Arthur Dux Bellorum

Arthur lies sore wounded

Merlyn is imprisoned

Tristan lis no more

Isult lies cold.

 

Lancelot is fallen

Bedivere dead beside him

Gareth, Galahad and yea Modred

are now but mingled dust.

 

Where lie the crumbled towers of Camelot?

Where lie those fierce warriors?

Where lie their ladies?

We cannot know Merlyn is silent.

 

Guinevere, where is she? Seek her not

lest ye offend her mouldering bones

Time has enhanced her beauty

Her name betokes poetry.

 

Let her lie in peace, so that poets

yet to be may praise her, sing of her

impreashable beauty.

 

Look not for the castle of Astolot

 for you may find a hovel with animal skins

 seperating the rooms or her knightly lover a bully

 and the lady only a w***e.

 

For

 They alone stood against the Saxon

 These few, this "band of brothers"

stood with their women

at their sides.

 

They alone

 

stood and when at last were overwhelmed

and their feeble light guttered out

the people murmured----

 Arthur now sleeps in Avalon.

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[Chris38]

There is a sense here of the passing of greatness which indeed is what the ending of the Arthurian time was.