dream-like tales which carry us away into a strange wonderland.  Like The Faery Queen, the Idylls of the King is full of pictures.  Here we find a fairy city, towered and turreted, dark woods, wild wastes and swamps, slow gliding rivers all in a misty dreamland.  And this dreamland is peopled by knights and ladies who move through it clad in radiant robes and glittering armor.  Jewels and rich coloring gleam and glow to the eye, songs fall upon the ear.  And over all rules the blameless King.

“And Arthur and his knighthood for a space
Were all one will, and thro’ that strength the King
Drew in the petty princedoms under him,
Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame
The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reign’d.”

One story of the Idylls I have already told you.  Some day you will read the others, and learn for yourselves—­

            “This old imperfect tale,
    New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul
    Rather than that gray King, whose name, a ghost,
    Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak,
    And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or him
    Of Geoffrey’s book, or him of Malleor’s.”

Tennyson led a peaceful, simple life.  He made his home for the most part in the Isle of Wight.  Here he lived quietly, surrounded by his family, but sought after by all the great people of his day.  He refused a baronetcy, but at length in 1883 accepted a peerage and became Lord Tennyson, the first baron of his name.  He was the first peer to receive the title purely because of his literary work.  And so with gathering honors and gathering years the poet lived and worked, a splendid old man.  Then at the goodly age of eighty-four he died in the autumn of 1892.

He was buried in Westminster, not far from Chaucer, and as he was laid among the mighty dead the choir sang Crossing the Bar, one of his latest and most beautiful poems.

    “Sunset and evening star,
        And one clear call for me! 
    And may there be no moaning of the bar,
        When I put out to sea,

    “But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
        Too full for sound and foam,
    When that which drew from out the boundless deep
        Turns again home.

    “Twilight and evening bell,
        And after that the dark! 
    And may there be no sadness of farewell,
        When I embark;

    “For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
        The flood may bear me far,
    I hope to see my Pilot face to face
        When I have crost the bar.”