of the soul, in contending Faith and Doubt, and witnessed the triumph of Faith.

In "Locksley Hall," "The Sailor Boy" and Ulysses," we noted the struggle with varied forms of seduction. We saw the stirring of the soul, and heard the clarion notes of victory.

In "In Memoriam" we heard the wail of grief, and traced the conflict of soul with religious doubt until it gained the heights of faith, when we heard the great anthem of victory.

In " 'Idylls of the King" we caught again the clash of Soul with Sense, and watched the warring victors as they passed to their thrones of life.

We come now to the group which we have arranged under Poems of Death or the victory of Sense. In this group of poems the veil is lifted and we see the Soul sapped of its best energies by vicious passion, or sin of sense, or slumber of selfish ease, all portraying the deadly power of evil as, in varied forms, it wrecks the realm of Arthur and kills the great things of the human soul.

POEMS OF DEATH, OR VICTORY

OF SENSE.

Merlin and Vivien. Lancelot and Elaine.

Pelleas and

Ettarre. The Last Tournament (in part). The Vision of
Sin. The Lotos Eaters. The Sea Fairies. The Islet.

Merlin and Vivien.

VIVIEN is attached to the court of Mark, the Cornish King. She hates Arthur and his Knights, with their high ideals; she is a cynic and laughs to scorn the Table Round, and her cynicism grows to active malevolence. She is an incarnate reptile, this smooth-tongued Vivien. She will leave the court of Mark and enter Arthur's Hall, where she will watch for scandal and circulate her poison. Thus she comes to Camelot and, casting herselt weeping at the feet of the Queen, appeals against the perfidy of Mark. The Queen listens to her plaint, bids her bide awhile, and rides away with Lancelot, while Vivien, through the portal arch, watches with evil-glowing eyes every sign of innocent intimacy and mutters:

666 They ride away—to hawk For waterfowl. Royaller game is mine.'”

The character and conduct of Vivien are powerfully focussed in the lines

"But Vivien half-forgotten of the Queen

Among her damsels broidering sat, heard, watch'd
And whisper'd: thro' the peaceful court she crept
And whisper'd: then as Arthur in the highest
Leaven'd the world, so Vivien in the lowest,

In the hall and near the King is one Merlin, who is bard, astrologer, architect and wizard. He possesses a charm" which Vivien covets and sets herself to win. Merlin, under the power of her subtle spell, falls into melancholy.

". . . He found

A doom that ever poised itself to fall,
An ever-moaning battle in the mist,
World-war of dying flesh against the life,
Death in all life and lying in all love."

In the heart of the doubt was a foreboding of doom, in that war of Sense with Soul, when the worm of flesh would eat into the spirit of life. He would escape her baneful influence, but she follows. him into the boat, and they are driven across to Breton sands, where they pass on into the wild woods. Merlin is morose and taciturn, as if the chilling shadow of some tragic doom lay athwart his spirit. Vivien is playful and loving, intent on winning the secret of the mystic charm,

"The which if any wrought on anyone

With woven paces and with waving arms,
The man so wrought on ever seem'd to lie
Closed in the four walls of a hollow tower,

And lost to life and use and name and fame."

How tenderly she pleads and caresses until that "dark forethought rolled about his brain"! Then her mood changes into humorous sallies and sober argument and flippant satire, but Merlin answers with discretion. Yet there are signs of weakness; she wins upon his confidence and stirs the pulse of age. He "half believes her true," but when she plays the role of scandal and breathes suspicion from the lowest to the highest of those in Arthur's hall, Merlin is vexed, and mutters, "Tell her the charm," and falls into a soliloquy.

"What did the wanton say?

"Not mount as high"; we scarce can sink as low:
For men at most differ as Heaven and earth,
But women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell.""

Vivien, angered at the muttered words, leaps erect as a frozen viper; her lips are white and bloodless. She breathes in puffs of wrath; her cheeks are blanched; her hand steals down to grasp her dagger! Then suddenly her mood changes and she is reproachful and sentimental.

She had hoped her life might have been a path of flowers with him, but now she can only weep

her life away.
A storm is gathering and brooding.
Merlin begins to relent, and calls her to shelter from
the storm. She replies with simulated passion, and
the storm grows nearer. She challenges the light-
ning to strike her if she lie. The storm breaks,
the lightning flashes, an oak is riven, and Vivien,
crying, "Save me!" creeps closer, with terms of
endearment. The storm rages, the winds wail,
the rotten things snap. Merlin tells the charm
and sleeps.

"Then crying, 'I have made his glory mine,'
And shrieking out, 'O fool!' the harlot leapt
Adown the forest, and the thicket closed
Behind her, and the forest echo'd, 'Fool!'"

The idyll portrays the complete victory of Sense over Soul. Vivien is a repulsive character, but she

is necessary.

She incarnates the evil that broke the realm and scattered the Knights, and personifies its most seductive and revolting influence.

the Idylls is the heinousness of sin

In none of drawn with

such deep dark colours as in Vivien. A woman is chosen because man at his worst is "as earth," but woman is as hell." Evil has no conscience, neither

has Vivien. She is beautiful flesh without soul. She possesses intellect and imagination, but the soul lies coffined in her lovely body.

Merlin stands for intellect divorced from religion; he has knowledge, but not self-control; he is strong intellectually, but weak morally. His centre of