And then the Queen made answer: 'What know I ?

For dark my mother was in eyes and hair, And dark in hair and eyes am I; and dark Was Gorloïs; yea, and dark was Uther too,

Wellnigh to blackness; but this king is fair

Beyond the race of Britons and of men. 330 Moreover, always in my mind I hear A cry from out the dawning of my life, A mother weeping, and I hear her say, "O that ye had some brother, pretty one, To guard thee on the rough ways of the world."'

But pass, again to come, and then or now Utterly smite the heathen underfoot,

Till these and all men hail him for their king.'

She spake and King Leodogran rejoiced, But musing Shall I answer yea or nay?' Doubted, and drowsed, nodded and slept, and saw,

Dreaming, a slope of land that ever grew, Field after field, up to a height, the peak Haze-hidden, and thereon a phantom king, Now looming, and now lost; and on the slope

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The sword rose, the hind fell, the herd was driven,

Fire glimpsed; and all the land from roof

and rick,

In drifts of smoke before a rolling wind, Stream'd to the peak, and mingled with

the haze

Chief of the church in Britain, and before The stateliest of her altar- shrines, the King

That morn was married, while in stainless white,

The fair beginners of a nobler time, And glorying in their vows and him, his knights

Stood round him, and rejoicing in his joy. Far shone the fields of May thro' open door,

The sacred altar blossom'd white with May, 460

The sun of May descended on their King, They gazed on all earth's beauty in their Queen,

Roll'd incense, and there past along the

hymns

A voice as of the waters, while the two Sware at the shrine of Christ a deathless

love.

And Arthur said, 'Behold, thy doom is mine.

Let chance what will, I love thee to the death!'

To whom the Queen replied with drooping

And holy Dubric spread his hands and

'Reign ye, and live and love, and make the

world

Other, and may thy Queen be one with thee,

And all this Order of thy Table Round Fulfil the boundless purpose of their King!'

So Dubric said; but when they left the shrine Great lords from Rome before the portal stood,

In scornful stillness gazing as they past; Then while they paced a city all on fire With sun and cloth of gold, the trumpets blew,

And Arthur's knighthood sang before the King:

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'Blow trumpet, for the world is white with

May!

Blow trumpet, the long night hath roll'd away! Blow thro' the living world-"Let the King reign!"