They might be pluck'd asunder. Then I spake To one most holy saint, who wept and said, That save they could be pluck'd asunder, all My quest were but in vain; to whom I vow'd And forth I went, and while I yearn'd and strove 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, Tho' hoapt in mounds and ridges all the sea. Swept like a river, and the clouded heavens Were shaken with the motion and the sound. And blackening in the sea-foam sway'd a boat, Half-swallow'd in it, anchor'd with a chain; And in my madness to myself I said, 'I will embark and I will lose myself, And in the great sca 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 carth, 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 lcapt, 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 violenco The sword was dash'd 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 Thro' the tall oriel on the rolling sea. But always in the quict house I heard, Clear as a lark, high o'er mo as a lark, A sweet voice singing in the topmost tower To the eastward: up I climb'd a thousand steps With pain: as in a dream I scem'd to climb For ever at the last I reach'd 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.' O, yet methought I saw the Holy Grail, All pall'd 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 veil'd And cover'd; and this quest was not for me." So speaking, and here ceasing, Lancelot left Now bolden'd by the silence of his King,— Well, I will tell thee: "O king, my liego," he said, "Hath Gawain fail'd in any quest of thine ? I I will be deafer than the blue-eyed cat, And thrice as blind as any noonday owl, |