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And 'O my brother, Percivale,' she said,
'Sweet brother, I have seen the Holy Grail:
For, waked at dead of night, I heard a sound
As of a silver horn from o'er the hills
Blown, and I thought it is not Arthur's use
To hunt by moonlight, and the slender sound
As from a distance beyond distance grew
Coming upon me, - O never harp nor horn,
Nor aught we blow with breath, or touch with hand,
Was like that music as it came; and then
Stream'd thro' my cell a cold and silver beam,
And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail,
Rose-red with beatings in it, as if alive,
Till all the white walls of my cell were dyed
With rosy colors leaping on the wall;

And then the music faded, and the Grail

Passed, and the beam decay'd, and from the walls

The rosy quiverings died into the night.

So now the Holy Thing is here again
Among us, brother, fast thou too and pray,

And tell thy brother knights to fast and pray,

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 armor, 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,

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