The Morte D'Arthur

These are the tales in all their valorous lore
Of that famed frolic of the Table Round
No shame-faced verse, but stout prose to the core,
As Malory wrote it and our fathers found.
Tales touching still, and still through time renowned,
But less, methinks, for their high deeds that bore
Their crests so proudly than the one lost sound
Of Lancelot’s step at the Queen’s chamber door.

—How their sighs echo! Think, if then she had made
Another answer than her human “Yes,”
And been more valiant and denied and slept!
Should we still weep o’er Bors and Galahad,
The Sancgreal’s quest, Gwayne in wrath equipped,
Or all King Arthur’s jousts in Lyonnesse?