That so perchance the vision may be seen

By thee and those, and all the world be heal'd."

'Then leaving the pale nun, I spake of this To all men ; and myself fasted and pray'd Always, and many among us many a week Fasted and pray'd 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 dubb'd 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, fill'd me with amaze;

His eyes became so like her own, they seem'd

Hers, and himself her brother more than I.

'Sister or brother none had he; but some

Call'd him a son of Lancelot, and some said
Begotten by enchantment-chatterers they,

Like birds of passage piping up and down,
That gape for flies we know not whence they come ;
For when was Lancelot wanderingly lewd?

'But she, the wan sweet maiden shore away Clean from her forehead all that wealth of hair Which made a silken mat-work for her feet;

And out of this she plaited broad and long

A strong sword-belt, and wove with silver thread
And crimson in the belt a strange device,

A crimson grail within a silver beam;

And saw the bright boy-knight, and bound it on him, Saying, 'My knight, my love, my knight of heaven,

O thou, my love, whose love is one with mine,

I, maiden, round thee, maiden, bind my belt.

Go forth, for thou shalt see what I have seen,

And break thro' all, till one will crown thee king

Far in the spiritual city:' and as she spake

She sent the deathless passion in her eyes

Thro' him, and made him hers, and laid her mind On him, and he believed in her belief.

'Then came a year of miracle: O brother,

In our great hall there stood a vacant chair,

Fashion'd by Merlin ere he past away,

And carven with strange figures; and in and out

The figures, like a serpent, ran a scroll

Of letters in a tongue no man could read.

And Merlin call'd it "The Siege perilous,"
Perilous for good and ill; "for there," he said,

"No man could sit but he should lose himself:

And once by misadvertence Merlin sat

In his own chair, and so was lost; but he,

Galahad, when he heard of Merlin's doom,

Cried, "If I lose myself I save myself!"

'Then on a summer night it came to pass,

While the great banquet lay along the hall,

That Galahad would sit down in Merlin's chair.

'And all at once, as there we sat, we heard

A cracking and a riving of the roofs,

And rending, and a blast, and overhead

Thunder, and in the thunder was a cry.

And in the blast there smote along the hall

A beam of light seven times more clear than day :

And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail

All over cover'd with a luminous cloud,

And none might see who bare it, and it past.

But every knight beheld his fellow's face

As in a glory, and all the knights arose,

And staring each at other like dumb men
Stood, till I found a voice and sware a vow.

'I sware a vow before them all, that I, Because I had not seen the Grail, would ride A twelvemonth and a day in quest of it,

Until I found and saw it, as the nun

My sister saw it; and Galahad sware the vow,
And good Sir Bors, our Lancelot's cousin, sware,
And Lancelot sware, and many among the knights,
And Gawain sware, and louder than the rest.'

Then spake the monk Ambrosius, asking him,

'What said the King? Did Arthur take the vow?'

'Nay, for my lord,' said Percivale, 'the King,

Was not in hall: for early that same day,

Scaped thro' a cavern from a bandit hold,