Then, ere that last weird battle 'gainst the Lords, There came on ARTHUR, sleeping, in his chair, At Malwood--musing, by his own fireside, After much totting up of Trade Returns, And Navy Estimates--a whisper blown Along a wandering wind, and in his ear Went shrilling, "Hollow! hollow! Forfar! Brigg! Our small majority shall pass away! Farewell! There is thine Hampshire rest for thee, But I am blown about a wandering wind, And 'Follow! follow! follow!' day and night, The fighting factions of our army cry To me--their 'Leader!' And I cannot face Five ways at once, and it's a beastly bore! And if I could, how can I get a Bill Passed by the Lords?" And ARTHUR woke, and called, "Who spake? A dream! O light upon the wind, Thine, GAWAIN, was the voice--are these poor 'cries' Thine? Or doth that same army, growing wild, Mourn, wishing it had gone along with Me?" This heard the bold Sir BEDIVERE, and spake: "O me, my Chief! to pass whatever Bill, Upstairs, seems hopeless. Tory glamour clings To all high places like a darkening cloud For ever. Is it your intent to 'pass' (In Tennysonian sense), since your Bills won't?" And ARTHUR said: "Sir BEDIVERE, blue funk Sits ill upon a knight. GAWAIN is light-- No one at least can say the same of _me!_" (BEDIVERE murmured, "_No_, by--Behemoth!") "I hear the steps of MORDRED in the West, And with him many of the people by rights, And thine, whom thou hast served, ungrateful grown, The idiots!--splitting up their ranks--and ours! But 'pass,' in Tennysonian sense? No fear! I shall arise and smash 'em as of old!" Then to King ARTHUR spoke Sir BEDIVERE: "Far other is this battle, our great test, Whereto we move, than when great LANCELOT (Now far cavorting in the snow at Cannes) Thrust his great rival from St. Stephen's seats, And shook him thro' the North. Ill doom is ours To war against our rivals, and each other. The chief who fights old followers fights himself, And they, old friends who loved us once, the stroke We strike at them is a back-stroke to us. Nay, even the stroke of your Excalibur Hath scarcely its old swashing force. Men say It shall not strike again,--men whisper so!-- That she, the Lady of the Hibernian Lake, Awaiteth its return. Ah! you unsheath it! Say, must I take it--take Excalibur, And fling it far into the middle mere, Mark what occurs, and lightly bring you word?"