The first idyll, "Gareth and Lynette," is not in itself one of the most interesting[91]--dealing chiefly as it does with the picture of the eager boy, anxious to be one of Arthur's knights, who serves a year in menial place as a test of his obedience: but there is one passage which ought never to be omitted in speaking of Tennyson, viz. the answer of the seer when the boys ask him if the castle is enchanted. The seer answers ironically, yet with a deep meaning, that it _is_ enchanted: For there is nothing in it as it seems Saving the King; tho' some there be that hold The King a shadow, and the city real. Then he tells them about the _vows_: which if they fear to take, he warns them Pass not beneath this gateway, but abide Without, among the cattle of the field, For an ye hear a music, like enow They are building still, seeing the city is built To music, _therefore never built at all, And therefore built for ever_. Beneath the strangely beautiful surface meaning of these lines there lies the deep allegoric meaning that often what seems visionary is in truth a spiritual and eternal reality. It brings to mind the wonderful lines of Browning (in "Abt Vogler"): The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, The passion that left the earth to lose itself in the sky, Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; Enough that he heard it once, we shall hear it by and by. The other point concerns the end of the poem. The last section is the Passing of Arthur; the old fragment "Morte d'Arthur" enlarged. One notable addition occurs at the very end. In the earlier version of the fragment, after Arthur had passed away on the dark lake, with him the last hope also disappears. We are only told: Long stood Sir Bedivere, Revolving many memories, till the hull Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, And on the mere the wailing died away. In the fragment the end was tragic: the noble attempt failed; the hero and inspirer passed away, his aim defeated, his comrades slain or scattered, his life and efforts vain. But in the final shape comes a new and very significant end: Then from the dawn it seem'd 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[92] moved about, and clomb Ev'n to the highest he could climb--and saw, Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King 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.