Apotheosis

Once mortal, now transformed,
Her form has become living light;
Her flesh beyond life has warmed;
Her brilliance shines in the night

That was England during her life.
She has become a symbol, and more:
Serenity amid the strife,
Tragic love on Glory's shore.

Mortal she might once have been;
Wed to a man mortal, though a king.
But through devices of adoring men,
She has become the heart of everything

In the legend; she herself is Story,
Only barely held in restraint.
She bursts her bounds like a glory
Overflowing its stem's green plaint.

Once her name might have been
Only a word, like many other names.
But it changed, too, when once again
Listeners needed to burn with flames

Of a passion that, though not their own,
Symbolized all that passion could ever be.
Thus she is not remembered as a crone,
But in fullest and fairest flower of her beauty:

Her name is a bell, ringing and clear,
That calls from beyond her life to Tale.
She is the Queen; she is Guinevere,
Transmuted from a breeze into a gale

That tore apart the veils of the portal
Of death that consumes so many others.
She and her king have become immortal,
And she and Lancelot everlasting lovers.

Her hair that might have been sun's hue
Is now warmer and softer than sunlight.
The eyes that might once have been blue
Are now the sky of phoenix's flight.

She who dwelled on earth, who died,
Who passed at last into her end,
Has been set in a realm to Reality's side,
And has Transmutation as her friend:

Faults and virtues the legends amplify,
Calling her of all women most fair,
Or most wicked. But shall she ever die,
While in legends she lives, embodied there

As a goddess, lifted to her greatest height?
Not like moon or sun, but like the stars,
She neither wanes nor sets, but her light
Fills minds and hearts and sets Afar

The stories that call her name, that hear
Her laughter. Changed, she changes too.
Words or songs that say Guinevere
Have discovered something true,

Something that still has lasted down,
Something that will still and yet endure,
Like the starlight pouring from heaven's crown,
Like the feeling of gravest rapture

When one says Guinevere, and after
Comes the song of an olden swallow,
Comes the song of a goddess's laughter,
Comes a voice that still bids our hearts follow.