Silently the mist is rising, wreathing pale and icily.
Creeping furtive, through the Levels; stirring ancient memories.
Drifting ghostly, round the willows... meadows fading out of sight;
I feel a sudden, eerie shiver, though it is not cold tonight.
The phantom, misty fingers rise up from the Rhynes, so dark and deep,
that flow so slow, and silently; what awful secrets do they keep?
For here, there have been battles fought; how many warriors moulder here?
For here, there has been slaughter done, with naked sword and bloodied spear.

It is whispered that, on such a night as this; they prowl abroad.
Old men hereabouts, will talk of lights... and sounds that may be heard
across the Levels that are set about the Tor of Glastonbury;
but, are they ghostly campfires... or just flickering marsh lights that they see?
Is that the sound of restless, lowing cattle drifting on the air?
Or, booming of the war-horns of some long-dead army, far out there
across the Levels, in the wreathing mists that rise out of the Rhynes?
Just imagination... or an echo out of darker times?

And, when the moon is floating pale, above the Tor at Glastonbury,
with fog and mist arising on the Levels... drifting eerily
through shivering willows; you can sense the veil between the worlds is thin...
Is there something out there... just a breath away; so faint... so dim?
Is that, again... a War-horn... or some far-off foghorn out to sea?
Is that the clattering of some sluice... or harness of ghost cavalry?
and, hush; is that faint, lonesome call some distant night-bird on the wing?
or Albion in lament; as she grieves soft... the passing of a King?

For hereabouts, they say, was Avalon; does something, then remain?
Some memory of what was here before the darkness snuffed the flame?
This last, bright hope of Albion... this fleet, and final flowering
of what was once... but now is lost. Of Arthur... Once and Future King.
The Matter of Britain, this is called... it echoes still, about this place;
perhaps, a shadow of a long-lost memory... some ghost to chase;
and you can almost feel the Dragon's breath... that blood-red badge of Gwent;
and is this just a Rhyne-mist... or enchantment, strange... by Merlin, sent?

Perhaps, this is not just a timid breeze that whispers in the night,
turning back the willow leaves to glisten silver, by the light
of the pale, thin-slivered moon... so faint and pallid, high above;
could it be soul of Guinevere lamenting for her love?
Or perhaps, the four enchantresses who laid the King to rest
upon the barge, and sailed into the setting sun, far to the west;
Lamenting softly of this Golden age... its time, which now had run...
gliding out across the waters... gliding down to Avalon.

Out there, somewhere... perhaps, there is some tranquil Mere, all lost from sight;
a shining mirror wreathed in mist, all hidden by the cloak of night,
and in its silent, sombre depths; does She still sleep, all safe from harm?
The Lady of the Lake... Excalibur held safe, within her arms?
Waiting... waiting... with its awesome power a'slumber, until freed;
awakened by the call of Albion in her darkest hour of need.
Will... once more, the Lady's slender hand raise up Excalibur
aloft,
above the misty, glassy surface of the Silvered Mere?

This then... the Legend of the Levels circling about Glastonbury.
Of things that were, or might have been... of things that may yet come to be.
All lost from sight; all lost in mists of ages, faded out with time...
the willows tell no stories, and who knows the secrets of the Rhynes?
And yet, this really is the strangest place; there is a feeling here...
for, when the ghostly mist is rising, and the moon is pale and clear,
it is so easy to imagine things... once here, but long since gone...
to wander through what might have been; deep in the Mists of Avalon.


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For those unfamiliar with the term;
A rhyne is a Somerset word for a drainage ditch, or canal, used to turn areas of wetland at around sea level into useful pasture.
(They are to be found extensively across the Somerset Levels.)

D.