 | Launcelot and Guenevere |  |
40
THIRD MOVEMENT.
The Chapel of the Graal. A Gothic hall of alabaster. In the middle, at back, steps lead up as to an altar; but in the stead of one are massive golden doors, bolted heavily. On the sides, the usual choir-stalls, in which the Choristers stand, singing their office. The aisle between is spacious, and in it, on the left, on a couch covered with white leopard skins, King Evelac, a man old beyond belief, with long white hair and beard, clad in white garments and crowned with a silver crown inwrought with diamonds, reclines as if sick and worn with long dolors. On the right, further back, Percival lies asleep, in the same posture as when the might of the sleep came upon him. His head and arm rest upon a couch covered with white leopard skins, and at his head Nimue stands, erect and clad in her electric mantle. Beside them Taliesin sits, with his harp. A blue light burns in the sanctuary-lamp.Neither King Evelac nor the Choristers pay any heed to the presence of the others; nor does the King at any time rise or change his posture.
41
Hidden in the hills of the soul,
The dusk of us calls to thee—
The lone of us cries to thee!
Silent in the far of the soul,
The desire of thee wakes to the dark.
The dusk of us calls to thee—
The lone of us cries to thee!
Silent in the far of the soul,
The desire of thee wakes to the dark.
Who is he that comes like the day
To reveal thou art nigh to us—
To assure thou art touching us?
Nay, for thou art gone with the day,
Who wert nearer than touch in the dark.
To reveal thou art nigh to us—
To assure thou art touching us?
Nay, for thou art gone with the day,
Who wert nearer than touch in the dark.
Utter thy desire, O my soul,
In the still of the midnight—
In the death of the midnight!
Then shall there be signs for the soul
And the whispers of God through the dark.
In the still of the midnight—
In the death of the midnight!
Then shall there be signs for the soul
And the whispers of God through the dark.
King Evelac.
As a stir in the air, when the aspens alone are aware—
Choristers.
We have heard thee, Beloved.
King Evelac.
As a voice in a dream, as an echo of voice in a dream—
Choristers.
We have heard thee, Beloved.
King Evelac.
As the birth of a rose, as the noise of an opening rose—
Choristers.
We have heard thee, Beloved.
King Evelac.
As the song of the spheres, as the cry of the lapse of the years—
42
We have heard thee, Beloved.
King Evelac.
As a cloud in the sky, that dissolves ere it catches the eye—
Choristers.
We have seen thee, Beloved.
King Evelac.
As the light in a face, that a moment sufficed to efface—
Choristers.
We have seen thee, Beloved.
King Evelac.
As the breath of the moon in the lull of a midnight in June—
Choristers.
We have seen thee, Beloved.
King Evelac.
As the vision supreme, when the prayer dies away in the dream—
Choristers.
We have seen thee, Beloved.
King Evelac.
As the fingers that pass in the stir of the wind in the grass—
Choristers.
We have touched thee, Beloved.
King Evelac.
As a bird feels the air in its wings, to caress and upbear—
Choristers.
We have touched thee, Beloved.
King Evelac.
As the breath of a lover is warm on the cheek of his love—
Choristers.
We have touched thee, Beloved.
King Evelac.
As the feel of the night and its spaces, about and above—
Choristers.
We have touched thee, Beloved.
King Evelac.
By the cry of the heart in the darkness, to know where thou art—
Choristers.
We beseech thee to hear us.
43
By the grace thou hast shown, by the tokens and touch we have known—
Choristers.
We beseech thee to hear us.
King Evelac.
By the vigil thou keepest about us, awake and asleep—
Choristers.
We beseech thee to hear us.
King Evelac.
By thy coming at night, by the voice and the kiss and the light—
Choristers.
We beseech thee to hear us. ...
King Evelac.
Listen to the fearfulness of our love.
Choristers.
And forgive us the unloveliness that we have wrought. ...
King Evelac.
Alas, the memory of our trespass clings
Bat-like and sucks the courage of our hearts.
Alas, the knowledge of our faithlessness
Clings like an ivy to our crumbled pride.
Choristers.
Forgive us, Beloved.
King Evelac.
Nathless, thou hast not wholly cast us off.
Nathless, we are the wardens of the light
We may not see, the love we dare not touch.
Oh, may the time be shortened that we watch!
Choristers.
Forgive us, Beloved. ...
King Evelac.
Therefore we have shaken off fear from our feet and shame from our eyelids.
Choristers.
And our song is a song of love, and our voice is a voice of rejoicing. ...
