Idylls of the King, Alfred Lord Tennyson [the reading strategies book TXT] 📗

as I have seen it more than once,

When some brave deed seemed to be done in vain,

Darken; and “Woe is me, my knights,” he cried,

“Had I been here, ye had not sworn the vow.”

Bold was mine answer, “Had thyself been here,

My King, thou wouldst have sworn.” “Yea, yea,” said he,

“Art thou so bold and hast not seen the Grail?”

 

‘“Nay, lord, I heard the sound, I saw the light,

But since I did not see the Holy Thing,

I sware a vow to follow it till I saw.”

 

‘Then when he asked us, knight by knight, if any

Had seen it, all their answers were as one:

“Nay, lord, and therefore have we sworn our vows.”

 

‘“Lo now,” said Arthur, “have ye seen a cloud?

What go ye into the wilderness to see?”

 

‘Then Galahad on the sudden, and in a voice

Shrilling along the hall to Arthur, called,

“But I, Sir Arthur, saw the Holy Grail,

I saw the Holy Grail and heard a cry—

‘O Galahad, and O Galahad, follow me.’”

 

‘“Ah, Galahad, Galahad,” said the King, “for such

As thou art is the vision, not for these.

Thy holy nun and thou have seen a sign—

Holier is none, my Percivale, than she—

A sign to maim this Order which I made.

But ye, that follow but the leader’s bell”

(Brother, the King was hard upon his knights)

“Taliessin is our fullest throat of song,

And one hath sung and all the dumb will sing.

Lancelot is Lancelot, and hath overborne

Five knights at once, and every younger knight,

Unproven, holds himself as Lancelot,

Till overborne by one, he learns—and ye,

What are ye? Galahads?—no, nor Percivales”

(For thus it pleased the King to range me close

After Sir Galahad); “nay,” said he, “but men

With strength and will to right the wronged, of power

To lay the sudden heads of violence flat,

Knights that in twelve great battles splashed and dyed

The strong White Horse in his own heathen blood—

But one hath seen, and all the blind will see.

Go, since your vows are sacred, being made:

Yet—for ye know the cries of all my realm

Pass through this hall—how often, O my knights,

Your places being vacant at my side,

This chance of noble deeds will come and go

Unchallenged, while ye follow wandering fires

Lost in the quagmire! Many of you, yea most,

Return no more: ye think I show myself

Too dark a prophet: come now, let us meet

The morrow morn once more in one full field

Of gracious pastime, that once more the King,

Before ye leave him for this Quest, may count

The yet-unbroken strength of all his knights,

Rejoicing in that Order which he made.”

 

‘So when the sun broke next from under ground,

All the great table of our Arthur closed

And clashed in such a tourney and so full,

So many lances broken—never yet

Had Camelot seen the like, since Arthur came;

And I myself and Galahad, for a strength

Was in us from this vision, overthrew

So many knights that all the people cried,

And almost burst the barriers in their heat,

Shouting, “Sir Galahad and Sir Percivale!”

 

‘But when the next day brake from under ground—

O brother, had you known our Camelot,

Built by old kings, age after age, so old

The King himself had fears that it would fall,

So strange, and rich, and dim; for where the roofs

Tottered toward each other in the sky,

Met foreheads all along the street of those

Who watched us pass; and lower, and where the long

Rich galleries, lady-laden, weighed the necks

Of dragons clinging to the crazy walls,

Thicker than drops from thunder, showers of flowers

Fell as we past; and men and boys astride

On wyvern, lion, dragon, griffin, swan,

At all the corners, named us each by name,

Calling, “God speed!” but in the ways below

The knights and ladies wept, and rich and poor

Wept, and the King himself could hardly speak

For grief, and all in middle street the Queen,

Who rode by Lancelot, wailed and shrieked aloud,

“This madness has come on us for our sins.”

So to the Gate of the three Queens we came,

Where Arthur’s wars are rendered mystically,

And thence departed every one his way.

 

‘And I was lifted up in heart, and thought

Of all my late-shown prowess in the lists,

How my strong lance had beaten down the knights,

So many and famous names; and never yet

Had heaven appeared so blue, nor earth so green,

For all my blood danced in me, and I knew

That I should light upon the Holy Grail.

 

‘Thereafter, the dark warning of our King,

That most of us would follow wandering fires,

Came like a driving gloom across my mind.

Then every evil word I had spoken once,

And every evil thought I had thought of old,

And every evil deed I ever did,

Awoke and cried, “This Quest is not for thee.”

