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</table>
<table class="helpbox">
<tr>
<th>this query</th>
<th>finds</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td lang="en" xml:lang="en">shakespeare hamlet</td>
<td>"Hamlet" by Shakespeare</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td lang="en" xml:lang="en">qui. </td>
<td>"qui", not "Quixote"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td lang="en" xml:lang="en">love stories</td>
<td>love stories</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td lang="en" xml:lang="en">a. shakespeare</td>
<td>by Shakespeare</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td lang="en" xml:lang="en">s. shakespeare</td>
<td>about Shakespeare</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td lang="en" xml:lang="en">#74</td>
<td>ebook no. 74</td>
</tr>
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<td>juvenile lit in German</td>
</tr>
<tr>
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<td>by Verne in French or Italian</td>
</tr>
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<td>love stories not by Austen</td>
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<td>audio books by Jane Austen</td>
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</table>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>? The Project Gutenberg EBook of Idylls of the King, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
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Title: Idylls of the King

Author: Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Posting Date: August 4, 2008 [EBook #610]
Release Date: August, 1996

Language: English


*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IDYLLS OF THE KING ***




Produced by Ng E-Ching.








Idylls of the King

IN TWELVE BOOKS


by

Alfred, Lord Tennyson



Flos Regum Arthurus (Joseph of Exeter)




Contents


Dedication
The Coming of Arthur


THE ROUND TABLE

Gareth and Lynette
The Marriage of Geraint
Geraint and Enid
Balin and Balan
Merlin and Vivien
Lancelot and Elaine
The Holy Grail
Pelleas and Ettarre
The Last Tournament
Guinevere

The Passing of Arthur
To the Queen



Dedication


These to His Memory--since he held them dear,
Perchance as finding there unconsciously
Some image of himself--I dedicate,
I dedicate, I consecrate with tears--
These Idylls.
And indeed He seems to me
Scarce other than my king's ideal knight,
'Who reverenced his conscience as his king;
Whose glory was, redressing human wrong;
Who spake no slander, no, nor listened to it;
Who loved one only and who clave to her--'
Her--over all whose realms to their last isle,
Commingled with the gloom of imminent war,
The shadow of His loss drew like eclipse,
Darkening the world. We have lost him: he is gone:
We know him now: all narrow jealousies
Are silent; and we see him as he moved,
How modest, kindly, all-accomplished, wise,
With what sublime repression of himself,
And in what limits, and how tenderly;
Not swaying to this faction or to that;
Not making his high place the lawless perch
Of winged ambitions, nor a vantage-ground
For pleasure; but through all this tract of years
Wearing the white flower of a blameless life,
Before a thousand peering littlenesses,
In that fierce light which beats upon a throne,
And blackens every blot: for where is he,
Who dares foreshadow for an only son
A lovelier life, a more unstained, than his?
Or how should England dreaming of his sons
Hope more for these than some inheritance
Of such a life, a heart, a mind as thine,
Thou noble Father of her Kings to be,
Laborious for her people and her poor--
Voice in the rich dawn of an ampler day--
Far-sighted summoner of War and Waste
To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace--
Sweet nature gilded by the gracious gleam
Of letters, dear to Science, dear to Art,
Dear to thy land and ours, a Prince indeed,
Beyond all titles, and a household name,
Hereafter, through all times, Albert the Good.

Break not, O woman's-heart, but still endure;
Break not, for thou art Royal, but endure,
Remembering all the beauty of that star
Which shone so close beside Thee that ye made
One light together, but has past and leaves
The Crown a lonely splendour.

May all love,
His love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow Thee,
The love of all Thy sons encompass Thee,
The love of all Thy daughters cherish Thee,
The love of all Thy people comfort Thee,
Till God's love set Thee at his side again!



The Coming of Arthur

Leodogran, the King of Cameliard,
Had one fair daughter, and none other child;
And she was the fairest of all flesh on earth,
Guinevere, and in her his one delight.

For many a petty king ere Arthur came
Ruled in this isle, and ever waging war
Each upon other, wasted all the land;
And still from time to time the heathen host
Swarmed overseas, and harried what was left.
And so there grew great tracts of wilderness,
Wherein the beast was ever more and more,
But man was less and less, till Arthur came.
For first Aurelius lived and fought and died,
And after him King Uther fought and died,
But either failed to make the kingdom one.
And after these King Arthur for a space,
And through the puissance of his Table Round,
Drew all their petty princedoms under him.
Their king and head, and made a realm, and reigned.

And thus the land of Cameliard was waste,
Thick with wet woods, and many a beast therein,
And none or few to scare or chase the beast;
So that wild dog, and wolf and boar and bear
Came night and day, and rooted in the fields,
And wallowed in the gardens of the King.
And ever and anon the wolf would steal
The children and devour, but now and then,
Her own brood lost or dead, lent her fierce teat
To human sucklings; and the children, housed
In her foul den, there at their meat would growl,
And mock their foster mother on four feet,
Till, straightened, they grew up to wolf-like men,
Worse than the wolves. And King Leodogran
Groaned for the Roman legions here again,
And Caesar's eagle: then his brother king,
Urien, assailed him: last a heathen horde,
Reddening the sun with smoke and earth with blood,
And on the spike that split the mother's heart
Spitting the child, brake on him, till, amazed,
He knew not whither he should turn for aid.

But--for he heard of Arthur newly crowned,
Though not without an uproar made by those
Who cried, 'He is not Uther's son'--the King
Sent to him, saying, 'Arise, and help us thou!
For here between the man and beast we die.