d. _Descriptive Passages._ Besides those passages which relate especially to the scenes, there are other beautiful and powerful bits of description that will well repay examination. For instance: 1. Of King Arthur's dream the poet says, "And fainter onward, like wild birds that change Their season in the night and wail their way From cloud to cloud, down the long wind the dream Shrill'd." Note the figure of speech (simile), beginning with the word _like_. 2. The description of the last, dim, weird battle in the west, beginning at the bottom of page 240 with the line "A death-white mist slept over land and sea," is one of the most stirring things in the poem, and deserves particularly close reading. The pictures are crowded, the figures vivid, the phrases full of force. 3. Tennyson has used his highest art in the composition, and makes the sound of his lines imitate in no feeble way the noise of battle. For instance: "Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn, Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash Of battle-axes on shatter'd helms, and shrieks After the Christ, of those who falling down Look'd up for heaven, and only saw the mist." 4. The brilliancy of description corresponds well with the glittering marvel of Excalibur: "For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work Of subtlest jewelry." ".....the wonder of the hilt, How curiously and strangely chased," "The great brand Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon, And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch, Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, Seen where the moving isles of winter shock By night, with noises of the Northern Sea." 5. King Arthur, as he lay in the barge with his weary head upon the lap of the fairest and tallest of the three queens, is described as follows: "a brow Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white And colorless, and like the wither'd moon Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east; And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls-- That made his forehead like a rising sun High from the dais-throne--were parch'd with dust, Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. So like a shatter'd column lay the king; Not like that Arthur, who, with lance in rest, From spur to plume a star of tournament, Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged Before the eyes of ladies and of kings."