The Complete Works: Alfred, Lord Tennyson

by Alfred Tennyson

And ever and anon the wolf would steal The children and devour, but now and then, Her own brood lost or dead, lent her fierce teat To human sucklings; and the children, housed In her foul den, there at their meat would growl, And mock their foster mother on four feet, Till, straightened, they grew up to wolf-like men, Worse than the wolves.

But Arthur, looking downward as he past, Felt the light of her eyes into his life Smite on the sudden, yet rode on, and pitched His tents beside the forest.

Shall I not lift her from this land of beasts Up to my throne, and side by side with me? What happiness to reign a lonely king, Vext — O ye stars that shudder over me, O earth that soundest hollow under me, Vext with waste dreams? for saving I be joined To her that is the fairest under heaven, I seem as nothing in the mighty world, And cannot will my will, nor work my work Wholly, nor make myself in mine own realm Victor and lord. But were I joined with her, Then might we live together as one life, And reigning with one will in everything Have power on this dark land to lighten it, And power on this dead world to make it live.’

‘There likewise I beheld Excalibur Before him at his crowning borne, the sword That rose from out the bosom of the lake, And Arthur rowed across and took it — rich With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt, Bewildering heart and eye — the blade so bright That men are blinded by it — on one side, Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world, “Take me,” but turn the blade and ye shall see, And written in the speech ye speak yourself, “Cast me away!” And sad was Arthur’s face Taking it, but old Merlin counselled him, “Take thou and strike! the time to cast away Is yet far-off.”