“’Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems
Should blind my purpose; for I never saw,
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die,
Not tho’ I live three lives of mortal men,
So great a miracle as yonder hilt. 
Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him;
But when I look’d again, behold an arm,
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
That caught him by the hilt, and brandish’d him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere.’”

          
                                                  TENNYSON, The Passing of Arthur.

Arthur gave a sigh of relief when he heard this report; and after telling his faithful squire that Merlin had declared that he should not die, he bade the knight lay him in a barge, all hung with black, wherein he would find Morgana the fay, the Queen of Northgallis, and the Queen of the Westerlands.

Sir Bedivere obeyed all these orders exactly; and then, seeing his beloved king about to leave him, he implored permission to accompany him.  This, however, Arthur could not grant, for it had been decreed that he should go alone to the island of Avalon, where he hoped to be cured of his grievous wound, and some day to return to his sorrowing people.

“’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.’”

          
                                                  TENNYSON, The Passing of Arthur.

[Sidenote:  Arthur in Avalon.] It was because Arthur thus disappeared and was never seen again, according to one version of the myth, and because none knew whether he were living or dead, that he was popularly supposed to be enjoying perpetual youth and bliss in the fabled island of Avalon, whence they averred he would return when his people needed him.  This belief was so deeply rooted in England that Philip of Spain, upon marrying Mary, was compelled to take a solemn oath whereby he bound himself to relinquish the crown in favor of Arthur should he appear to claim it.

“Still look the Britons for the day
Of Arthur’s coming o’er the sea.” 
LAYAMON, Brut.

Other romances and poems relate that Arthur was borne in the sable-hung barge to Glastonbury, where his remains were laid in the tomb, while Guinevere retired into the nunnery at Almesbury.  There she was once more visited by the sorrowing Lancelot, who, in spite of all his haste, had come upon the scene too late to save or be reconciled to the king, to whom he was still devotedly attached.  In his sorrow and remorse the knight withdrew into a hermitage, where he spent