The great brand
Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon,
And flashing round and round, and whirled 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 flashed and fell the brand Excalibur.

These lines occur in Tennyson’s Arthurian cycle *Idylls of the King*, in the idyll “The Passing of Arthur.” The dying King Arthur commands Sir Bedivere to return Excalibur to the lake. After Bedivere finally obeys, he casts the sword; Tennyson describes its flight and glittering arc through the moonlit air before it is received by the mysterious hand rising from the water. Written during the Victorian revival of medieval legend (first published 1869; incorporated into the completed cycle in 1870–1872), the passage exemplifies Tennyson’s ornate, cinematic style and his interest in the symbolic end of an age.

The “great brand” (sword) becomes a meteor-like spectacle: lightning, aurora, and polar seas fuse into a single image of supernatural radiance. The similes elevate a practical action—throwing a weapon—into a cosmic event, suggesting that Excalibur is not merely a tool of war but a token of divine kingship. Its flashing arc marks the withdrawal of Arthur’s authority from the human realm, returning power to the otherworldly source that granted it. The northern imagery (winter isles, roaring sea) also chills the scene, underscoring finality: the bright, brief flare of the sword is the last blaze of Arthur’s order before darkness and uncertainty close in.