Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?

I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within himself make pure! but thou,

If thou shouldst never see my face again,

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 415 Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice

Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain,

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seëst if indeed I go

(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) -
To the island-valley of Avilion ;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.'

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425

430

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere
Revolving many memories, till the hull

435

Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn,
And on the mere the wailing died away.

But when that moan had past for evermore,
The stillness of the dead world's winter dawn
Amazed him, and he groan'd, The King is gone.'
And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme,

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440

From the great deep to the great deep he goes.'

445

Whereat he slowly turn'd and slowly clomb

The last hard footstep of that iron crag;

Thence mark'd the black hull moving yet, and cried,
'He passes to be King among the dead,
And after healing of his grievous wound
He comes again; but - if he come no more

450

O me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat,
Who shriek'd and wail'd, the three whereat we gazed
On that high day, when, clothed with living light,
They stood before his throne in silence, friends

455

Of Arthur, who should help him at his need?'

Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint

As from beyond the limit of the world,

Like the last echo born of a great cry,

Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice

460

Around a king returning from his wars.

Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb Ev'n to the highest he could climb, and saw, Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand,

Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King,
Down that long water opening on the deep
Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go,
From less to less and vanish into light.
And the new sun rose bringing the new year.

THE SPLENDOR FALLS.

THE splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:

The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!

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HOME THEY BROUGHT HER WARRIOR DEAD. 303

O sweet and far from cliff and scar

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!

Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,

They faint on hill or field or river:

Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

ΙΟ

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And grow for ever and for ever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,

And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK.

BREAK, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

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10

But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

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THE BROOK.

I COME from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally

And sparkle out among the fern,

To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,

Or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorps, a little town, And half a hundred bridges.

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