I
BUT she, the wan sweet maiden, shore away | |
| Clean from her forehead all that wealth of hair | |
| Which made a silken mat-work for her feet; | |
| And out of this she plaited broad and long | |
| A strong sword-belt, and wove with silver thread | 5 |
| And crimson in the belt a strange device, | |
| A crimson grail within a silver beam; | |
| And saw the bright boy-knight, and bound it on him, | |
| Saying, ‘My knight, my love, my knight of heaven, | |
| O thou, my love, whose love is one with mine, | 10 |
| I, maiden, round thee, maiden, bind my belt. | |
| Go forth, for thou shalt see what I have seen, | |
| And break thro’ all, till one will crown thee king | |
| Far in the spiritual city:’ and as she spake | |
| She sent the deathless passion in her eyes | 15 |
| Thro’ him, and made him hers, and laid her mind | |
| On him, and he believed in her belief. | |
| |
| Then came a year of miracle: O brother, | |
| In our great hall there stood a vacant chair, | |
| Fashion’d by Merlin ere he past away, | 20 |
| And carven with strange figures; and in and out | |
| The figures, like a serpent, ran a scroll | |
| Of letters in a tongue no man could read. | |
| And Merlin call’d it ‘The Siege perilous,’ | |
| Perilous for good and ill; ‘for there,’ he said, | 25 |
| ‘No man could sit but he should lose himself:’ | |
| And once by misadvertence Merlin sat | |
| In his own chair, and so was lost; but he, | |
| Galahad, when he heard of Merlin’s doom, | |
| Cried, ‘If I lose myself, I save myself!’ | 30 |
| |
II
…When the hermit made an end, | |
| In silver armour suddenly Galahad shone | |
| Before us, and against the chapel door | |
| Laid lance, and enter’d, and we knelt in prayer. | |
| And there the hermit slaked my burning thirst, | 35 |
| And at the sacring of the mass I saw | |
| The holy elements alone; but he: | |
| ‘Saw ye no more? I, Galahad, saw the Grail, | |
| The Holy Grail, descend upon the shrine: | |
| I saw the fiery face as of a child | 40 |
| That smote itself into the bread, and went; | |
| And hither am I come; and never yet | |
| Hath what thy sister taught me first to see, | |
| This Holy Thing, fail’d from my side, nor come | |
| Cover’d, but moving with me night and day, | 45 |
| Fainter by day, but always in the night | |
| Blood-red, and sliding down the blacken’d marsh | |
| Blood-red, and on the naked mountain top | |
| Blood-red, and in the sleeping mere below | |
| Blood-red. And in the strength of this I rode, | 50 |
| 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, | 55 |
| 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 | 60 |
| 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 | 65 |
| 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, | 70 |
| 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 | 75 |
| 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 | 80 |
| 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 armour starry-clear; | 85 |
| 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 | 90 |
| 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, | 95 |
| 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 | 100 |
| 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, | 105 |
| Which never eyes on earth again shall see. | |
