Page:Poems - Tennyson (1843) - Volume 2 of 2.djvu/25

 Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, Beneath them; and descending they were ware That all the decks were dense with stately forms Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream—by these Three Queens with crowns of gold—and from them rose A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars, And, as it were one voice, an agony Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills All night in a waste land, where no one comes, Or hath come, since the making of the world. Then murmur'd Arthur, "Place me in the barge," And to the barge they came. There those three Queens Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. But she, that rose the tallest of them all And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands, And call'd him by his name, complaining loud, And dropping bitter tears against his brow Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white And colourless, and like the wither'd moon Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east;