44
As a poet abashed at the heights on him flashed from above—
Choristers.
We adore thee, O Lord.
King Evelac.
As a dog lifts his pitiful eyes to his master for love—
Choristers.
We adore thee, O Lord.
King Evelac.
As a child's heart breaks in the dark for its mother with love—
Choristers.
We adore thee, O Lord.
King Evelac.
As a maiden's soul is a moonlit marsh with love—
Choristers.
We adore thee, O Lord.
King Evelac.
O secret, O sweet, O piercing Lord of the soul! ...
Choristers.
Lover in the silent night
Who comest like still peaks
Under the lonely stars
Into the soul's retreats!
O lover like unto the light
Of a dawn seen under the sea!
As a leaf that the loam debars,
Our desire is unto thee.
Who comest like still peaks
Under the lonely stars
Into the soul's retreats!
O lover like unto the light
Of a dawn seen under the sea!
As a leaf that the loam debars,
Our desire is unto thee.
As sea-floors trampled with wind,
We are under thy feet;
And the light of thy coming is dimmed
With the daze of its sweet;
We are spread as a plain for thy couch,
And the grasses are deep;
Kiss us with the kisses of thy mouth,
Which are sweeter than sleep.
We are under thy feet;
And the light of thy coming is dimmed
With the daze of its sweet;
45
And the grasses are deep;
Kiss us with the kisses of thy mouth,
Which are sweeter than sleep.
Lord of the lone heights
Where the soul has fear!
Lord of the secret nights
Of the starlit mere!
We are the waves that hush
For the light to be.
Dawn o'er us, ravish us,
Prone unto thee. ...
Where the soul has fear!
Lord of the secret nights
Of the starlit mere!
We are the waves that hush
For the light to be.
Dawn o'er us, ravish us,
Prone unto thee. ...
[A long pause, in which the Choristers remain with their faces raised in silent adoration. Then, rising, they leave the stalls silently and, meeting in the centre, before the golden doors, kneel two by two; turning, they come down the spacious aisle and, pausing two by two to bow before the ancient King, go out in silence by a little door on the right. During the singing of the office, Percival has awaked.
Percival.
There is a quiet thrill along the air,
As if God laid his hand upon the place.
How came we hither? Whither have we come?
Taliesin.
We came through many lands, across a sea,
And into a white summer. When I first
46
Woke in my soul, and lands of ice and snow.
But from the fields a breath of lilied June
Blessed me upon the eyelids with a kiss.
No glitter of the diamonds of the snow
Was on the fields, but lilies and white grass,
Softer than ermine, lush and thick and deep,
Wherein no footfall sounded. Tall white trees
Blossomed with pale mists of blue flowers; and birds
With plumage like the green of sunset skies,
Or the dim violet of the moon's dark orb
When the first silver rims it, sprang from bough
To bough and sang as birds sing in a dream
Of argent heavens. Aloof, against white cliffs
The blue sea lay in calm, silent and smooth,
Under the cloudless sky. And all the place
Was dim as the great deeps of a man's soul
Or of the sea. And in the midst of all
Lay a white temple, with a golden light
That issued from its roof and reached the sky
Like a strange sunrise coming from the north.
Therein we entered.
Percival.
Knowest thou naught else?
(To Nimue.)
... Unknown and mighty, who hast brought me here,
Tell me, thou! Is it the Chapel of the Graal?
[Nimue vanishes softly as he speaks, but a vague wraith of her is still, from time to time, seen dimly in the shadows.
47
... King, for thou seemest like a king and bearest
Upon thy brow the closed crown of a king;
Priest, for thou doest the office of a priest
And wearest alb and stole—I kneel to thee,
Unwitting who thou art. Wisdom and eld
Are in thy face, at least, and kindliness.
I pray thee, tell me whither I am come.
King Evelac.
Since I came into the white land, the slow
Waters that eat an inch a year, have gnawed
The length of six graves inland from the cliffs.
Here without change of spring or winter, I,
Changeless as the still season, wait. My name
Is Evelac, of whom perchance some bruit
Sighs still along the arches of the world.
I was a king, what time one of the Three
Who are in One forever, shrank his skies
Into the compass of a maiden's womb.
After He tore the mask from rosy Death,
Arimathean Joseph came to me
In the wild North I reigned in, preaching peace,
Bearing in his hands a marvel, even—
Percival.
The Graal!
King Evelac.
The Cup of Mystery, men call the Graal:
Thou seekest it? Beware! On me, the first,
The sacred madness of the Vessel came.
