Classic Poem

"The land is lonely now: Anathema:
The link that bound it to the silent grasp
Of thrilling worlds is gathered up and gone:
The glory is departed; and the disk
So full of radiance from the touch of God!
This orb is darkened to the distant watch
Of Saturn and his reapers, when they pause,
Amid their sheaves, to count the nightly stars.

"All gone! but not for ever: on a day
There shall arise a king from Keltic loins,
Of mystic birth and name, tender and true;
His vassals shall be noble, to a man:
Knights strong in battle till the war is won:
Then while the land is hushed on Tamar side,
So that the warder upon Carradon
Shall hear at once the river and the sea--
That king shall call a Quest: a kindling cry:
"Ho! for the Sangraal! vanished vase of God!"

"Yea! and it shall be won! a chosen knight,
The ninth from Joseph in the line of blood,
Clean as a maid from guile and fleshly sin--
He with the shield of Sarras; and the lance,
Ruddy and moistened with a freshening stain,
As from a severed wound of yesterday--
He shall achieve the Graal: he alone!

"Thus wrote Bard Merlin on the Runic hide
Of a slain deer: rolled in an aumry chest.

"And now, fair Sirs, your voices: who will gird
His belt for travel in the perilous ways?
This thing must be fulfilled:--in vain our land
Of noble name, high deed, and famous men;
Vain the proud homage of our thrall, the sea,
If we be shorn of God:--ah! loathsome shame!
To hurl in battle for the pride of arms:
To ride in native tournay, foreign war:
To count the stars; to ponder pictured runes:--
And grasp great knowledge, as the demons do--
If we be shorn of God:--we must assay
The myth and meaning of this marvellous bowl:
It shall be sought and found:--'
Thus said the King.

Then rose a storm of voices; like the sea,
When Ocean, bounding, shouts with all his waves!
High-hearted men: the purpose and the theme,
Smote the fine chord that thrills the warrior's soul
With touch and impulse for a deed of fame.
Then spake Sir Gauvain, counsellor of the King--
A man of Pentecost for words that burn:--

"Sirs! we are soldiers of the rock and ring:
Our table-round is earth's most honoured stone;
Thereon two worlds of life and glory blend!
The boss upon the shield of many a land:
The midway link with light beyond the stars!

This is our fount of fame! let us arise,
And cleave the earth like rivers: like the streams
That win from Paradise their immortal name:
To the four winds of God! casting the lot.

"So shall we share the regions! and unfold
The shrouded mystery of those fields of air.

"Eastward! the source and spring of life and light!
Thence came, and thither went, the rush of worlds,
When the great cone of space was sown with stars!
There rolled the gateway of the double dawn,
When the mere God shone down a breathing man
There, up from Bethany, the Syrian Twelve
Watched their dear Master darken into day!
Thence, too, will gleam the Cross, the arisen wood:
Ah, shuddering sign one day of terrible doom!
Therefore the Orient is the home of God.

"The West! a Galilee: the shore of men!
The symbol and the scene of populous life:
Full Japhet journeyed thither, Noe's son,
The prophecy of increase in his loins.
Westward Lord Jesu looked His latest love,--
His yearning Cross along the peopled sea,
The innumberable nations in His soul:
Thus came that type and token of our kind,
The realm and region of the set of sun,
The wide, wide West: the imaged zone of man.

"The North! the lair of demons, where they coil,
And bound, and glide, and travel to and fro:
Their gulph, the underworld, this hollow orb,
Where vaulted columns curve beneath the hills
And shoulder us on their arches: there they throng;
The portal of their pit, the polar gate;
Their fiery dungeon mocked with northern snow:
Their doom and demon haunt a native land,
Where dreamy thunder mutters in the cloud,
Storm broods, and battle breathes, and baleful fires
Shed a fierce horror o'er the shuddering North!

