Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  Shoutings of all the sons of God: and first

  At once I saw him far on the great Sea,

  In silver-shining armour starry-clear;

  And o’er his head the Holy Vessel hung

  Clothed in white samite or a luminous cloud.

  And with exceeding swiftness ran the boat,

  If boat it were — I saw not whence it came.

  And when the heavens opened and blazed again

  Roaring, I saw him like a silver star —

  And had he set the sail, or had the boat

  Become a living creature clad with wings?

  And o’er his head the Holy Vessel hung

  Redder than any rose, a joy to me,

  For now I knew the veil had been withdrawn.

  Then in a moment when they blazed again

  Opening, I saw the least of little stars

  Down on the waste, and straight beyond the star

  I saw the spiritual city and all her spires

  And gateways in a glory like one pearl —

  No larger, though the goal of all the saints —

  Strike from the sea; and from the star there shot

  A rose-red sparkle to the city, and there

  Dwelt, and I knew it was the Holy Grail,

  Which never eyes on earth again shall see.

  Then fell the floods of heaven drowning the deep.

  And how my feet recrost the deathful ridge

  No memory in me lives; but that I touched

  The chapel-doors at dawn I know; and thence

  Taking my war-horse from the holy man,

  Glad that no phantom vext me more, returned

  To whence I came, the gate of Arthur’s wars.’

  ‘O brother,’ asked Ambrosius,—’for in sooth

  These ancient books — and they would win thee — teem,

  Only I find not there this Holy Grail,

  With miracles and marvels like to these,

  Not all unlike; which oftentime I read,

  Who read but on my breviary with ease,

  Till my head swims; and then go forth and pass

  Down to the little thorpe that lies so close,

  And almost plastered like a martin’s nest

  To these old walls — and mingle with our folk;

  And knowing every honest face of theirs

  As well as ever shepherd knew his sheep,

  And every homely secret in their hearts,

  Delight myself with gossip and old wives,

  And ills and aches, and teethings, lyings-in,

  And mirthful sayings, children of the place,

  That have no meaning half a league away:

  Or lulling random squabbles when they rise,

  Chafferings and chatterings at the market-cross,

  Rejoice, small man, in this small world of mine,

  Yea, even in their hens and in their eggs —

  O brother, saving this Sir Galahad,

  Came ye on none but phantoms in your quest,

  No man, no woman?’

  Then Sir Percivale:

  ‘All men, to one so bound by such a vow,

  And women were as phantoms. O, my brother,

  Why wilt thou shame me to confess to thee

  How far I faltered from my quest and vow?

  For after I had lain so many nights

  A bedmate of the snail and eft and snake,

  In grass and burdock, I was changed to wan

  And meagre, and the vision had not come;

  And then I chanced upon a goodly town

  With one great dwelling in the middle of it;

  Thither I made, and there was I disarmed

  By maidens each as fair as any flower:

  But when they led me into hall, behold,

  The Princess of that castle was the one,

  Brother, and that one only, who had ever

  Made my heart leap; for when I moved of old

  A slender page about her father’s hall,

  And she a slender maiden, all my heart

  Went after her with longing: yet we twain

  Had never kissed a kiss, or vowed a vow.

  And now I came upon her once again,

  And one had wedded her, and he was dead,

  And all his land and wealth and state were hers.

  And while I tarried, every day she set

  A banquet richer than the day before

  By me; for all her longing and her will

  Was toward me as of old; till one fair morn,

  I walking to and fro beside a stream

  That flashed across her orchard underneath

  Her castle-walls, she stole upon my walk,

  And calling me the greatest of all knights,

  Embraced me, and so kissed me the first time,

  And gave herself and all her wealth to me.

  Then I remembered Arthur’s warning word,

  That most of us would follow wandering fires,

  And the Quest faded in my heart. Anon,

  The heads of all her people drew to me,

  With supplication both of knees and tongue:

  “We have heard of thee: thou art our greatest knight,

  Our Lady says it, and we well believe:

  Wed thou our Lady, and rule over us,

  And thou shalt be as Arthur in our land.”

  O me, my brother! but one night my vow

  Burnt me within, so that I rose and fled,

  But wailed and wept, and hated mine own self,

  And even the Holy Quest, and all but her;

  Then after I was joined with Galahad

  Cared not for her, nor anything upon earth.’

  Then said the monk, ‘Poor men, when yule is cold,

  Must be content to sit by little fires.

  And this am I, so that ye care for me

  Ever so little; yea, and blest be Heaven

  That brought thee here to this poor house of ours

  Where all the brethren are so hard, to warm

  My cold heart with a friend: but O the pity

  To find thine own first love once more — to hold,

  Hold her a wealthy bride within thine arms,

  Or all but hold, and then — cast her aside,

  Foregoing all her sweetness, like a weed.

  For we that want the warmth of double life,

  We that are plagued with dreams of something sweet

  Beyond all sweetness in a life so rich, —

  Ah, blessed Lord, I speak too earthlywise,

  Seeing I never strayed beyond the cell,

  But live like an old badger in his earth,

  With earth about him everywhere, despite

  All fast and penance. Saw ye none beside,

  None of your knights?’

  ‘Yea so,’ said Percivale:

  ‘One night my pathway swerving east, I saw

  The pelican on the casque of our Sir Bors

  All in the middle of the rising moon:

  And toward him spurred, and hailed him, and he me,

  And each made joy of either; then he asked,

  “Where is he? hast thou seen him — Lancelot? — Once,”

  Said good Sir Bors, “he dashed across me — mad,

  And maddening what he rode: and when I cried,

  ‘Ridest thou then so hotly on a quest

  So holy,’ Lancelot shouted, ‘Stay me not!

  I have been the sluggard, and I ride apace,

  For now there is a lion in the way.’

  So vanished.”

  ‘Then Sir Bors had ridden on

  Softly, and sorrowing for our Lancelot,

  Because his former madness, once the talk

  And scandal of our table, had returned;

  For Lancelot’s kith and kin so worship him

  That ill to him is ill to them; to Bors

  Beyond the rest: he well had been content

  Not to have seen, so Lancelot might have seen,

  The Holy C
up of healing; and, indeed,

  Being so clouded with his grief and love,

  Small heart was his after the Holy Quest:

  If God would send the vision, well: if not,

  The Quest and he were in the hands of Heaven.

  ‘And then, with small adventure met, Sir Bors

  Rode to the lonest tract of all the realm,

  And found a people there among their crags,

  Our race and blood, a remnant that were left

  Paynim amid their circles, and the stones

  They pitch up straight to heaven: and their wise men

  Were strong in that old magic which can trace

  The wandering of the stars, and scoffed at him

  And this high Quest as at a simple thing:

  Told him he followed — almost Arthur’s words —

  A mocking fire: “what other fire than he,

  Whereby the blood beats, and the blossom blows,

  And the sea rolls, and all the world is warmed?”

  And when his answer chafed them, the rough crowd,

  Hearing he had a difference with their priests,

  Seized him, and bound and plunged him into a cell

  Of great piled stones; and lying bounden there

  In darkness through innumerable hours

  He heard the hollow-ringing heavens sweep

  Over him till by miracle — what else? —

  Heavy as it was, a great stone slipt and fell,

  Such as no wind could move: and through the gap

  Glimmered the streaming scud: then came a night

  Still as the day was loud; and through the gap

  The seven clear stars of Arthur’s Table Round —

  For, brother, so one night, because they roll

  Through such a round in heaven, we named the stars,

  Rejoicing in ourselves and in our King —

  And these, like bright eyes of familiar friends,

  In on him shone: “And then to me, to me,”

  Said good Sir Bors, “beyond all hopes of mine,

  Who scarce had prayed or asked it for myself —

  Across the seven clear stars — O grace to me —

  In colour like the fingers of a hand

  Before a burning taper, the sweet Grail

  Glided and past, and close upon it pealed

  A sharp quick thunder.” Afterwards, a maid,

  Who kept our holy faith among her kin

  In secret, entering, loosed and let him go.’

  To whom the monk: ‘And I remember now

  That pelican on the casque: Sir Bors it was

  Who spake so low and sadly at our board;

  And mighty reverent at our grace was he:

  A square-set man and honest; and his eyes,

  An out-door sign of all the warmth within,

  Smiled with his lips — a smile beneath a cloud,

  But heaven had meant it for a sunny one:

  Ay, ay, Sir Bors, who else? But when ye reached

  The city, found ye all your knights returned,

  Or was there sooth in Arthur’s prophecy,

  Tell me, and what said each, and what the King?’

  Then answered Percivale: ‘And that can I,

  Brother, and truly; since the living words

  Of so great men as Lancelot and our King

  Pass not from door to door and out again,

  But sit within the house. O, when we reached

  The city, our horses stumbling as they trode

  On heaps of ruin, hornless unicorns,

  Cracked basilisks, and splintered cockatrices,

  And shattered talbots, which had left the stones

  Raw, that they fell from, brought us to the hall.

  ‘And there sat Arthur on the dais-throne,

  And those that had gone out upon the Quest,

  Wasted and worn, and but a tithe of them,

  And those that had not, stood before the King,

  Who, when he saw me, rose, and bad me hail,

  Saying, “A welfare in thine eye reproves

  Our fear of some disastrous chance for thee

  On hill, or plain, at sea, or flooding ford.

  So fierce a gale made havoc here of late

  Among the strange devices of our kings;

  Yea, shook this newer, stronger hall of ours,

  And from the statue Merlin moulded for us

  Half-wrenched a golden wing; but now — the Quest,

  This vision — hast thou seen the Holy Cup,

  That Joseph brought of old to Glastonbury?”

  ‘So when I told him all thyself hast heard,

  Ambrosius, and my fresh but fixt resolve

  To pass away into the quiet life,

  He answered not, but, sharply turning, asked

  Of Gawain, “Gawain, was this Quest for thee?”

