"Logres is the light within the lamp of Britain" says King Arthur in Rosemary Sutcliff's thrilling version of the stories. And whenever I go on the train through Westbury, I feel again what I felt as a boy growing up in nearby Frome - that the white horse God-huge atop the valley side is Arthur's, eternally about to ride again to save us from mundanity.
The musical soundtrack is "Gwenhwyfar" which we wrote together in different centuries. I wrote the words in the 1980s; Maz the music in 2022 and we recorded it in 2024.
Lord Arthur is gone, I laud my Beloved:
Cross on invincible shield, blood-red,
Dragon on young-summer green, red,
The terrible clatter of returning hooves.
I never quite believed. Always feared him
Dead. But he always came.
Arthur is gone, I laud my Beloved:
Swift white charger swooping like a spear
On the bonfire builders, the wolvers of women,
Scourging the rat run barbarian inroads,
Animal tracks of attacking Saxon,
His spur-tensed Britons beat back the Beast.
And little the faith I had yet in Arthur,
The Angel campaigner, strong as light,
His sun-bright stars above the wicked forest
Seeming to fade. Rusty the scabbard,
Still magic the sword. And, once more, he came.
I’ve believed too little. I make my Confession.
At last I understood. The flincher from spears,
Medraut, was part of Arthur, his shadow,
Chancel and gargoyle had to be cancelled
Where all deeds are drowned, all swords returned:
Avalon. And I’ll run no more.
I’ve believed too little. I make my Confession.
Night and this nunnery will fall. Ravens
Will flock on the gore. Let others keep
A glimmer, a glorious page, of Logres alight
Until the dawn. My confession’s done.
Still my heart waits for hoofbeats.
(Still, my heart waits for hoofbeats…)
© Gareth Calway 1991 (first published by Aude Gotto in my King of Hearts publication "Coming Home")
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