From Camelot to Almesbury is a far journey, and that journey marks the two extremes of Arthurian history from the happiest to the saddest, from the height of power and the plenitude of peace to the final desolation and unavailing regret. The bridge which connects Camelot with Almesbury is made up of the greatest achievements and the deepest tragedies of Arthur’s reign. It is a bridge of ascent and descent, its highest point marked by the puissance of the Table Round and Galahad’s achievement of the quest of the Grail, its lowest part dipping into the eternal gloom which followed the last battle in the west--a gloom from which the Britons were destined never to emerge. That gloom falls over Almesbury, but Camelot is still left in the light.
Never was, and never can be, such a fairyland as “many-tower’d Camelot.” Its crystal dykes, its slope street, its weird white gate, and its spires and turrets without number, are a poet’s dream. It was the city of enchanters, built by fairy kings, a city which had no beginning, was raised by no human hands, and can have no end--
“A city of shadowy palaces, And stately, rich in emblem and the work Of ancient Kings who did their days in stone,”
a city of pure delights, of calm and innocence, of splendour and contentment.
“Out of bower and casement shyly glanced Eyes of pure women, wholesome stars of love; And all about a healthful people stept As in the presence of a gracious king.”
Where, indeed, could be this new Eden save in the imagination of the romancer who conceived a fitting scene for King Arthur’s Court? It is like the fairy gold which vanishes whenever a hand reaches out to touch it. The “Camaletic Mount” is one of Nature’s hallowed places, a place of wondrous stillness and magic charm, a place to regard as the stronghold of romance, and yet not the place that poets have sung. One can easily imagine the Lady of Shalott prisoned here in her bower, and seeing all the moving world as shadows in a mirror; and one can deem the scene appropriate for the meeting of Lancelot and the Lily-maid who lifted up her eyes and lov’d him with that love which was her doom. It is not well to inquire more deeply and more closely into the past of Camelot, but to heed the poet’s warning--