{"id":21614,"date":"2013-07-30T06:30:17","date_gmt":"2013-07-29T18:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=21614"},"modified":"2013-07-29T13:27:33","modified_gmt":"2013-07-29T01:27:33","slug":"tuesday-poem-morte-darthur-by-alfred-lord-tennyson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2013\/07\/30\/tuesday-poem-morte-darthur-by-alfred-lord-tennyson\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Poem: “Morte D’Arthur” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Morte d’Arthur<\/h3>\n
So all day long the noise of battle roll’d<\/div>\n
Among the mountains by the winter sea;<\/div>\n
Until King Arthur’s table, man by man,<\/div>\n
Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord,<\/div>\n
King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,<\/div>\n
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,<\/div>\n
Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,<\/div>\n
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,<\/div>\n
A broken chancel with a broken cross,<\/div>\n
That stood on a dark strait of barren land.<\/div>\n
On one side lay the ocean, and on one<\/div>\n
Lay a great water, and the moon was full.<\/div>\n

…<\/p>\n

And slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge:<\/p>\n
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,<\/div>\n
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,<\/div>\n
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.<\/div>\n
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?<\/div>\n
I have lived my life, and that which I have done<\/div>\n
May He within Himself make pure! but thou,<\/div>\n
If thou shouldst never see my face again,<\/div>\n
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer<\/div>\n
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice<\/div>\n
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.<\/div>\n
For what are men better than sheep or goats<\/div>\n
That nourish a blind life within the brain,<\/div>\n
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer<\/div>\n
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?<\/div>\n
For so the whole round earth is every way<\/div>\n
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.<\/div>\n
But now farewell. I am going a long way<\/div>\n
With these thou se\u00ebst\u2014if indeed I go\u2014<\/div>\n
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)<\/div>\n
To the island-valley of Avilion;<\/div>\n
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,<\/div>\n
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies<\/div>\n
Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard-lawns<\/div>\n
And bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea,<\/div>\n
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.”
\n.<\/span><\/div>\n
So said he, and the barge with oar and sail<\/div>\n
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan<\/div>\n
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,<\/div>\n
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood<\/div>\n
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere<\/div>\n
Revolving many memories, till the hull<\/div>\n
Look’d one black dot against the verge of dawn,<\/div>\n
And on the mere the wailing died away.<\/div>\n
.<\/span><\/div>\n
By Alfred Lord, Tennyson, 1809-1892<\/div>\n

—<\/p>\n

Featuring Legendary Poems:<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Morte D’Arthur<\/em>, or Death Of Arthur<\/em>, is probably the most well known in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King<\/strong>, which draws on Sir Thomas Malory’s medieval work of the same name (Le Morte D’Arthur<\/em>) as well as\u00a0 the Celtic Mabinogion<\/em>. Because it was the first written of the poems and the last in chronological sequence, I have included the first, and also the final two stanzas today.<\/p>\n

You may recall that the David Gemmell Legend Award<\/strong> longlist came out recently<\/a>, so during the voting period (which closes tomorrow, 31 July) I have been featuring what I consider to be legendary and\/or epic poems each Tuesday—all as part of celebrating the epic tradition, which is the essence of what the Gemmell Awards are all about.<\/p>\n

So over the past few weeks I have featured Homer’s Iliad<\/a> and two anonymous poems: the Anglo-Saxon Seafarer<\/em><\/a> and the Middle English poem Sir Gawain & The Green Knight<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

As I said in relation to Sir Gawain & The Green Knight<\/em>, the epic poem draws on the Arthurian legend, which was also known as\u00a0 \u2018The Matter Of Britain\u2019 in the Middle Ages, for it\u2019s subject matter. The reason I have featured Tennyson’s poem today, making the leap from the Middle Ages to the Victorian era, is to demonstrate the enduring influence of these ancient stories and the way in which they continue to ‘speak’ to us afresh in each new generation.\u00a0 In Tennyson’s case the medium was poetry,\u00a0 but I believe the influence is clearly discernible in contemporary epic fantasy, from Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings<\/em> and Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe,<\/em> to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon<\/em> or Patricia Keneally’s The Hawk’s Gray Feather<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Or in other words, for those who express surprise that I am both a poet and a fantasy author (and yes, it has happened), it should really come as no surprise at all: rather, I am part of a grand tradition! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

As for the poem, I feel that in terms of poetic power and language, it really speaks for itself.\u00a0 To read an illuminated version of the poem from 1912, click on: Morte D’Arthur<\/a>.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub<\/strong> and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here<\/strong><\/a> or on the Quill<\/strong> icon <\/strong>in the sidebar.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Morte d’Arthur 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21614"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21643,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21614\/revisions\/21643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}