After all, however much the ‘Idylls’ may be cavilled at on the score of their modern sentiment and occasional homiletic strain, their general setting and atmosphere are genuinely romantic and in thorough keeping with the far-off things of which they sing. Tennyson is true enough to his sources in his descriptions of scenery and in his entire survey of the traditional Arthurian country. “It is no land dwelt in by bold bad men we see, when Arthur rides through the mountains and finds the diamonds; when Geraint and Enid go through the green gloom of the wood; when Galahad rides over the black swamp, leaping from bridge to bridge till he sail to the spiritual city; when Lancelot drives through the storm to the enchanted towers of Carbonek seven days across the sea.”[136] In none of the ‘Idylls’ do we perhaps breathe more of the atmosphere of pure romance than in the first and the last. Mystery and magic surround both the coming and the passing of the King;
“From the great deep to the great deep he goes.”
This “weird rhyme” of Merlin’s comes into Bedivere’s memory as he sees the barge with the three dark Queens bearing Arthur away into the distance
“till the hull
Look’d one black dot against the verge of dawn.”
And the last scene closes with the faithful Bedivere left wondering whether Arthur will “come again,” and whether, “if he come no more,” the three Queens who bore him away be “friends of Arthur, who should help him at his need?” So, Tennyson, like Malory and the romancers, leaves Arthur’s “return” an open question; but Bedivere goes away comforted by what seemed an assurance that “all was well” with Arthur whither he had gone.
“Then from the dawn it seem’d there came, but faint
As from beyond the limit of the world,
Like the last echo born of a great cry,
Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice