_In Memoriam_, xxxii. Thus again, in the _Morte d'Arthur_, which was a forecast of _The Idylls of the King_, we are reminded of the efficacy of prayer in language worthy of being put into a Catholic's lips: "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._" In the following lines, on the rarity of repentance, there is a reference to the coöperation of human will with divine grace, which equals the precision of a Catholic theologian: "Full seldom _does_ a man repent, or _use_ _Both grace and will_ to pick the vicious quitch _Of blood and custom_ wholly out of him. And make all clean, and plant himself afresh." _Idylls of the King_, p. 93. In the same poem we find lines of a distinctly Catholic tone on the repentant queen's entering a convent, and on a knight who had long been the tenant of a hermitage. Guinevere speaks as follows: "So let me, _if you do not shudder at me_, Nor shun to call me sister, dwell with you; Wear black and white, and be a nun like you; Fast with your fasts, _not feasting with your feasts_; Grieve with your griefs, not grieving at your joys. _Bid not rejoicing_; mingle with your rites; Pray and be prayed for; _lie before your shrines_; Do each low office of your holy house; Walk your dim cloister, and distribute dole To poor sick people, richer in his eyes Who ransomed us, and haler, too, than I; And treat their loathsome hurts, and heal mine own; And so wear out in almsdeed and in prayer The sombre close of that voluptuous day Which wrought the ruin of my lord the king." _Idylls of the King_, p. 260. The hermitage is thus described: "There lived a knight Not far from Camelot, now for forty years A hermit, _who had prayed, labored, and prayed_. And ever laboring had scooped himself In the white rock a chapel and a hall On massive columns, like a shorecliff cave. And cells and chambers: all were fair and dry." _Idylls of the King_, p. 168. Among Tennyson's earlier poems, the picture of Isabel, "the perfect wife," with her "_hate of gossip parlance, and of sway_," her "locks not wide dispread. Madonna-wise on either side her head; Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign The summer calm of golden charity;" and "Eyes not down-dropt nor over-bright, but fed With the clear-pointed flame of chastity," _Poems_, pp. 7, 8,