[Footnote 8:  The Elders are the wise men who, with their gifts of myrrh. came to worship Christ in the manger.]

  But now the whole Round Table is dissolved
  Which was an image of the mighty world,
  And I, the last, go forth companionless,
  And the days darken round me, and the years,
  Among new men, strange faces, other minds.”

  And slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge: 
  “The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
  And God fulfils himself in many ways,
  Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 
  Comfort thyself:  what comfort is in me? 
  I have lived my life, and that which I have done
  May He within himself make pure! but thou,
  If thou shouldst never see my face again,
  Pray for my soul.  More things are wrought by prayer
  Than this world dreams of.  Wherefore, let thy voice
  Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
  For what are men better than sheep or goats
  That nourish a blind life within the brain,
  If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
  Both for themselves and those who call them friend? 
  For so the whole round earth is every way
  Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 
  But now farewell.  I am going a long way
  With these thou seest—­if indeed I go
  (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)—­
  To the island-valley of Avilion;
  Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
  Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
  Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard lawns
  And bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea,
  Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.”

  So said he, and the barge with oar and sail
  Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan
  That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,
  Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
  With swarthy webs.  Long stood Sir Bedivere
  Revolving many memories, till the hull
  Look’d one black dot against the verge of dawn,
  And on the mere the wailing died away. 
    But when that moan had past for evermore,
  The stillness of the dead world’s winter dawn
  Amazed him, and he groan’d, “The King is gone.” 
  And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme,
  “From the great deep to the great deep he goes.”

Whereat he slowly turn’d and slowly clomb
The last hard footstep of that iron crag;
Thence mark’d the black hull moving yet, and cried,
“He passes to be King among the dead,
And after healing of his grievous wound
He comes again; but—­if he come no more—­
O me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat,
Who shriek’d and wail’d, the three whereat we gazed
On that high day, when, clothed with living light,
They stood before his throne in silence, friends
Of Arthur, who should help him at his need?”

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
Around a king returning from his wars.