  ‘“Nay, lord,” said Gawain, “not for such as I.

  Therefore I communed with a saintly man,

  Who made me sure the Quest was not for me;

  For I was much awearied of the Quest:

  But found a silk pavilion in a field,

  And merry maidens in it; and then this gale

  Tore my pavilion from the tenting-pin,

  And blew my merry maidens all about

  With all discomfort; yea, and but for this,

  My twelvemonth and a day were pleasant to me.”

  ‘He ceased; and Arthur turned to whom at first

  He saw not, for Sir Bors, on entering, pushed

  Athwart the throng to Lancelot, caught his hand,

  Held it, and there, half-hidden by him, stood,

  Until the King espied him, saying to him,

  “Hail, Bors! if ever loyal man and true

  Could see it, thou hast seen the Grail;” and Bors,

  “Ask me not, for I may not speak of it:

  I saw it;” and the tears were in his eyes.

  ‘Then there remained but Lancelot, for the rest

  Spake but of sundry perils in the storm;

  Perhaps, like him of Cana in Holy Writ,

  Our Arthur kept his best until the last;

  “Thou, too, my Lancelot,” asked the king, “my friend,

  Our mightiest, hath this Quest availed for thee?”

  ‘“Our mightiest!” answered Lancelot, with a groan;

  “O King!” — and when he paused, methought I spied

  A dying fire of madness in his eyes —

  “O King, my friend, if friend of thine I be,

  Happier are those that welter in their sin,

  Swine in the mud, that cannot see for slime,

  Slime of the ditch: but in me lived a sin

  So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure,

  Noble, and knightly in me twined and clung

  Round that one sin, until the wholesome flower

  And poisonous grew together, each as each,

  Not to be plucked asunder; and when thy knights

  Sware, I sware with them only in the hope

  That could I touch or see the Holy Grail

  They might be plucked asunder. Then I spake

  To one most holy saint, who wept and said,

  That save they could be plucked asunder, all

  My quest were but in vain; to whom I vowed

  That I would work according as he willed.

  And forth I went, and while I yearned and strove

  To tear the twain asunder in my heart,

  My madness came upon me as of old,

  And whipt me into waste fields far away;

  There was I beaten down by little men,

  Mean knights, to whom the moving of my sword

  And shadow of my spear had been enow

  To scare them from me once; and then I came

  All in my folly to the naked shore,

  Wide flats, where nothing but coarse grasses grew;

  But such a blast, my King, began to blow,

  So loud a blast alon
g the shore and sea,

  Ye could not hear the waters for the blast,

  Though heapt in mounds and ridges all the sea

  Drove like a cataract, and all the sand

  Swept like a river, and the clouded heavens

  Were shaken with the motion and the sound.

  And blackening in the sea-foam swayed a boat,

  Half-swallowed in it, anchored with a chain;

  And in my madness to myself I said,

  ‘I will embark and I will lose myself,

  And in the great sea wash away my sin.’

  I burst the chain, I sprang into the boat.

  Seven days I drove along the dreary deep,

  And with me drove the moon and all the stars;

  And the wind fell, and on the seventh night

  I heard the shingle grinding in the surge,

  And felt the boat shock earth, and looking up,

  Behold, the enchanted towers of Carbonek,

  A castle like a rock upon a rock,

  With chasm-like portals open to the sea,

  And steps that met the breaker! there was none

  Stood near it but a lion on each side

  That kept the entry, and the moon was full.

  Then from the boat I leapt, and up the stairs.

  There drew my sword. With sudden-flaring manes

  Those two great beasts rose upright like a man,

  Each gript a shoulder, and I stood between;

  And, when I would have smitten them, heard a voice,

  ‘Doubt not, go forward; if thou doubt, the beasts

  Will tear thee piecemeal.’ Then with violence

  The sword was dashed from out my hand, and fell.

  And up into the sounding hall I past;

  But nothing in the sounding hall I saw,

  No bench nor table, painting on the wall

  Or shield of knight; only the rounded moon

  Through the tall oriel on the rolling sea.

  But always in the quiet house I heard,

  Clear as a lark, high o’er me as a lark,

  A sweet voice singing in the topmost tower

  To the eastward: up I climbed a thousand steps

  With pain: as in a dream I seemed to climb

  For ever: at the last I reached a door,

  A light was in the crannies, and I heard,

  ‘Glory and joy and honour to our Lord

  And to the Holy Vessel of the Grail.’

  Then in my madness I essayed the door;

  It gave; and through a stormy glare, a heat

  As from a seventimes-heated furnace, I,

  Blasted and burnt, and blinded as I was,

  With such a fierceness that I swooned away —

  O, yet methought I saw the Holy Grail,

  All palled in crimson samite, and around

  Great angels, awful shapes, and wings and eyes.

  And but for all my madness and my sin,

  And then my swooning, I had sworn I saw