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POEMS.

THE EPIC.

AT Francis Allen's on the Christmas-eve, –

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The game of forfeits done -the girls all kiss'd
Beneath the sacred bush and past away —
The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall,
The host, and I sat round the wassail-bowl,
Then half-way ebb'd: and there we held a talk,
How all the old honour had from Christmas gone,
Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games
In some odd nooks like this; till I, tired out
With cutting eights that day upon the pond,
Where, three times slipping from the outer edge,

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I bump'd the ice into three several stars,
Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard

The parson taking wide and wider sweeps,
Now harping on the church-commissioners,
Now hawking at Geology and schism,
Until I woke, and found him settled down
Upon the general decay of faith

Right thro' the world, "at home was little left,
And none abroad: there was no anchor, none,
To hold by." Francis, laughing, clapp'd his hand
On Everard's shoulder, with "I hold by him."
"And I," quoth Everard, "by the wassail-bowl."
"Why yes," I said, "we knew your gift that way
At college but another which you had,

I mean of verse (for so we held it then,)

What came of that?" "You know," said Frank, "he flung
His epic of King Arthur in the fire!"

And then to me demanding why? "Oh, sir,
He thought that nothing new was said, or else
Something so said 'twas nothing— that a truth
Looks freshest in the fashion of the day:

God knows he has a mint of reasons: ask.

It pleased me well enough." "Nay, nay," said Hall, "Why take the style of those heroic times?

For nature brings not back the Mastodon,

Nor we those times; and why should any man

Remodel models rather than the life?

And these twelve books of mine (to speak the truth)

Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing worth,

Mere chaff and draff, much better burnt."

“But I,"

Said Francis, "pick'd the eleventh from this hearth,
And have it keep a thing, its use will come.
I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes."

He laugh'd, and I, though sleepy, like a horse
That hears the corn-bin open, prick'd my ears,
For I remember'd Everard's college fame
When we were Freshmen: then at my request
He brought it, and the poet little urged,
But with some prelude of disparagement,
Read, mouthing out his hollow oes and aes,
Deep-chested music, and to this result.

MORTE D'ARTHUR.

So all day long the noise of battle roll'd
Among the mountains by the winter sea,
Until King Arthur's table, man by man,

Had fall'n in Lyonness about their Lord,
King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,

Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land.
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full.
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
"The sequel of to-day unsolders all

The goodliest fellowship of famous knights
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep

They sleep the men I loved. I think that we

Shall nevermore, at any future time,

Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,

Walking about the gardens and the halls

Of Camelot, as in the days that were.

I perish by this people which I made,—

Though Merlin sware that I should come again

To rule once more but let what will be, be,

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I am so deeply smitten through the helm

That without help I cannot last till morn.

Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur,

Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how
In those old days, one summer noon, an arm
Rose up from out the bosom of the lake,
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,.
Holding the sword- and how I row'd across
And took it, and have worn it, like a king:
And, wheresoever I am sung or told

In aftertime, this also shall be known:

But now delay not: take Excalibur,

And fling him far into the middle meer:

Watch what thou seëst, and lightly bring me word."

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