there grew great tracts of wilderness, 
Wherein the beast was ever more and more, 
But man was less and less, till Arthur came. 
For first Aurelius lived and fought and died, 
And after him King Uther fought and died, 
But either failed to make the kingdom one. 
And after these King Arthur for a space, 
And through the puissance of his Table Round, 
Drew all their petty princedoms under him. 
Their king and head, and made a realm, and reigned. 

And thus the land of Cameliard was waste, 
Thick with wet woods, and many a beast therein, 
And none or few to scare or chase the beast; 
So that wild dog, and wolf and boar and bear 
Came night and day, and rooted in the fields, 
And wallowed...
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 King Arthur made new knights to fill the gap 
Left by the Holy Quest; and as he sat 
In hall at old Caerleon, the high doors 
Were softly sundered, and through these a youth, 
Pelleas, and the sweet smell of the fields 
Past, and the sunshine came along with him. 

`Make me thy knight, because I know, Sir King, 
All that belongs to knighthood, and I love.' 
Such was his cry: for having heard the King 
Had let proclaim a tournament--the prize 
A golden circlet and a knightly sword, 
Full fain had Pelleas for his lady won 
The golden circlet, for himself the sword: 
And there were those who knew him near the King, 
And promised for him: and Arthur made him knight. 

And this new knight, Sir Pelleas of the isles-- 
But lately come to his inheritance, 
And lord of many a barren isle was he-- 
Riding at noon, a day or twain before, 
Across the forest called of Dean, to find 
Caerleon and the King, had felt the sun 
Beat like a strong knight on his helm, and reeled 
Almost to falling from his horse; but saw 
Near him a mound of even-sloping side, 
Whereon a hundred...
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 Queen Guinevere had fled the court, and sat 
There in the holy house at Almesbury 
Weeping, none with her save a little maid, 
A novice: one low light betwixt them burned 
Blurred by the creeping mist, for all abroad, 
Beneath a moon unseen albeit at full, 
The white mist, like a face-cloth to the face, 
Clung to the dead earth, and the land was still. 

For hither had she fled, her cause of flight 
Sir Modred; he that like a subtle beast 
Lay couchant with his eyes upon the throne, 
Ready to spring, waiting a chance: for this 
He chilled the popular praises of the King 
With silent smiles of slow disparagement; 
And tampered with the Lords of the White Horse, 
Heathen, the brood by Hengist left; and sought 
To make disruption in the Table Round 
Of Arthur, and to splinter it into feuds 
Serving his traitorous end; and all his aims 
Were sharpened by strong hate for Lancelot. 

For thus it chanced one morn when all the court, 
Green-suited, but with plumes that mocked the may, 
Had been, their wont, a-maying and returned, 
That Modred still in green, all ear and eye, 
Climbed to the high top of...
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 From noiseful arms, and acts of prowess done 
In tournament or tilt, Sir Percivale, 
Whom Arthur and his knighthood called The Pure, 
Had passed into the silent life of prayer, 
Praise, fast, and alms; and leaving for the cowl 
The helmet in an abbey far away 
From Camelot, there, and not long after, died. 

And one, a fellow-monk among the rest, 
Ambrosius, loved him much beyond the rest, 
And honoured him, and wrought into his heart 
A way by love that wakened love within, 
To answer that which came: and as they sat 
Beneath a world-old yew-tree, darkening half 
The cloisters, on a gustful April morn 
That puffed the swaying branches into smoke 
Above them, ere the summer when he died 
The monk Ambrosius questioned Percivale: 

`O brother, I have seen this yew-tree smoke, 
Spring after spring, for half a hundred years: 
For never have I known the world without, 
Nor ever strayed beyond the pale: but thee, 
When first thou camest--such a courtesy 
Spake through the limbs and in the voice--I knew 
For one of those who eat in Arthur's hall; 
For good ye are and bad, and like to coins, 
Some true, some light, but every one...
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