Morte d'Arthur


These are the scenes he seemed to remember:

A blade raised silver in the battled air;

An oath to Arthur, sworn when others sold

Their loyalty for coin; all the mighty

Who yielded to his will; a nameless knight

Unhorsed beside a ford, his wasteful blood

Stains the water red. Yet still he cannot

Recall his mother's face, or a childhood.

The burliest of them round the table

Sit spellbound as Arthur speaks of visions,

Mailed fists thumping approval for the quest.

The greatest knight is their invention,

A role that Launcelot dons like armour.

Riding with Guinevere to Camelot,

We learn their fate is to betray the king

And the grail was never for Launcelot.

Divided from himself, the future dims.

He slays the unarmed kindred of Gawain

Without reason, and as Arthur sickens

The Orkney faction seize upon revenge.

The kingdom starts to slip away; soon

The waters will reclaim the fated sword.

Only Merlin, the cambion, suspects

Their lives were always someone else's words.

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