793. tranced. A trance is any state in which the bodily functions are for the time suspended. Here Enoch is in a half-swoon.
797. burthen. A refrain or chorus. Strictly speaking, the word signifies the bass accompaniment or undersong.
801-4. Just as fresh water from a spring in the ocean rises through the salt water and keeps alive the mariner who drinks of it; so prayer springing out of his resolve (will) never to let her know came up through the bitterness of his life and “kept him a living soul.”
807. enow. Enough.
829. The lower edges of the cloud or mist which the wind lifts.
910. “The calling of the sea is a term used, I believe, chiefly in the western parts of England, to signify a ground swell. When this occurs on a windless night, the echo of it rings through the timbers of the old houses in a haven.” (Tennyson.) A ground-swell is a heavy swell due to a violent gale. It is often felt for some days afterwards and on shores which are far distant from the scene of the storm.
Published in 1842.
Morte D’Arthur (The Death of Arthur) is a story of King Arthur and The Round Table, based on the legend entitled Morte D’Arthur, which was written by Malory, an English writer of the sixteenth century. King Arthur was a mythical king of the Britons who was supposed to have lived and reigned in the sixth century, and to have united the Britons against the Saxon invaders. According to legend he established a famous order of knighthood known as The Order of The Round Table, so called because of the famous round table, presented to King Arthur by a British king, and capable of seating one hundred and fifty knights. In the course of time the knights of the Round Table became corrupt and forgot their vows, and, led by Modred, the king’s nephew, a number of them rose in rebellion against the king. King Arthur with those knights who remained loyal to him, drove the army of Modred step by step back into Cornwall and beyond it into the land of Lyonnesse, which was said to have extended from Cornwall to the Scilly Isles, but which has since been submerged by the sea. Here in this waste land a great battle was fought, in which the knights on both sides were killed, until at last only King Arthur and his faithful knight Sir Bedivere remained.