Men, and led them to Bethlehem, where they presented to the new-born Child offerings of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. See Bible, Matthew, ii. 11.

403. image of the mighty world. "Also Merlin made the Round Table in tokening of the roundness of the world, for by the Round Table is the world signified by right. For all the world, Christian and heathen, repair unto the Round Table, and when they are chosen to be of the fellowship of the Round Table, they think them more blessed and more in worship than if they had gotten half the world" (Malory). The belief that the world was in form round and flat, like the top of a round table, prevailed even after the globe had been circumnavigated. See Columbus :— "for at last their Highnesses

Were half-assured this earth might be a sphere."

404. companionless. Malory's words are, Ah, my Lord Arthur, what shall become of me now ye go from me and leave me here alone among mine enemies? "

405. the days darken, the future seems dark and dreary.

406. other minds, unsympathetic minds, different from those have known.

408. the old... to new, a line often quoted. It occurs also in The Coming of Arthur, 508, when the king is described as refusing to give tribute to Rome, on the ground that "the slowly fading mistress of the world" had had her day, and must give place to a new and stronger power. Cf. In Mem. Prol. :

"Our little systems have their day,

They have their day and cease to be."

:

409. God... ways, God has many methods of accomplishing on earth His purposes, which are part of His nature, and often lays aside the methods He has been using to replace them by

others.

410. lest one.. world, lest men's hearts, relying too much upon old established usage, should stagnate and grow slothful for want of change, and thus a lifeless formalism should take the place of active belief and vigorous endeavour.

411. comfort thyself, etc. Malory's words are, "Comfort thyself, said the king, and do as well as thou mayest, for in me is no trust to trust in. For I will unto the vale of Avilion to heal me of my grievous wound; and if thou hear never more of me, pray for my soul."

412. that which... pure, may God accept my work and, absorbing it, as it were, into Himself, purify it of all its unworthy elements.

419. that nourish brain, whose brute nature is blind to anything outside or above what they can estimate by instinct or material sense. Cf. Shaks. Ant. and Cleo. iv. 8. 21::

"A brain that nourishes our nerves.

422. every way, on all sides.

423. bound by gold chains ... feet of God. Cf. Harold, iii. 2:—

"Ac

The notion of the earth being attached to heaven by a golden chain perhaps originated in the passage in Homer's Iliad, viii. 19-30; cf. Plato, Theat. 153. Frequent allusions to this supposition are to be found scattered throughout English literature. Thus Bacon in his Advancement of Learning, i. 1. 3, says, cording to the allegory of the poets the highest link of nature's chain must needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter's chair": cf. Adv. of L. ii. vi. 1. Jeremy Taylor writes "Faith is the golden chain to link the penitent sinner to God." Cf. also "This is the golden chain of love, whereby the whole creation is bound to the throne of the Creator " (Hare); and

66

66

'She held a great gold chaine ylincked well,
Whose upper end to highest heven was knitt."
-Spenser, F.Q. ii. vii. 46.

Hanging in a golden chain

This pendant world."-Milton, P. L. ii. 1051.

"It (true love) is a golden chain let down from heaven, Whose links are bright and even,

That falls like sleep on lovers."

Jonson, Love's Martyr.

"For, letting down the golden chain from high,
He drew his audience upward to the sky.'

-Dryden, Character of a Good Parson.

427. island-valley of Avilion. Avilion, or, as it is otherwise spelt Avelion, or Avalon ("dozing in the Vale of Avalon," Palace of Art), is supposed to have been the name of a valley in the neighbourhood of Glastonbury, the town in Somersetshire where Joseph of Arimathea is said to have first landed from his boat with the Holy Grail. [See the Idyll of The Holy Grail.] Avilion is called an island as being nearly surrounded by the "river's embracement. "" Cf. Drayton, Polyolbion, iii. :—

"O three times famous isle! where is that place that might Be with thyself compared for glory and delight Whilst Glastonbury stood?"

Some romances, however, make it an ocean island "not far on this side of the terrestrial Paradise," and represent it as the abode of Arthur and Morgan Le Fay. Compare with_these myths the accounts of the Islands of the Blest," the "Fortunate Islands" of Greek and Roman legends, whither the favourites of the Gods were conveyed without dying (see Ulysses, 1. 63); also the tales of the "Flying Island of St. Brandan," and of the "Green Islands of the Ocean" in Southey's Madoc. Many legends tell of various enchanted islands, and the names of a number of them may be found in the Voyage of Maeldune. 'Avilion' is said to mean 'Isle of Apples,' from the Breton aval, apple.

428. where falls loudly. Cf. the description of the abode of the Gods in Tennyson's Lucretius: also the accounts of Elysium in Homer, Odys. iv. 566 and vi. 42, and Lucretius, De Rerum Nat. iii. 20, and Bion, iii. 16.

430. deep-meadow'd, a translation of the Greek Balleμos, 'with rich fertile meadows,' Homer, Il. ix. 151. happy. Cf. Vergil's latas segetes, happy (i.e. plenteous) harvest.' orchard lawns, grassy plots with fruit trees growing on them.

431. crown'd with summer sea, ringed round with stormless waves as with a coronet. Cf. Homer, Odys. x. 195, Teρì vĥoov TÓVTOS ÉσTEPάVwral, 'Round the island the sea lies like a crown.' The surrounding sea is elsewhere (Maud, iv. 6) called by Tennyson

"The silent sapphire-spangled marriage ring of the land." With "summer sea "" compare Wordsworth's

"And all was tranquil as a summer sea."-(Skating.)

435. ere her death. The tradition that the swan previously to her death sings a sweet song is one of long standing. Cf. Vergil, ...qualis trajectus tempora pennâ Cantat olor.' See The Dying Swan; also Shaks. Othello, v. 2, "I will play the swan and die in music," and many other passages. Mr. Nicol says of the Cycnus Musicus, "Its note resembles the tones of a violin, though somewhat higher. Each note occurs after a long interval. The music presages a thaw in Iceland, and hence one of its greatest charms."

436. ruffles her pure cold plume, unfolds her white clear wingfeathers. takes the flood, strikes the water.

437. swarthy webs, alluding to the dark colour of the swan's webbed feet,

438. revolving many memories. Cf. the Latin multa animo revolvens, 'revolving many things in his mind.'

439. one black dot, a single speck of black on the bright horizon where the day was dawning. The barge carries Arthur away to vanish in the East, "whence all religions are said to spring.

445. From the great... goes.' The weird rhyme occurs in Merlin's "riddling triplets of old time"; see The Coming of Arthur, 409, 10 and note.

453. the three... need. See l. 366, above, and note.

460. as if... wars. Contrast this united cry of triumph and welcome with the dim cries of despair in lines 41-45, and with the " agony of lamentation," "as it were one voice," in lines 368-9, above.

464. Straining... hand. So in Sophocles, Edipus Coloneus, 1650, Theseus gazes after a king who is also passing away in mystery

ὀμμάτων ἐπίσκιον

χειρ ̓ ἀντέχοντα κρατός

469. And the new ... new year. The cycle of the mystic year is now complete from Arthur's birth

"that same night, the night of the new year,

Was Arthur born-"

to his passing away before the dawn of another new year, and from this point

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new."