Contemplating Camelot's Ruin

Contemplating Camelot's Ruin

Let it be told again, how there it stood,
There by the Camel's fabled stream
There the keep arose, a fortress strong,
Strong enough to hold a dream
Fifteen hundred years or more
Glimmering like a chimera in the telling,
A place where one man strived to stand tall
Against the darkness gathering, swelling
To wipe away the light that was,
And bravely through that twilight strode the Bear,
And for a season, he succeeded,
And planted the dream that lingers there.
And yet in the end, the darkness called his name,
Blood fighting blood, love betrayed,
Are what we remember best of what he wrought,
except the lone promise made
When carried off to Avalon
for healing beyond time and space
on that fair faerie isle,
to return again - Arthur, lo, quicken your pace!