Back to the Mere

When Arthur lay mortally wounded, he begs his knight Bedivere three times to throw his magic sword Excalibur back to the Lady of the Lake.Finally the knight consents:

Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged
Among the bulrush beds, and clutch’d the sword,
And strongly wheel’d and threw it. The great brand
Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon,
And flashing round and round, and whrl’d in an arch,
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock
By night, with noises of the Northern Sea.
So flash’d and fell the brand Excalibur;
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
And caught him by the hilt, and brandish’d him
Three times, and drew him under the mere.

-- Tennyson, Idylls of the King, “The Passing of Arthur”