Beneath the sacred bush and past awayThe parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall,

The host, and I sat round the wassailbowl,

Then half-way ebb'd: and there we held a talk,

How all the old honor had from Christmas gone,

Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games

In some odd nooks like this; till I, tired out With cutting eights that day upon the pond,

Where, three times slipping from the outer edge,

I bump'd the ice into three several stars, Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard The parson taking wide and wider sweeps, Now harping on the church-commission

He thought that nothing new was said, or else

Something so said 't was nothing — that a truth

Looks freshest in the fashion of the day : God knows he has a mint of reasons: ask. It pleased me well enough." "Nay, nay,' said Hall,

"Why take the style of those heroic times? For nature brings not back the Mastodon, Nor we those times; and why should any

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 fall'n in Lyonness 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

Lake.

Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the

deeps

Upon the hidden bases of the hills.' So might some old man speak in the aftertime

To all the people, winning reverence. But now much honor and much fame were lost."

So spake he, clouded with his own conceit,

And hid Excalibur the second time,
And so strode back slow to the wounded

King.

Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily:

"What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?"

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: "I heard the water lapping on the crag, And the long ripple washing in the reeds.' To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath:

"Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,
Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me!
Authority forgets a dying king,
Laid widow'd of the power in his eye
That bow'd the will. I see thee what

thou art,

For thou, the latest-left of all my knights, In whom should meet the offices of all, Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt;

Either from lust of gold, or like a girl
Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes.
Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice,
And the third time may prosper, get thee
hence :

But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur,
I will arise and slay thee with my hands."
Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,
And, leaping down the ridges lightly,
plunged

Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch'd the sword,

And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand

Made lightnings in the splendor of the

ful,

And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him

Three times, and drew him under in the

mere.

And lightly went the other to the King. Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath:

"Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. Speak out what is it thou hast heard, or seen ?"

And answer made the bold Sir Bedi

vere:

"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, wheel-
ing him ;

But when I look'd again, behold an arm, Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,

That caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him

Three times, and drew him under in the

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

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 walk'd,

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 slippery crag that rang Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels

And 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 |

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 daïs-throne- —were parch'd with dust;

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

So like a shatter'd column lay the King; Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,

From spur to plume a star of tournament, Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged

Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedi

vere,

"Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?

Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?

For now I see the true old times are dead,

When every morning brought a noble chance,

And every chance brought out a noble knight.

Such times have been not since the light that led

The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. But now the whole ROUND TABLE is dissolved

Which was an image of the mighty world; And I, the last, go forth companionless, And the days darken round me, and the