Too rash, I would have stretched my hand upon it
48
Yet,—for my love was great,—this grace is mine,
That God shall choose the issue of my flesh
To lift the Graal up like a vasty torch
Blazing God's beacon in the gulfs of sky;
And till he come, the ninth from me in birth,
I, seeing not, unworthy to draw nigh,
Barred from its beauty and its gloriousness,
Keep watch before yon portals of its shrine,
Doing due ritual, warding it from ill,
The porter of the mysteries of God.
The centuries go by like northern lights;
But I remain till all this be fulfilled,
And he whom God has chosen, come at last
To heal me of my wound, and gain the Graal.
Percival.
Not overbold, nor without heavenly signs,
Have I come hither.
King Evelac.
Art thou he I wait?
Come near, my son, that I may look on thee. ...
Seven kings have ruled the realm I left to them,
Eldest from eldest born, of my descent,
The last of whom was Ban. From him should spring
A son, his first-born, whom all men shall praise;
And from that son he that shall gain the Graal. ...
Percival.
The first-born of King Ban all men indeed
Praise, and acknowledge knight without a peer;
All men, from Arthur to a villager,
49
King Evelac.
And art thou, then, his son?
Percival.
No son of his
Breathes the sweet air that blows across the world.
Bound by a sterile love of lips denied,
Too fervent-faithful to that love to woo
Another, he will never have a son.
King Evelac.
God shall accomplish his decrees, though chance,
Folly, and the weak wills of men withstand them.
Man's disobedience shall fulfil his hests
As well as man's submission. Deem not thou
The oracles of God are empty words. ...
And as for thee, since thou art not the son
I wait, give o'er; the Graal is not for thee.
Percival.
Thy oracles for thee, and mine for me.
I have no other lantern for my feet
Than the one given into my hand. The lights
That others bear, however true for them,
But cast conflicting gleams athwart my path
And dazzle all my searching. Such high warrant
I have for my desire, I must obey,
Were Death, not Life, the Lord behind the door. ...
[He takes three steps toward the golden doors and stops suddenly, as if arrested by an invisible hand. The bolts glide back of themselves, noiselessly, and the doors open. The soft, intense splendor of the Graal fills all the place, but the Graal is not seen; for seven
50
Uriel.
Percival ... Percival! ... Approach no nearer thy desire, thou of the Choice.
The time is not yet. Still the air thy spirit breathes too thickened is with noise
Of earth-blown rumors for the thin pulsations of the interstellar voice
To stir its sluggard atoms to the unbroken theme the deeps hear and rejoice.
Thy heart is yet too full of anger, and the hate of evil clots thy soul;
Too far from hell to hate it must he be whom God shall breathe on as a coal
Until the pure light of perfection burns about him like an aureole.
Pray to the tranquil night to let the calm of stars beneath the silent pole
Fall like a mighty hand upon thy spirit, even like the hand of Death.
And in that hour when thou art clothed upon with the tranquillity of Death,
When Love has cast out even the hate of hate,—Love whom the gods name Death,—
Come, and the gates shall open; come, and thou shalt enter in the holy place,
51
The Eyes that all love looks through, feel intense about thee like a burning breath
The swift invasion of his heart-beats, the reverberation of his grace. ...
Taliesin.
Lord, who am I that I should let my voice
Swim like a mote into the golden silence
That pours like sunlight from thy ended speech? ...
Tall lord of splendors, slay me not with light,
If I, unworthier than a grasshopper,
Send my thin cry across the summer noon! ...
Yet will I take heart, O my lord, and speak;
For thou it was, none other, albeit now
In fiercer light and shape more awful shown,
That on the Mount of Vision spake to me
And showed me many signs and breathed upon me,
Filling my spirit with the pulse of Time.
Under thy forms I know thee for the same;
And by the touch still tingling on my brow
Dare speak a child's speech at my father's feet.
Behold the man that kneels before thee here,
Whom thou dost not arraign of any sin.
Much has he wrought and suffered much, to come
Unto this place. Shall he be sent away
With no more grace than this thou givest him?
Uriel.
Better the rose of love out of the dung-hill of the world's adulteries
52
In the aloof of splendors boreal. His own soul bars him from God's bliss,
Dwindling the sun to its own sterile sheen and freezing with transparencies.
Let him go back among his fellow-men and learn to love and learn to give,
Forgetting the white beauty of his soul in the desire that all that live
Should beacon into beauty. ... Yet a sign to star the dark he shall receive,
Because another pleads for him. Such power have prayers of self oblivious.
