Blood-red. And in the strength of this I rode,
Shattering all evil customs everywhere,
And past thro’ Pagan realms, and made them mine,
And clash’d with Pagan hordes, and bore them down,
And broke thro’ all, and in the strength of this
Come victor. But my time is hard at hand,
And hence I go, and one will crown me king
Far in the spiritual city; and come thou, too,
For thou shalt see the vision when I go.’
“While thus he spake, his eye, dwelling on mine,
Drew me, with power upon me, till I grew
One with him, to believe as he believed.
Then, when the day began to wane, we went.
“There rose a hill that none but man could climb,
Scarr’d with a hundred wintry watercourses—
Storm at the top, and when we gain’d it, storm
Round us and death; for every moment glanced
His silver arms and gloom’d, so quick and thick
The lightnings here and there to left and right
Struck, till the dry old trunks about us, dead,
Yea, rotten with a hundred years of death,
Sprang into fire. And at the base we found
On either hand, as far as eye could see,
A great black swamp and of an evil smell,
Part black, part whiten’d with the bones of men,
Not to be crost, save that some ancient king
Had built a way, where, link’d with many a bridge,
A thousand piers ran into the great Sea.
And Galahad fled along them bridge by bridge,
And every bridge as quickly as he crost
Sprang into fire and vanish’d, tho’ I yearn’d
To follow; and thrice above him all the heavens
Open’d and blazed with thunder such as seem’d
Shoutings of all the sons of God. And first
At once I saw him far on the great Sea,
In silver-shining armor 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 open’d 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For now I knew the veil had been withdrawn.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, tho’ 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 touch’d
The chapel-doors at dawn I know, and thence
Taking my war-horse from the holy man,
Glad that no phantom vext me more, return’d
To whence I came, the gate of Arthur’s wars.”
“O brother,” ask’d 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 plaster’d 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 falter’d from my quest and vow?
For after I had lain so many nights,
A bed-mate 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 disarm’d
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 kiss’d a kiss or vow’d 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 flash’d across her orchard underneath
Her castle-walls, she stole upon my walk,
And calling me the greatest of all knights,
Embraced me, and so kiss’d me the first time,
And gave herself and all her wealth to me.
Then I remember’d 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 wail’d and wept, and hated mine own self,
And even the holy quest, and all but her;
Then after I was join’d 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 earthly-wise,
Seeing I never stray’d 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 spurr’d, and hail’d him, and he me,
And each made joy of either. Then he ask’d:
‘Where is he? hast thou seen him—Lancelot?—Once,’
Said good Sir Bors, ‘he dash’d 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 vanish’d.’
“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 return’d;
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 Cup 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 scoff’d at him
And this high quest as at a simple thing,
Told him he follow’d—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 warm’d?’
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 thro’ 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 thro’ the gap
Glimmer’d the streaming scud. Then came a night
Still as the day was loud, and thro’ the gap
The seven clear stars of Arthur’s Table Round—
For, brother, so one night because they roll
Thro’ 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 pray’d or ask’d it for myself—
Across the seven clear stars—O grace to me!—
In color like the fingers of a hand
Before a burning taper, the sweet Grail
Glided and past, and close upon it peal’d
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 outdoor 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 reach’d
The city, found ye all your knights return’d,
Or was there sooth in Arthur’s prophecy,
Tell me, and what said each, and what the King?”
Then answer’d 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 reach’d
The city, our horses stumbling as they trode
On heaps of ruin, hornless unicorns,
Crack’d basilisks, and splinter’d cockatrices,
And shatter’d 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 bade me hail,
Saying: ‘A welfare in thine eyes 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-wrench’d 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, ask’d
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 a-wearied 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 turn’d to whom at first
He saw not, for Sir Bors, on entering, push’d
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 remain’d 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,’ ask’d the King, ‘my friend,
Our mightiest, hath this quest avail’d for thee?’
“ ‘Our mightiest!’ answer’d 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 pluck’d 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 pluck’d asunder. Then I spake
To one most holy saint, who wept and said
That, save they could be pluck’d asunder, all
My quest were but in vain; to whom I vow’d
That I would work according as he will’d.
And forth I went, and while I yearn’d 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 along the shore and sea,
Ye could not hear the waters for the blast,
Tho’ 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 sway’d a boat,
Half-swallow’d in it, anchor’d 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.
Idylls of the King and a New Selection of Poems Page 25