This is the first of two volumes (the second being The Region of the Summer Stars)of quasi-narrative poems by Charles Wiliams on the Matter of Arthur. This first book is more or less sequential from the coming of Arthur and his establishing his kingship through to the death of Lancelot at the end. I find the poems beautiful but rather hermetic --I am by no means sure I always understand them. Williams glorifies order and sees Arthurian Britain as a later-Roman parallel of Byzantium., ( )