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But once, at midnight deep,
His mother woke from sleep,
And saw her babe amidst the fire, and scream’d.
A sigh the Goddess gave, and with a frown
Pluck’d from the fire the child, and laid him down;
Then raised her face, and glory round her stream’d.
The mourning-stole no more
Mantled her form, no more her head was bow’d;
But raiment of celestial sheen she wore,
And beauty fill’d her, and she spake aloud:–

“O ignorant race of man!
Achieve your good who can,
If your own hands the good begun undo?
Had human cry not marr’d the work divine,
Immortal had I made this boy of mine;
But now his head to death again is due
And I have now no power
Unto this pious household to repay
Their kindness shown me in my wandering hour.”
–She spake, and from the portal pass’d away.

The Boy his nurse forgot,
And bore a mortal lot.
Long since, his name is heard on earth no more.
In some chance battle on Cithaeron-side
The nursling of the Mighty Mother died,
And went where all his fathers went before.
–On thee too, in thy day
Of childhood, Arthur! did some check have power,
That, radiant though thou wert, thou couldst but stay,
Bringer of heavenly light, a human hour?

Therefore our happy guest
Knew care, and knew unrest,
And weakness warn’d him, and he fear’d decline.
And in the grave he laid a cherish’d wife,
And men ignoble harass’d him with strife,
And deadly airs his strength did undermine.
Then from his Abbey fades
The sound beloved of his victorious breath;
And light’s fair nursling stupor first invades,
And next the crowning impotence of death.

But hush! This mournful strain,
Which would of death complain,
The oracle forbade, not ill-inspired.–
That Pair, whose head did plan, whose hands did forge
The Temple in the pure Parnassian gorge,[2]
Finish’d their work, and then a meed required.
“Seven days,” the God replied,
“Live happy, then expect your perfect meed!”
Quiet in sleep, the seventh night, they died.
Death, death was judged the boon supreme indeed.

And truly he who here
Hath run his bright career,
And served men nobly, and acceptance found,
And borne to light and right his witness high,
What could he better wish than then to die,
And wait the issue, sleeping underground?
Why should he pray to range
Down the long age of truth that ripens slow;
And break his heart with all the baffling change,
And all the tedious tossing to and fro?

For this and that way swings
The flux of mortal things,
Though moving inly to one far-set goal.–
What had our Arthur gain’d, to stop and see,
After light’s term, a term of cecity,
A Church once large and then grown strait in soul?
To live, and see arise,
Alternating with wisdom’s too short reign,
Folly revived, re-furbish’d sophistries,
And pullulating rites externe and vain?

Ay me! ‘Tis deaf, that ear
Which joy’d my voice to hear;
Yet would I not disturb thee from thy tomb,
Thus sleeping in thine Abbey’s friendly shade,
And the rough waves of life for ever laid!
I would not break thy rest, nor change thy doom.
Even as my father, thou–
Even as that loved, that well-recorded friend–
Hast thy commission done; ye both may now
Wait for the leaven to work, the let to end.

And thou, O Abbey grey!
Predestined to the ray
By this dear guest over thy precinct shed–
Fear not but that thy light once more shall burn,
Once more thine immemorial gleam return,
Though sunk be now this bright, this gracious head!
Let but the light appear
And thy transfigured walls be touch’d with flame–
Our Arthur will again be present here,
Again from lip to lip will pass his name.