Beneath a world-old yew-tree, darkening half
The cloisters, on a gustful April morn

That puff'd the swaying branches into smoke
Above them, ere the summer when he died,
The monk Ambrosius question'd 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 thro' 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
Stamp'd 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 offer'd 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?" answer'd 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,
Arimathæan 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 heal'd 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 disappear'd.”

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 to-day?'

"

"A woman," answered Percivale,

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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; tho' never maiden glow'd,
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 adulterous race
Across the iron grating of her cell

Beat, and she pray'd 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 thro' 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

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To me by prayer and fasting?' 'Nay,' said he,
'I know not, for thy heart is pure as snow.'
And so she pray'd and fasted, till the sun

Shone, and the wind blew, thro' 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.