Far Off: Camelot and Avalon

Birds singing around me in the fields,
The water washing from the isle yields
Visions of a time and place that passed long ago,
Or they might not have been. Who am I to know?
But there is still the gleam of the flash of the shields,

And the gleaming lances as the knights themselves hurled
Together, with cracking thunderbolt crash in the world
Of Arthur and his queen, the fairest Guinevere.
Nightly they sat smiling while music high and clear
Sparkled around the hall, and in Guinevere's hair curled.

Daily they could ride to see the isle of Avalon,
That now from worlds real and imagined is gone,
And make obeisance on their knees to the glassy isle,
After which they might sit and gaze for a while,
For the island was, after all, fair to look upon.

And in the distant green hills of Avalon's vales,
To which ships crowded with white-winged sails,
There were women walking in the trance of the deepest dream
That can overtake one, each one a queen,
All with heads bowed, voices raised in dreamy wails.

The music would have been deeper, a sustained note,
Such as might come from a lifelong trumpeter's throat,
The first time that Lancelot rode through the gates,
And wove the first strand of that web of loves and hates.
Guinevere would meet his gaze with her heart in her throat.

And yet, I still have that vision that I cannot shake,
Of her and Arthur resting beside Avalon lake,
Her hair pillowed on his chest in weeping nests of gold.
He smiles down at her and then shifts his hold,
Pulling her closer; and that vision must my thirst slake

Becuase I am pulled away to a vision of Camelot,
And the snorting horses and flashing armor of the lot,
All the knights who served Arthur and dwelt in the golden towers.
They would wheel their horses and charge for hours,
But most magnificent of them all was Lancelot.

Yet there is a vision of him too, making a journey,
To the water at Avalon just after a tourney.
And perhaps he hesitated, then pulled a coin from his belt,
And tossed it into the water with a prayer heartfelt,
That Guinevere would come to him with all her heart's yearning.

Avalon I have a fairer vision of yet at night,
When across the waves it shone like a glassy light.
Then the waves would shimmer, soft, dancing, and wet
As the weeping moon, caught in midnight's net.
And the ripples would go outward, love upon starbright,

While for some reason I see Camelot in the day,
And no power known to me can take that sight away.
I see the golden lights streaming about golden towers,
And see the fair faces and smell the scents of fair flowers.
I can see it as it was in every brightest lay.

I can see the Forest of Logres, bright with the sun.
Who knows how many roads and adventures there run?
The world was brighter then with its imparted magic,
And with what was both, then, the high and the tragic.
The trees were green, and new leaves constantly begun.

Mixing with this once more are scenes of the misty isle
Where the four queen took Arthur to rest for a while,
Far from a country fallen to games of desire,
Lancelot and Guinevere's fall in the fire,
And the battles of blood and fire that were Mordred's wiles.

But it is passing away, and I am left on the shore,
With Avalon shrunk, perhaps, to Glastonbury Tor,
And I grasp at the shades of vision, though I know
That the emotions they inspired will not truly go.
Then they are gone, and I am far off once more.