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
With all good things and war shall be no more.

"The old tale, thus modernised in an epilogue, does not lose its dignity,
for now the recoming of Arthur is the recoming of Christ in a wider and
fairer Christianity. We feel here how the new movement of religion and
theology had sent its full and exciting wave into Tennyson. Arthur's
death in the battle and the mist is the death of a form of Christianity
which, exhausted, died in doubt and darkness. His advent as a modern
gentleman is the coming of a brighter and more loving Christ into the
hearts of men. For so ends the epilogue. When the voices cry, 'Come
again, with all good things,'

"At this a hundred bells began to peal,
That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed,
The clear church-bells ring in the Christmas-morn."

THE ALLEGORICAL ELEMENT.--The statement is made on p. xxxv of this book
that in _The Idylls of the King_ "the effort is made to reconcile the
human story with the allegory, and in consequence the issues are
confusedly presented to our mind." It is characteristic of the _Morte
d'Arthur_ fragment that it is apparently free from all allegorical
intention. It is merely a moving human story with a fascinating element
of mystery inspired by the original Celtic legend. An element of
allegory lies in the epilogue, and _The Passing of Arthur_ still further
enforces the allegorical purpose. But here, as Mr. Brooke again writes