Idylls of the King

Opening of the book

Idylls of the King
Flos Regum Arthurus (Joseph of Exeter)
In Twelve Books
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Contents
Dedication
The Coming of Arthur
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

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