"We hear all the changes on the vowel _a_--every sound of it used to give
the impression--and then, in a moment, the verse runs into breadth,
smoothness and vastness: for Bedivere comes to the shore and sees the
great water;

"And on a sudden lo! the level lake,
And the long glories of the winter moon,

"in which the vowel _o_, in its changes is used, as the vowel _a_ has been
used before.

"The questions and replies of Arthur and Bedivere, the reproaches of the
King, the excuses of the Knight, the sorrow and the final wrath of
Arthur, are worthy of the landscape, as they ought to be; and the
dominance of the human element in the scene is a piece of noble
artist-work. Arthur is royal to the close, and when he passes away with
the weeping Queens across the mere, unlike the star of the tournament he
was of old, he is still the King. Sir Bedivere, left alone on the
freezing shore, hears the King give his last message to the world. It is
a modern Christian who speaks, but the phrases do not sound out of
harmony with that which might be in Romance. Moreover, the end of the
saying is of Avilion or Avalon--of the old heathen Celtic place where the
wounded are healed and the old made young."

In the final analysis, therefore, the significance of the _Morte
d'Arthur_ is a significance of beauty rather than moralistic purpose. It
has been said that the reading of Milton's _Lycidas_ is the surest test
of one's powers of poetical appreciation. I fear that the test is too
severe for many readers who can still enjoy a simpler style of poetry.