"But thou! O South Wind, breathe thy fragrant sigh:
We follow on thy perfume, breath of heaven!
Myriads, in girded albs, for ever young,
Their stately semblance of embodied air,
Troop round the footstool of the Southern Cross--
That pentacle of stars: the very sign
That led the Wise Men towards the Awful Child,
Then came and stood to rule the peaceful sea!
So, too, Lord Jesu from His mighty tomb
Cast the dear shadow of His red right hand,
To soothe the happy South: the Angels' home!

"Then let us search the regions! one by one,
And pluck this Sangraal from its cloudy cave!'
So Merlin brought the arrows: graven lots,
Shrouded from sight within a quivered sheath,
For choice and guidance in the perilous path,
That so the travellers might divide the lands.
They met at Lauds, in good Saint Nectan's cell,
For fast, and vigil, and their knightly vow:
Then knelt, and prayed, and all received their God.

"Now for the silvery arrows, grasp and hold!'

Sir Lancelot drew the North: that fell domain,
Where fleshly man must brook the airy fiend--
His battle-foe, the demon: ghastly war!
Ho! stout Saint Michael shield them, knight and knave!

The South fell softly to Sir Perceval's hand:
Some shadowy Angel breathed a silent sign:
That so that blameless man, that courteous knight,
Might mount and mingle with the happy host
Of God's white army in their native land!
Yea, they shall woo and soothe him, like the dove.
But hark! the greeting!--"Tristan for the West!'

Among the multitudes, his watchful way:
The billowy hordes beside the seething sea;
But will the glory gleam in loathsome lands?
Will the lost pearl shine out among the swine?
Woe, father Adam, to thy loins and thee.
Sir Galahad holds the Orient arrow's name:
His chosen hand unbars the gate of day!
There glows that heart, filled with his mother's blood,
That rules in every pulse, the world of man;
Link of the awful Three, with many a star.
O! blessèd East! 'mid visions such as thine,
'Twere well to grasp the Sangraal, and die.

Now feast and festival in Arthur's hall:
Hark! stern Dundagel softens into song!
They meet for solemn severance, knight and king:
Where gate and bulwark darken o'er the sea.

A molten rainbow, bent; that arch in heaven,
Which leads straightway to Paradise and God;
Beneath, came up a gloved and sigilled hand,
Amid this cunning needlework of words,
When toil and tears have worn the westering day,
Behold the smile of fame! so brief: so bright.

A vast Archangel floods Sir Galahad's shield:
Mid-breast, and lifted high, an Orient cruse,
Full filled, and running o'er with numynous light,
As though it held and shed the visible God;
Then shone this utterance as in graven fire,
I thirst! Of Jesu! let me drink and die!

So forth they fare, King Arthur and his men;
Like stout quaternions of the Maccabee:
They halt, and form at craggy Carradon;
Fit scene for haughty hope and stern farewell.
Lo! the rude altar; and the rough-hewn rock:
The grim and ghastly semblance of the fiend:
His haunt and coil within that pillared home.
Hark, the wild echo! did the demon breathe,
That yell of vengeance from the conscious stone?

There the brown barrow curves its sullen breast,
Above the bones of some dead Gentile's soul:
All hushed--and calm--and cold--until anon
Gleams the old dawn--the well-remembered day--
Then may you hear, beneath that hollow cairn,
The clash of arms: the muffled shout of war;
Blent with the rustle of the kindling dead!
They stand--and hush their hearts to hear the King.

Then said he, like a prince of Tamar-land,
Around his soul, Dundagel and the sea--

"Ha! Sirs--ye seek a noble crest to-day,
To win and wear the starry Sangraal,
The link that binds to God a lonely land.
Would that my arm went with you, like my heart!
But the true shepherd must not shun the fold:
For in this flock are crouching grievous wolves,
And chief among them all, my own false kin.
Therefore I tarry by the cruel sea:
To hear at eve the treacherous mermaid's song--
And watch the wallowing monsters of the wave,--
"Mid all things fierce, and wild, and strange, alone!

