BOOK V.
ARGUMENT.
The Council-hall in Carduel—The twelve Knights of the Round Table described, viz., the three Knights of Council, the three Knights of Battle, the three Knights of Eloquence, and the three Lovers—Merlin warns the chiefs of the coming Saxons, and enjoins the beacon-fires to be lighted—The story returns to Arthur—The dove has not been absent, though unseen—It comes back to Arthur—The Priest leads the King through the sepulchral valley into the temple of the Death-god—Description of the entrance of the temple, with the walls on which is depicted the progress of the guilty soul through the realms below—The cave, the raft, and the stream which conducts to the cataract—Arthur enters the boat, and the dove goes before him—Ægle awakes from her swoon, and follows the King to the temple—Her dialogue with the Augur—She disappears in the stream—Meanwhile Lancelot wanders in the valleys on the other side of the Alps, and is led to the cataract by the magic ring—The apparition of the dove—He follows the bird up the skirts of the cataract—He finds Arthur and Ægle, and conveys them to the convent—The Christian hymn, and the Etrurian dirge—Arthur and Lancelot seated by the lake—The Lady of the Lake appears in her pinnace to Lancelot—The King's sight is purged from its film by the bitter herb, and he enters the magic bark.
In the high Council Hall of Carduel,1
Beside the absent Arthur's ivory throne
(What time the earlier shades of evening fell),
Wan-silvering through the hush, the cresset shone
O'er the arch-seer,—as, 'mid the magnates there,
Rose his large front, august with prophet care;
Rose his large front above the luminous guests,2
The deathless Twelve of that heroic Ring,
Which, as the belt wherein Orion rests,
Girded with subject stars the starry king;
Without, strong towers guard Rome's elaborate wall;
Within is Manhood!—strongest tower of all.
First, Muse of Cymri, name the Council three[1]3
Who, of maturer years and graver mien,
Wise in the past, conceived the things to be,
And temper'd impulse quick with thought serene;
Nor young, nor old—no dupes to rushing Hope,
Nor narrowing to tame Fear th' ignoble scope.
Of these was Cynon of the highborn race,4
A cold but dauntless—calm but earnest man;
With deep eyes shining from a thoughtful face,
And spare slight form, for ever in the van
When ripening victories crown'd laborious deeds;
Reaper of harvest—sower not of seeds;
For scarcely his the quick far-darting soul5
Which, like Apollo's shaft, strikes lifeless things
Into divine creation; but, the whole
Once rife, the skill which into concord brings
The jarring parts; shapes out the rudely wrought,
And calls the action living from the thought.
Next Aron see—not rash, yet gaily bold,6
With the frank polish of chivalric courts;
Him from the right, no fear of wrong controll'd;
And toil he deem'd the sprightliest of his sports;
O'er War's dry chart, or Wisdom's mystic page,
Alike as smiling, and alike as sage;
With the warm instincts of the knightly heart,7
That rose at once if insult touch'd the realm,
He spurn'd each state-craft, each deceiving art,
And rode to war, no vizor to his helm;
This proved his worth, this line his tomb may boast—
"Who hated Cymri, hated Aron most!"