The Book of the Holy Graal :: :: University of Virginia Library

Beyond the city, by the South and West,
Far over fields and meadows, heath and down,
By stream and fell, in recollected thought
Fared QUÆSTOR DEI, at the quiet end
Of this same week wherein the dream of sleep
Had grown for him to vision; and he kept
That sacred vision and the maid thereof
Companions chosen of the peaceful way.
All omens, portents of the natural world
And all the gracious lesser outward signs
Gave up their meanings in the sense of hopes
Which overflow'd him from the world within,
While the two worlds, reacting each on each,
Found both enlarge their borders. So there came
A certain hallow'd noon, when leafy ways
Of woodland labyrinths melted in the light,
And the light sifted through a thousand sprigs
And branches, moving subtly overhead.

Round and about was like a Pentecost,
With little tongues of fire in open spots
Moving and murmuring on the edge of speech.

There—unaccountable, unsought, unknown—
At the fence-side, over against a stile
Which gave on level meads, the meads on brook
Below, the brook upon a hamlet—drawn
About its little ancient church—it fell
That QUÆSTOR DEI and the Master met.

What profit—were it possible—to say
How rose the flimsy veils which first divide
Two strangers, predetermined each on each
To interact? The upward-pointing spire
Seen in the distance, or the slipping burn
Between its bridges, yea, the ravish'd scream
Of lark—song-bursting—hidden in the high
Glory of light—these three or one of these
Could break the bar, could lift so light a yoke
Of silence. Howsoever, in a space
More brief than that which intervened unmark'd
Between the hour and quarter of the old
Church clock, all bonds were melted, and the heart
Of QUÆSTOR DEI to the Master's heart
Was open'd. Here again no word of sleep,
With its strange pageants; and the poet kept—

As one whose inmost issues not in words
Even at deep communion, soul to soul—
His tale of agony and endless death
Buried in wells of silence. Might perchance
Recital bring that phantom back to life?
Or was it dead so utterly that words
Could scarce evoke the images? I know
They spoke of symbols and their work in sleep,
Meanings behind them, parables of dream,
Of dreams which lead to vision, but apart
From any vestige of the self therein
On either side of its experience.

For certain days the leading, so begun,
Continued there and here, as seeming chance
Gave out the ways and means. And whatsoe'er
The Master knew of those two inward lives,
He led the other as He led the one
To one same point, which was the Holy Graal
In manifested aspects and in deeps
Withdrawn of hidden meaning. Do I need
To say that both into the heart of heart
Received his message, ponder'd thereupon
And treasured? That which had been long remote,
Some matter of romance—and heard perchance
At second hand, or scarcely heard at all—
Began to live within them and unfold

As light upon familiar ways of sleep.
In part to her who bore the mystic Pyx
There came its message on the verso page
Of life; more fully he beheld who served
The Cup in sleep; but both beheld and read.
So in the light of late experience,
When Pyx and Cup, the woman and the man,
Were brought together, it seem'd—for their two lives—
The Holy Graal was going up and down
The world, as once it went in Arthur's days.

Was it a finding of the Graal for them,
The second advent of the Wounded King,
Himself made whole and bringing healing back
To a wounded world? On many songs to come
The poet dwelt in mind. In mind and heart—
But more and deeper in the secret heart—
BEATA dwelt on life and thought and love,
Hidden within the Hallows of the Cup,
But most upon that moment of the Mass
When priestly hands divide the Sacred Host
And in the consecrated Wine there slips
And sinks one particle of Living Bread.

As if meanwhile his modest part were done
In this first act, the Faithful Master moved

Aside, and in a while the act fulfill'd
Itself. A silent interlude ensued,
And then this drama of a double life
Reopen'd suddenly on wider scenes.

A star was mine, and on its throne—
In kingly state, to earth unknown—
I ruled star-nations far and wide,
As one who has been deified.
Thou wast not there: too far behind
The compass of my regal state,
I could not hear Thy voice or find
From mine to Thine an open gate.
In chapel, fane and minster fair
Thine altars blazed with flowers and light;
Thine images were everywhere,
Thy worship sounded day and night:
Thou wast not there, Thou wast not there.
A star on earth or star in heaven,
What boots it if all stars be given,
So clouds Thy face of beauty hide?
What boots a crown, and Thou denied?
My throne is vacant and my star
Is left where other signets are:
If Thou be with me, all is mine,
But all is naught till all is Thine;
If Thou be absent, well-a-day,
Stars will not help me on my way.
Better to wait in weeds for Thee
Than rule, a Lord of earth and sea,
Apart from Thee, apart from Thee.