These Idylls show the struggle to maintain noble ideals. Arthur relates how he collected—
"In that fair order of my Table Round,
A glorious company, the flower of men,
To serve as model for the mighty world,
And be the fair beginning of a time."
He made his knights swear to uphold the ideals of his court—
"To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it,
To honor his own word as if his God's,
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,
To love one maiden only, cleave to her,
And warship her by years of noble deeds
Until they won her."
The twelve Idylls have as a background those different seasons of the year that accord with the special mood of the story. In Gareth and Lynette, the most interesting of the Idylls, the young hero leaves his home in spring, when the earth is joyous with birds and flowers. In the last and most nobly poetic of the series, The Passing of Arthur, the time is winter, when the knights seem to be clothed with their own frosty breath.
Sin creeps into King Arthur's realm and disrupts the order of the "Table Round." He receives his mortal wound, and passes to rule in a kindlier realm that welcomed him as "a king returning from the wars."
Although the Idylls of the King are uneven in quality and sometimes marred by overprofusion of ornament and by deficiency of dramatic skill, their limpid style, many fine passages of poetry, appealing stories, and high ideals have exerted a wider influence than any other of Tennyson's poems.
Later Poetry.—Tennyson continued to write poetry until almost the time of his death; but with the exception of his short swan song, Crossing the Bar, he did not surpass his earlier efforts. His Locksley Hall Sixty Year After (1886) voices the disappointments of the Victorian age and presents vigorous social philosophy. Some of his later verse, like The Northern Farmer and The Children's Hospital, are in closer touch with life than many of his earlier poems.
He wrote also several historical dramas, the best of which is Becket (1884); but his genius was essentially lyrical, not dramatic. Crossing the Bar, written in his eighty-first year, is not only the finest product of his later years, but also one of the very best of Victorian lyrics.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF MS. OF CROSSING THE BAR.]