Let him await Another who shall come, and sit in the Siege Perilous,
And live. In him he shall behold how light can look on darkness and forgive,
How love can walk in the mire and take no stain therefrom. In him he shall possess
The stainlessness he craves, outside himself; and in that vision luminous
Letting his chiselled virtue melt, reflect at last God's loving holiness. ...
Taliesin.
My thoughts are vain thoughts, and my words are folly;
Yet I have spoken and thou hast not frowned,
Yet I have cried and thou hast looked on me.
Therefore will I gird my heart up once again
53
Thou who beholdest God continually,
Doth not his light shine even on the blind
Who feel the flood they lack the sense to see?
The lark that seeks him in the summer sky
Finds there the great blue mirror of his soul;
Winged with the dumb need of he knows not what,
He finds the mute speech of he knows not whom.
Is not the wide air, after the cocoon,
As much God as the moth-soul can receive?
Doth not God give the child within the womb
Some guess to set him groping for the world,
Some blurred reflection answering his desire?
We, shut in this blue womb of doming sky,
Guess and grope dimly for the vast of God,
And, eyeless, through some vague, less perfect sense
Strive for a sign of what it is to see.
The gardens that we journey for are hid
Behind the curve of the eternal sphere;
Yet sometimes in the sky there is a light
As of a thousand pearls, that is of them.
This man has reached the little-travelled roads;
Grant him some vision of the nearing goal.
Uriel.
Draw nearer, thou! For unto thee shall be declared the word of him that is.
Less perfect in the circle of thy powers than he thou pleadest for in his,
Thou hast a sense he lacks, a sense still clouded over with impurities
54
Kneel; for before thy time the Lord shall lead thy feet into the Ways Serene,
Into the meadows of his smile, the riverlands that look upon his mien;
Before thy time thy soul shall bathe in the still pools in which his Face is seen.
[He lifts a sphere of diamond above his head.
Draw near and look within the crystal orb I lift above thee for a sign.
The glory hidden from thee by our golden wings upon that sphere a-shine
Leaves there the vision lurking for the eyes that see. Deem not the grace is thine
Of thine own merit. Much is given unto thee, that much by thee be given.
Thou art the eye for him thou comest with, that he may know the joy divine;
Thou art an eye for all thy kind, to lead them to the open gates of heaven. ...
[Taliesin slowly draws nearer the Angel and kneels on the lowest step beneath his feet, looking up fearfully into the diamond sphere.
The Angels.
Thine! Thine! Thine! Thine! Thine!
O kindle of the world! O Love divine!
O wonder of the uncomprehended Sign
Wherein the darks of thee take fire and shine,
Blazing on earth what heaven could scarce divine!
Thine! ..
O kindle of the world! O Love divine!
O wonder of the uncomprehended Sign
55
Blazing on earth what heaven could scarce divine!
Thine! ..
Prone
Before the awful night of thine unknown,
Tides that set blind from zone of space to zone,
We lift ourselves in glowing peaks to throne
The Dawn eternal where thy Face is shown,
Known, known!
Before the awful night of thine unknown,
Tides that set blind from zone of space to zone,
We lift ourselves in glowing peaks to throne
The Dawn eternal where thy Face is shown,
Known, known!
Dim of Time!
Within the waters, lo, the lights that rhyme
The timeless splendors of the heights sublime!
Calmer and calmer till the under-grime
Dies in the vision of the holier clime
Above thy billows, Time.
Within the waters, lo, the lights that rhyme
The timeless splendors of the heights sublime!
Calmer and calmer till the under-grime
Dies in the vision of the holier clime
Above thy billows, Time.
Near! near! near! near! near!
Until beneath the film of sheen, O seer,
Thine eyes behold the incarnation clear,
The skies within the dewdrop of the sphere,
Gleams of the heavens on heavens that appear,
Sheer. ...!
Until beneath the film of sheen, O seer,
Thine eyes behold the incarnation clear,
The skies within the dewdrop of the sphere,
Gleams of the heavens on heavens that appear,
Sheer. ...!
Taliesin.
Oh, Heart of the Silences!
Cheek nestling close to my cheek!
Breathing in the dark!
Cooing of doves in my soul!
Whisper of death in the cool!
Cheek nestling close to my cheek!
Breathing in the dark!
Cooing of doves in my soul!
Whisper of death in the cool!
56
Thy coming is like a pool of still water;
The leaves of the poplars are not stirred.
Thy coming is like a meadow at sunset;
The haystacks cast no shadows;
A spell has arrested the world.
