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  1. Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

    I’d like to wish everyone here, all of my wonderful friends, the most gloriously happy day, and a prosperous New Year! (And one of the meanings of ‘to prosper’ is to attain wisdom…thanks to Beth Vogt for that!)
    * I’m far too ill this morning to say much more, but Alfie, Lord Tennyson, has graciously offered to speak for me, bringing his most evocative New Years’ description from “The Passing of Arthur”, the last poem in the “Idylls of the King” cycle.So, Alf, the mike’s yours…
    —
    And slowly answered Arthur from the barge:
    “The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
    And God fulfils himself in many ways,
    Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
    Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
    I have lived my life, and that which I have done
    May He within himself make pure! but thou,
    If thou shouldst never see my face again,
    Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
    Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
    Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
    For what are men better than sheep or goats
    That nourish a blind life within the brain,
    If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
    Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
    For so the whole round earth is every way
    Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
    But now farewell. I am going a long way
    With these thou seëst–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-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns
    And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea,
    Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.”
    —
    So said he, and the barge with oar and sail
    Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan
    That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,
    Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
    With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere
    Revolving many memories, till the hull
    Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn,
    And on the mere the wailing died away.
    —
    But when that moan had past for evermore,
    The stillness of the dead world’s winter dawn
    Amazed him, and he groaned, “The King is gone.”
    And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme,
    “From the great deep to the great deep he goes.”
    —
    Whereat he slowly turned and slowly clomb
    The last hard footstep of that iron crag;
    Thence marked the black hull moving yet, and cried,
    “He passes to be King among the dead,
    And after healing of his grievous wound
    He comes again; but–if he come no more–
    O me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat,
    Who shrieked and wailed, the three whereat we gazed
    On that high day, when, clothed with living light,
    They stood before his throne in silence, friends
    Of Arthur, who should help him at his need?”
    —
    Then from the dawn it seemed there came, but faint
    As from beyond the limit of the world,
    Like the last echo born of a great cry,
    Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice
    Around a king returning from his wars.
    —
    Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb
    Even to the highest he could climb, and saw,
    Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand,
    Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King,
    Down that long water opening on the deep
    Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go
    From less to less and vanish into light.
    And the new sun rose bringing the new year.

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