Strong men for meat, and warriors at the wine:
They wreak the wrath of hunger on the beeves,--
They rend rich morsels from the savoury deer,--
And quench the flagon like Brun-guillie dew!
Hear! how the minstrels prophesy in sound.
Shout the King's Waes-hael, and Drink-hael the Queen!

Then said Sir Kay, he of the arrowy tongue,
"Joseph and Pharaoh! how they build their bones!
Happier the boar were quick than dead to-day!'

The Queen! the Queen! how haughty on the dais!
The sunset tangled in her golden hair:
A dove amid the eagles: Gwennivar!
Aishah! what might is in that glorious eye!
See their tamed lion from Brocelian's glade,
Couched on the granite like a captive king:
A word--a gesture--or a mute caress--
How fiercely fond he droops his billowy mane,
And wooes, with tawny lip, his lady's hand!

The dawn is deep: the mountains yearn for day!
The hooting cairn is hushed: that fiendish noise,
Yelled from the utterance of the rending rock,
When the fierce dog of Cain barks from the moon.

The bird of judgment chants the doom of night:
The billows laugh a welcome to the day,
And Camlan ripples, seaward, with a smile.

"Down with the eastern bridge! the warriors ride,
And thou, Sir Herald, blazon as they pass!'
Foremost sad Lancelot, throned upon his steed,
His yellow banner, northward, lapping light:
The crest, a lily, with a broken stem,
The legend, Stately once and ever fair;
It hath a meaning, seek it not, O King!

A quaint embroidery Sir Perceval wore;
A turbaned Syrian, underneath a palm,
Wrestled for mastery with a stately foe,
Robed in a Levite's raiment, white as wool:
His touch o'erwhelmed the Hebrew, and his word,
Whoso is strong with God shall conquer man,
Coiled in rich tracery round the knightly shield.
Did Ysolt's delicate fingers weave the web,
That gleamed in silken radiance o'er her lord?

"But now, let hearts be high: the Archangel held
A tournay with the fiend on Abarim,
And good Saint Michael won his dragon-crest!

"Be this our cry! the battle is for God!
If bevies of foul fiends withstand your path--
Nay, if strong Angels hold the watch and ward,
Plunge in their midst, and shout, "a Sangraal!" '

He ceased; the warriors bent a knightly knee,
And touched with kiss and sign, Excalibur;
Then turned, and mounted for their perilous way!

That night Dundagel shuddered into storm--
The deep foundations shook beneath the sea:
Yet there they stood, beneath the murky moon,
Above the bastion, Merlin and the King.
Thrice waved the sage his staff, and thrice they saw
A peopled vision throng the rocky moor!

First fell a gloom, thick as a thousand nights--
A pall that hid whole armies; and beneath
Stormed the wild tide of war; until on high
Gleamed red the dragon, and the Keltic glaive
Smote the loose battle of the roving Dane!
Then yelled a fiercer fight: for brother blood
Rushed mingling; and twin dragons fought the field!

The grisly shadows of his faithful knights
Perplexed their lord: and in their midst, behold!
His own stern semblance waved a phantom-brand,
Drooped, and went down the war:--then cried the King,
"Ho! Arthur to the rescue!' and half drew
Excalibur--but sank, and fell entranced!

A touch aroused the monarch: and there stood
He, of the billowy beard and Awful eye,
The ashes of whole ages on his brow,
Merlin the bard: son of a demon-sire!
High, like Ben Amram at the thirsty rock,
He raised his prophet staff: that runic rod,
The stem of Igdrasil--the crutch of Raun--
And wrote strange words along the conscious air.

