Good King Arthur is gone. It bit deep, that blow which Mordred, the
strong traitor, struck when the spear stood out a fathom behind his
back; and Morgan la Fay came too late to heal the grievous wound that
had taken cold. The frank, kind, generous heart, that would not mistrust
till certainty left no space for suspicion, can never be wrung or
betrayed again. The bitter parting between the lovers is over too; and
Launcelot is gone to his own place, without the farewell caress he
prayed for when he besought the queen "to kiss him once and never more."
After a very few short months, the beautiful wild bird has beaten
herself to death against her cage, and the vision comes by night,
bidding Launcelot arise and fetch the corpse of Guenever home. She
wandered often and far in life, but where should her home be _now_ but
by the side of her husband? Hardly and painfully in two days, he and
the faithful seven accomplish the thirty miles that lay between; so
utterly is that unearthly strength, before which lance-shafts were as
reeds, and iron bars as silken threads (remember the May night in
Meliagraunce's castle), enfeebled and broken down. He stands in the
nunnery-church at Almesbury; he hears from the queen's maidens of the
prayer that was ever on her lips through those two days when she lay a
dying, how "she besought God that she might never have power to see Sir
Launcelot with her worldly eyes.
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