From noiseful arms,and acts of prowess done In tournament or tilt,Sir Percivale,Whom Arthur and his knighthood called The Pure,Had passed into the silent life of prayer,Praise,fast,and alms;and leaving for the cowl The helmet in an abbey far away From Camelot,there,and not long after,died.
And one,a fellow-monk among the rest,Ambrosius,loved him much beyond the rest,And honoured him,and wrought into his heart A way by love that wakened love within,To answer that which came:and as they sat Beneath a world-old yew-tree,darkening half The cloisters,on a gustful April morn That puffed the swaying branches into smoke Above them,ere the summer when he died The monk Ambrosius questioned Percivale:
'O brother,I have seen this yew-tree smoke,Spring after spring,for half a hundred years:
For never have I known the world without,Nor ever strayed beyond the pale:but thee,When first thou camest--such a courtesy Spake through the limbs and in the voice--I knew For one of those who eat in Arthur's hall;For good ye are and bad,and like to coins,Some true,some light,but every one of you Stamped with the image of the King;and now Tell me,what drove thee from the Table Round,My brother?was it earthly passion crost?'
'Nay,'said the knight;'for no such passion mine.
But the sweet vision of the Holy Grail Drove me from all vainglories,rivalries,And earthly heats that spring and sparkle out Among us in the jousts,while women watch Who wins,who falls;and waste the spiritual strength Within us,better offered up to Heaven.'
To whom the monk:'The Holy Grail!--I trust We are green in Heaven's eyes;but here too much We moulder--as to things without I mean--Yet one of your own knights,a guest of ours,Told us of this in our refectory,But spake with such a sadness and so low We heard not half of what he said.What is it?
The phantom of a cup that comes and goes?'
'Nay,monk!what phantom?'answered Percivale.
'The cup,the cup itself,from which our Lord Drank at the last sad supper with his own.
This,from the blessed land of Aromat--
After the day of darkness,when the dead Went wandering o'er Moriah--the good saint Arimathaean Joseph,journeying brought To Glastonbury,where the winter thorn Blossoms at Christmas,mindful of our Lord.
And there awhile it bode;and if a man Could touch or see it,he was healed at once,By faith,of all his ills.But then the times Grew to such evil that the holy cup Was caught away to Heaven,and disappeared.'
To whom the monk:'From our old books I know That Joseph came of old to Glastonbury,And there the heathen Prince,Arviragus,Gave him an isle of marsh whereon to build;And there he built with wattles from the marsh A little lonely church in days of yore,For so they say,these books of ours,but seem Mute of this miracle,far as I have read.
But who first saw the holy thing today?'
'A woman,'answered Percivale,'a nun,And one no further off in blood from me Than sister;and if ever holy maid With knees of adoration wore the stone,A holy maid;though never maiden glowed,But that was in her earlier maidenhood,With such a fervent flame of human love,Which being rudely blunted,glanced and shot Only to holy things;to prayer and praise She gave herself,to fast and alms.And yet,Nun as she was,the scandal of the Court,Sin against Arthur and the Table Round,And the strange sound of an *****erous race,Across the iron grating of her cell Beat,and she prayed and fasted all the more.
'And he to whom she told her sins,or what Her all but utter whiteness held for sin,A man wellnigh a hundred winters old,Spake often with her of the Holy Grail,A legend handed down through five or six,And each of these a hundred winters old,From our Lord's time.And when King Arthur made His Table Round,and all men's hearts became Clean for a season,surely he had thought That now the Holy Grail would come again;But sin broke out.Ah,Christ,that it would come,And heal the world of all their wickedness!
"O Father!"asked the maiden,"might it come To me by prayer and fasting?""Nay,"said he,"I know not,for thy heart is pure as snow."And so she prayed and fasted,till the sun Shone,and the wind blew,through her,and I thought She might have risen and floated when I saw her.
'For on a day she sent to speak with me.
And when she came to speak,behold her eyes Beyond my knowing of them,beautiful,Beyond all knowing of them,wonderful,Beautiful in the light of holiness.
And "O my brother Percivale,"she said,"Sweet brother,I have seen the Holy Grail:
For,waked at dead of night,I heard a sound As of a silver horn from o'er the hills Blown,and I thought,'It is not Arthur's use To hunt by moonlight;'and the slender sound As from a distance beyond distance grew Coming upon me--O never harp nor horn,Nor aught we blow with breath,or touch with hand,Was like that music as it came;and then Streamed through my cell a cold and silver beam,And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail,Rose-red with beatings in it,as if alive,Till all the white walls of my cell were dyed With rosy colours leaping on the wall;And then the music faded,and the Grail Past,and the beam decayed,and from the walls The rosy quiverings died into the night.
So now the Holy Thing is here again Among us,brother,fast thou too and pray,And tell thy brother knights to fast and pray,That so perchance the vision may be seen By thee and those,and all the world be healed."'Then leaving the pale nun,I spake of this To all men;and myself fasted and prayed Always,and many among us many a week Fasted and prayed even to the uttermost,Expectant of the wonder that would be.
'And one there was among us,ever moved Among us in white armour,Galahad.
"God make thee good as thou art beautiful,"
Said Arthur,when he dubbed him knight;and none,In so young youth,was ever made a knight Till Galahad;and this Galahad,when he heard My sister's vision,filled me with amaze;His eyes became so like her own,they seemed Hers,and himself her brother more than I.