The leaves of the poplars are not stirred.
Thy coming is like a meadow at sunset;
The haystacks cast no shadows;
A spell has arrested the world.
God hath not considered my unworthiness;
And my ill favor he hath set at naught.
He hath stretched out his arms to me, as a lover,
And solicited me from afar.
I am terrified with thy loveliness, O God.
And my ill favor he hath set at naught.
He hath stretched out his arms to me, as a lover,
And solicited me from afar.
I am terrified with thy loveliness, O God.
Thy joy is like the joy of the Night!
Night of dim bugles! Night of the horns of dream!
Night of the listening soul! Orchestral Night!
Night of flute-silver rivers and the chanting hills!
Night of the silent music of the moon!
Night of dim bugles! Night of the horns of dream!
Night of the listening soul! Orchestral Night!
Night of flute-silver rivers and the chanting hills!
Night of the silent music of the moon!
My soul lies in the lull of thy spirit
Like a lote on a lonely lake;
My soul melts like snow in the waters of thy joy;
Thy love is like a white silence;
The joy of death is in my soul.
[Taking his harp, he sings:
Like a lote on a lonely lake;
My soul melts like snow in the waters of thy joy;
Thy love is like a white silence;
The joy of death is in my soul.
Unaware as the air of the light that fills full all its girth,
Yet crowds not an atom of air from its place to make way;
Growing from splendor to splendor, from birth to birth,
As day to the rose of dawn from the earlier gray;
As day from the sunrise gold to the luminous mirth
Of morning, and brighter and brighter, till noon shall be;
Intense as the cling of the sun to the lips of the earth,
And cool as the call of a wind on the still of the sea,
Yet crowds not an atom of air from its place to make way;
Growing from splendor to splendor, from birth to birth,
57
As day from the sunrise gold to the luminous mirth
Of morning, and brighter and brighter, till noon shall be;
Intense as the cling of the sun to the lips of the earth,
And cool as the call of a wind on the still of the sea,
Joy, joy, joy in the height and the deep;
Joy like the joy of a leaf that unfolds to the sun;
Joy like the joy of a child in the borders of sleep;
Joy like the joy of a multitude thrilled into one;
Under the teeth that clench and the eyes that weep,
Deeper than discord or doubt or desire or wrong,
One with the wills that sow and the Fates that reap,
Joy in the heart of the world like a peal of song.
Joy like the joy of a leaf that unfolds to the sun;
Joy like the joy of a child in the borders of sleep;
Joy like the joy of a multitude thrilled into one;
Under the teeth that clench and the eyes that weep,
Deeper than discord or doubt or desire or wrong,
One with the wills that sow and the Fates that reap,
Joy in the heart of the world like a peal of song.
Stir in the dark of the stars unborn that desire
Only the thrill of a wild, dumb force set free,
Yearn of the burning heart of the world on fire
For life and birth and battle and wind and sea,
Groping of life after love till the spirit aspire,
Into Divinity ever transmuting the clod,
Higher and higher and higher and higher and higher
Out of the Nothingness world without end into God.
Only the thrill of a wild, dumb force set free,
Yearn of the burning heart of the world on fire
For life and birth and battle and wind and sea,
Groping of life after love till the spirit aspire,
Into Divinity ever transmuting the clod,
Higher and higher and higher and higher and higher
Out of the Nothingness world without end into God.
Man from the blindness attaining the succor of sight,
God from his glory descends to the shape we can see;
Life, like a moon, is a radiant pearl in the night
Thrilled with his beauty to beacon o'er forest and sea;
Life like a sacrifice laid on the altar, delight
Kindles as flame from the air to be fire at its core!
Joy, joy, joy in the deep and the height!
Joy in the holiest, joy evermore, evermore!
God from his glory descends to the shape we can see;
58
Thrilled with his beauty to beacon o'er forest and sea;
Life like a sacrifice laid on the altar, delight
Kindles as flame from the air to be fire at its core!
Joy, joy, joy in the deep and the height!
Joy in the holiest, joy evermore, evermore!
The Angels.
Thine! Thine!
Shrined in the worlds of worlds, whom yet the shrine
Of the domed universe doth not confine!
Red in the chalice of the years like wine!
Uttered, unutterable, awful, and benign!
Thine! Thine! Thine! Thine! Thine! ...
Thine! ... Thine! ... Thine! ...
Thine! ...
[The golden doors close silently, and the song of the Angels dies away within.
| Launcelot and Guenevere | |