Forth gleamed the east, and yet it was not day:
A white and glowing horse outrode the dawn;
A youthful rider ruled the bounding rein,
And he, in semblance of Sir Galahad shone:
"Ay! all beside can win companionship:
The churl may clip his mate beneath the thatch,
While his brown urchins nestle at his knees:
The soldier give and grasp a mutual palm,
Knit to his flesh in sinewy bonds of war:
The knight may seek at eve his castle-gate,
Mount the old stair, and lift the accustomed latch,
To find, for throbbing brow and weary limb,
That paradise of pillows, one true breast:
But he, the lofty ruler of the land,
Like yonder Tor, first greeted by the dawn,
And wooed the latest by the lingering day,
With happy homes and hearths beneath his breast,
Must soar and gleam in solitary snow!
The lonely one is, evermore, the King.
So now farewell, my lieges, fare ye well,
And God's sweet Mother be your benison!
Since by grey Merlin's gloss, this wondrous cup
Is, like the golden vase in Aaron's ark,
A fount of manha for a yearning world,
As full as it can hold of God and heaven:
Search the four winds until the balsam breathe,
Then grasp, and fold it in your very soul!

"I have no son, no daughter of my loins,
To breathe, 'mid future men, their father's name:
My blood will perish when these veins are dry.
Yet am I fain some deeds of mine should live--
I would not be forgotten in this land:
I yearn that men I know not, men unborn,
Should find, amid these fields, King Arthur's fame!
Here let them say, by proud Dundagel's walls--
They brought the Sangraal back by his command,
They touched these rugged rocks with hues of God:
So shall my name have worship, and my land!

"Ah! native Cornwall! throned upon the hills:
Thy moorland pathways worn by Angel feet,
Thy streams that march in music to the sea
'Mid Ocean's merry noise, hi billowy laugh!
Ah me! a gloom falls heavy on my soul--
The birds that sung to me in youth are dead;
I think, in dreamy vigils of the night,
It may be God is angry with my land--
Too much athirst for fame: too fond of blood;
And all for earth, for shadows, and the dream
To glean an echo from the winds of song!

A vase he held on high; one molten gem,
Like massive ruby or the chrysolite:
Thence gushed the light in flakes; and flowing, fell
As though the pavement of the sky brake up,
And stars were shed to sojourn on the hills,
From grey Morwenna's stone to Michael's tor,
Until the rocky land was like a heaven.

Then saw they that the mighty quest was won:
The Sangraal swooned along the golden air:
The sea breathed balsam, like Gennesaret:
The streams were touched with supernatural light:
And fonts of Saxon rock, stood, full of God!
Altars arose, each like a kingly throne,
Where the royal chalice, with its lineal blood,
The glory of the presence, ruled and reigned.
This lasted long: until the white horse fled,
The fierce fangs of the libbard in his loins:
Whole ages glided in that blink of time,
While Merlin and the King, looked, wondering, on.

But see! once more the wizard-wand arise,
To cleave the air with signals, and a scene.

Troops of the demon-north, in yellow garb,
The sickly hue of vile Iscariot's hair,
Mingle with men, in unseen multitudes!
Unscared, they throng the valley and the hill;
That which held God was gone: Maran-atha:
The Awful shadows of the Sangraal, fled!
Yet giant-men arose, that seemed as gods--
Such might they gathered from the swarthy kind:
The myths were rendered up: and one by one,
The fire--the light--the air--were tamed and bound
Like votive vassals at their chariot-wheel!

The shrines were darkened and the chalice void:
Then learnt they war: yet not that noble wrath,
That brings the generous champion face to face
With equal shield, and with a measured brand,
To peril life for life, and do or die!
But the false valour of the lurking fiend--
To hurl a distant death from some deep den:
To wing with flame the metal of the mine:
And so they rend God's image, reck not who!

"Ah! haughty England! lady of the wave:'
Thus said pale Merlin to the listening King:
"What is thy glory in the world of stars?
To scorch and slay: to win demoniac fame,
In arts and arms; and then to flash and die!
Thou art the diamond of the demon-crown,
Smitten by Michael upon Abarim,
That fell; and glared, an island of the sea!
Ah! native England! wake thine ancient cry;
Ho! for the Sangraal! vanished vase of heaven,
That held, like Christ's own heart, an hin of blood!'