This is the first of Tennyson's poems to be based on Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur.

The first draft was composed in 1834, and the finished work was published in Poems (1842). Later Tennyson incorporated the poem into the Idylls of the King (1870) under the title of "The Passing of Arthur".

The narrative of this poem was drawn from the third, fourth, and fifth chapters of the 21st book of Thomas Malory's romance.