And lifting up mine eyes, I found myself

Alone, and in a land of sand and thorns,

And I was thirsty even unto death;

And I, too, cried, “This Quest is not for thee.”

 

‘And on I rode, and when I thought my thirst

Would slay me, saw deep lawns, and then a brook,

With one sharp rapid, where the crisping white

Played ever back upon the sloping wave,

And took both ear and eye; and o’er the brook

Were apple-trees, and apples by the brook

Fallen, and on the lawns. “I will rest here,”

I said, “I am not worthy of the Quest;”

But even while I drank the brook, and ate

The goodly apples, all these things at once

Fell into dust, and I was left alone,

And thirsting, in a land of sand and thorns.

 

‘And then behold a woman at a door

Spinning; and fair the house whereby she sat,

And kind the woman’s eyes and innocent,

And all her bearing gracious; and she rose

Opening her arms to meet me, as who should say,

“Rest here;” but when I touched her, lo! she, too,

Fell into dust and nothing, and the house

Became no better than a broken shed,

And in it a dead babe; and also this

Fell into dust, and I was left alone.

 

‘And on I rode, and greater was my thirst.

Then flashed a yellow gleam across the world,

And where it smote the plowshare in the field,

The plowman left his plowing, and fell down

Before it; where it glittered on her pail,

The milkmaid left her milking, and fell down

Before it, and I knew not why, but thought

“The sun is rising,” though the sun had risen.

Then was I ware of one that on me moved

In golden armour with a crown of gold

About a casque all jewels; and his horse

In golden armour jewelled everywhere:

And on the splendour came, flashing me blind;

And seemed to me the Lord of all the world,

Being so huge. But when I thought he meant

To crush me, moving on me, lo! he, too,

Opened his arms to embrace me as he came,

And up I went and touched him, and he, too,

Fell into dust, and I was left alone

And wearying in a land of sand and thorns.

 

‘And I rode on and found a mighty hill,

And on the top, a city walled: the spires

Pricked with incredible pinnacles into heaven.

And by the gateway stirred a crowd; and these

Cried to me climbing, “Welcome, Percivale!

Thou mightiest and thou purest among men!”

And glad was I and clomb, but found at top

No man, nor any voice. And thence I past

Far through a ruinous city, and I saw

That man had once dwelt there; but there I found

Only one man of an exceeding age.

“Where is that goodly company,” said I,

“That so cried out upon me?” and he had

Scarce any voice to answer, and yet gasped,

“Whence and what art thou?” and even as he spoke

Fell into dust, and disappeared, and I

Was left alone once more, and cried in grief,

“Lo, if I find the Holy Grail itself

And touch it, it will crumble into dust.”

 

‘And thence I dropt into a lowly vale,

Low as the hill was high, and where the vale

Was lowest, found a chapel, and thereby

A holy hermit in a hermitage,

To whom I told my phantoms, and he said:

 

‘“O son, thou hast not true humility,

The highest virtue, mother of them all;

For when the Lord of all things made Himself

Naked of glory for His mortal change,

‘Take thou my robe,’ she said, ‘for all is thine,’

And all her form shone forth with sudden light

So that the angels were amazed, and she

Followed Him down, and like a flying star

Led on the gray-haired wisdom of the east;

But her thou hast not known: for what is this

Thou thoughtest of thy prowess and thy sins?

Thou hast not lost thyself to save thyself

As Galahad.” When the hermit made an end,

In silver armour suddenly Galahad shone

Before us, and against the chapel door

Laid lance, and entered, and we knelt in prayer.

And there the hermit slaked my burning thirst,

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

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, failed from my side, nor come

Covered, but moving with me night and day,

Fainter by day, but always in the night

Blood-red, and sliding down the blackened 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,

Shattering all evil customs everywhere,

And past through Pagan realms, and made them mine,

And clashed with Pagan hordes, and bore them down,

And broke through all, and in the strength of this

Come victor. But my time is hard at hand,

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

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,

Scarred with a hundred wintry water-courses—

Storm at the top, and when we gained it, storm

Round us and death; for every moment glanced

His silver arms and gloomed: 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,

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 whitened with the bones of men,

Not to be crost, save that some ancient king

Had built a way, where, linked 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 vanished, though I yearned

To follow; and thrice above him all the heavens

Opened and blazed with thunder such as seemed

Shoutings of all the sons of God: and first

At once I saw him far on