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 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,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,anchored 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 shingle 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 shield 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 God 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 noble 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 nobleness;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 tithe--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 pass 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 space 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 God 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.'
