'Sister or brother none had he;but some Called him a son of Lancelot,and some said Begotten by enchantment--chatterers they,Like birds of passage piping up and down,That gape for flies--we know not whence they come;For when was Lancelot wanderingly lewd?
'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 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,I,maiden,round thee,maiden,bind my belt.
Go forth,for thou shalt see what I have seen,And break through all,till one will crown thee king Far in the spiritual city:"and as she spake She sent the deathless passion in her eyes Through 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,Fashioned by Merlin ere he past away,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 called it "The Siege perilous,"
Perilous for good and ill;"for there,"he said,"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!"'Then on a summer night it came to pass,While the great banquet lay along the hall,That Galahad would sit down in Merlin's chair.
'And all at once,as there we sat,we heard A cracking and a riving of the roofs,And rending,and a blast,and overhead Thunder,and in the thunder was a cry.
And in the blast there smote along the hall A beam of light seven times more clear than day:
And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail All over covered with a luminous cloud.
And none might see who bare it,and it past.
But every knight beheld his fellow's face As in a glory,and all the knights arose,And staring each at other like dumb men Stood,till I found a voice and sware a vow.
'I sware a vow before them all,that I,Because I had not seen the Grail,would ride A twelvemonth and a day in quest of it,Until I found and saw it,as the nun My sister saw it;and Galahad sware the vow,And good Sir Bors,our Lancelot's cousin,sware,And Lancelot sware,and many among the knights,And Gawain sware,and louder than the rest.'
Then spake the monk Ambrosius,asking him,'What said the King?Did Arthur take the vow?'
'Nay,for my lord,'said Percivale,'the King,Was not in hall:for early that same day,Scaped through a cavern from a bandit hold,An outraged maiden sprang into the hall Crying on help:for all her shining hair Was smeared with earth,and either milky arm Red-rent with hooks of bramble,and all she wore Torn as a sail that leaves the rope is torn In tempest:so the King arose and went To smoke the scandalous hive of those wild bees That made such honey in his realm.Howbeit Some little of this marvel he too saw,Returning o'er the plain that then began To darken under Camelot;whence the King Looked up,calling aloud,"Lo,there!the roofs Of our great hall are rolled in thunder-smoke!
Pray Heaven,they be not smitten by the bolt."For dear to Arthur was that hall of ours,As having there so oft with all his knights Feasted,and as the stateliest under heaven.
'O brother,had you known our mighty hall,Which Merlin built for Arthur long ago!
For all the sacred mount of Camelot,And all the dim rich city,roof by roof,Tower after tower,spire beyond spire,By grove,and garden-lawn,and rushing brook,Climbs to the mighty hall that Merlin built.
And four great zones of sculpture,set betwixt With many a mystic symbol,gird the hall:
And in the lowest beasts are slaying men,And in the second men are slaying beasts,And on the third are warriors,perfect men,And on the fourth are men with growing wings,And over all one statue in the mould Of Arthur,made by Merlin,with a crown,And peaked wings pointed to the Northern Star.
And eastward fronts the statue,and the crown And both the wings are made of gold,and flame At sunrise till the people in far fields,Wasted so often by the heathen hordes,Behold it,crying,"We have still a King."'And,brother,had you known our hall within,Broader and higher than any in all the lands!
Where twelve great windows blazon Arthur's wars,And all the light that falls upon the board Streams through the twelve great battles of our King.
Nay,one there is,and at the eastern end,Wealthy with wandering lines of mount and mere,Where Arthur finds the brand Excalibur.
And also one to the west,and counter to it,And blank:and who shall blazon it?when and how?--O there,perchance,when all our wars are done,The brand Excalibur will be cast away.
'So to this hall full quickly rode the King,In horror lest the work by Merlin wrought,Dreamlike,should on the sudden vanish,wrapt In unremorseful folds of rolling fire.
And in he rode,and up I glanced,and saw The golden dragon sparkling over all:
