Page:Poems - Tennyson (1843) - Volume 2 of 2.djvu/29

 Redeem'd it from the charge of nothingness— Or else we loved the man, and prized his work; I know not: but we sitting, as I said, The cock crew loud; as at that time of year The lusty bird takes every hour for dawn: Then Francis, muttering, like a man ill-used, "There now—that's nothing!" drew a little back, And drove his heel into the smoulder'd log, That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue: And so to bed; where yet in sleep I seem'd To sail with Arthur under looming shores, Point after point, till on to dawn, when dreams Begin to feel the truth and stir of day, To me, methought, who waited with a crowd, There came a bark that, blowing forward, bore King Arthur, like a modern gentleman Of stateliest port; and all the people cried, "Arthur is come again: he cannot die." Then those that stood upon the hills behind Repeated—"Come again, and thrice as fair;" And, further inland, voices echoed—"Come