Part 21 (1/2)

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 Pa.s.s 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 c.o.c.katrices, 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 t.i.the 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 Glas...o...b..ry?”

'So when I told him all thyself hast heard, Ambrosius, and my fresh but fixt resolve To pa.s.s 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, n.o.ble, 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 sh.o.r.e, Wide flats, where nothing but coa.r.s.e gra.s.ses grew; But such a blast, my King, began to blow, So loud a blast along the sh.o.r.e 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, anch.o.r.ed 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 s.h.i.+ngle 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 s.h.i.+eld 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 That which I saw; but what I saw was veiled And covered; and this Quest was not for me.”

'So speaking, and here ceasing, Lancelot left The hall long silent, till Sir Gawain--nay, Brother, I need not tell thee foolish words,-- A reckless and irreverent knight was he, Now boldened by the silence of his King,-- Well, I will tell thee: ”O King, my liege,” he said, ”Hath Gawain failed in any quest of thine?

When have I stinted stroke in foughten field?

But as for thine, my good friend Percivale, Thy holy nun and thou have driven men mad, Yea, made our mightiest madder than our least.

But by mine eyes and by mine ears I swear, I will be deafer than the blue-eyed cat, And thrice as blind as any noonday owl, To holy virgins in their ecstasies, Henceforward.”

'”Deafer,” said the blameless King, ”Gawain, and blinder unto holy things Hope not to make thyself by idle vows, Being too blind to have desire to see.

But if indeed there came a sign from heaven, Blessed are Bors, Lancelot and Percivale, For these have seen according to their sight.

For every fiery prophet in old times, And all the sacred madness of the bard, When G.o.d made music through them, could but speak His music by the framework and the chord; And as ye saw it ye have spoken truth.

'”Nay--but thou errest, Lancelot: never yet Could all of true and n.o.ble in knight and man Twine round one sin, whatever it might be, With such a closeness, but apart there grew, Save that he were the swine thou spakest of, Some root of knighthood and pure n.o.bleness; Whereto see thou, that it may bear its flower.

'”And spake I not too truly, O my knights?

Was I too dark a prophet when I said To those who went upon the Holy Quest, That most of them would follow wandering fires, Lost in the quagmire?--lost to me and gone, And left me gazing at a barren board, And a lean Order--scarce returned a t.i.the-- And out of those to whom the vision came My greatest hardly will believe he saw; Another hath beheld it afar off, And leaving human wrongs to right themselves, Cares but to pa.s.s into the silent life.

And one hath had the vision face to face, And now his chair desires him here in vain, However they may crown him otherwhere.

'”And some among you held, that if the King Had seen the sight he would have sworn the vow: Not easily, seeing that the King must guard That which he rules, and is but as the hind To whom a s.p.a.ce of land is given to plow.

Who may not wander from the allotted field Before his work be done; but, being done, Let visions of the night or of the day Come, as they will; and many a time they come, Until this earth he walks on seems not earth, This light that strikes his eyeball is not light, This air that smites his forehead is not air But vision--yea, his very hand and foot-- In moments when he feels he cannot die, And knows himself no vision to himself, Nor the high G.o.d a vision, nor that One Who rose again: ye have seen what ye have seen.”

'So spake the King: I knew not all he meant.'