Quest of the Sangraal 1

A VACANT CHAIR:

AND

AN ADDED STONE:

I CHANT

THESE SOLITARY SOUNDS.

“The name Sangraal is derived from San, the breviate of Sanctus,

or Saint, Holy, and Graal, the Keltic word for Vessel or Vase.

All that is known of the Origin and History of this mysterious Relique

will be rehearsed in the Poem itself. As in the title, so in the Knightly

Names, I have preferred the Keltic to other sources of spelling and sound.” –R.S.H.

Ho! for the Sangraal! vanish’d Vase of Heaven!

That held, like Christ’s own heart, a hin of blood!

Ho! for the Sangraal! …

How the merry shout

Of reckless riders on their rushing steeds,

Smote the loose echo from the drowsy rock

Of grim Dundagel, thron’d along the sea!

“Unclean! unclean! ten cubits and a span,

Keep from the wholesome touch of human-kind:

Stand at the gate, and beat the leper’s bell, 10

But stretch not forth the hand for holy thing,--

Unclean, as Egypt at the ebb of Nile!”

Thus said the monk, a lean and gnarlèd man;

His couch was on the rock, by that wild stream

That floods, in cataract, Saint Nectan’s Kieve:

One of the choir, whose life is Orison.

They had their lodges in the wilderness,

Or built them cells beside the shadowy sea,

And there they dwelt with angels, like a dream:

So they unroll’d the volume of the Book, 20

And fill’d the fields of the Evangelist

With antique thoughts, that breath’d of Paradise.

Uprose they for the Quest—the bounding men

Of the siege perilous, and the granite ring—

They gathered at the rock, yon ruddy tor;

The stony depth where lurked the demon-god,

Till Christ, the mighty Master, drave him forth.

There stood the knights, stately, and stern, and tall;

Tristan, and Perceval, Sir Galahad,

And he, the sad Sir Launcelot of the lay: 30

Ah me! that logan of the rocky hills,

Pillar’d in storm, calm in the rush of war,

Shook, at the light touch of his lady’s hand!

See! where they move, a battle-shouldering kind!

Massive in mould, but graceful: thorough men:

Built in the majestic measure of the Cross: —

Their lifted arms the transome: and their bulk,

The Tree, where Jesu stately stood to die—

Thence came their mastery in the field of war: —

Ha! one might drive battalions—one, alone! 40

See! now they pause; for in their midst, the King,

Arthur, the Son of Uther, and the Night,

Helm’d with Pendragon, with the crested Crown,

And belted with the sheath’d Excalibur,

That gnash’d his iron teeth, and yearn’d for war!

Stern was that look (high natures seldom smile)

And in those pulses beat a thousand kings.

A glance! and they were husht: a lifted hand!

And his eye ruled them like a throne of light.

Then, with a voice that rang along the moor, 50

Like the Archangel’s trumpet for the dead,

He spake—while Tamar sounded to the sea.

“Comrades in arms! Mates of The Table Round!

Fair Sirs, my fellows in the bannered ring,

Ours is a lofty tryst! this day we meet,

Not under shield, with scarf and knightly gage,

To quench our thirst of love in ladies’ eyes:

We shall not mount to-day that goodly throne,

The conscious steed, with thunder in his loins,

To launch along the field the arrowy spear: 60

Nay, but a holier theme, a mightier Quest—

‘Ho! for the Sangraal, vanish’d Vase of God!’

“Ye know that in the old days, that yellow Jew,

Accursèd Herod; and the earth-wide judge,

Pilate the Roman—doomster for all lands,

Or else the Judgment had not been for all,—

Bound Jesu-Master to the world’s tall tree,

Slowly to die. …

Ha! Sirs, had we been there,

They durst not have assayed their felon deed,

Excalibur had cleft them to the spine! 70

Slowly He died, a world in every pang,

Until the hard centurion’s cruel spear

Smote His high heart: and from that severed side,

Rush’d the red stream that quencht the wrath of Heaven!

“Then came Sir Joseph, hight of Arimathèe,

Bearing that awful Vase, the Sangraal!

The Vessel of the Pasch, Shere Thursday night,

The selfsame Cup, wherein the faithful Wine

Heard God, and was obedient unto Blood.

Therewith he knelt and gathered blessed drops 80

From his dear Master’s Side that sadly fell,

The ruddy dews from the great tree of life:

Sweet Lord! what treasures! like the priceless gems

Hid in the tawny casket of a king,—

A ransom for an army, one by one!

“That wealth he cherisht long: his very soul

Around his ark: bent as before a shrine!

“He dwelt in Orient Syria: God’s own land:

The ladder foot of heaven—where shadowy shapes

In white apparel glide up and down. 90

His home was like a garner, full of corn,

And wine and oil; a granary of God!

Young men, that no one knew, went in and out,

With a far look in their eternal eyes!

All things were strange and rare: the Sangraal,

As though it clung to some ethereal chain,

Brought down high Heaven to earth at Arimathèe.

“He lived long centuries and prophesied.

A gilded pilgrim ever and anon,

Cross-staff in hand, and folded at his side, 100

The mystic marvel of the feast of blood!

Once, in old time, he stood in this dear land,

Enthrall’d—for lo! a sign! his grounded staff

Took root, and branch’d, and bloom’d like Aaron’s rod:

Thence came the shrine, the cell; therefore he dwelt,

The vassal of the Vase, at Avalon!

“This could not last, for evil days came on,

And evil men: the garbage of their sin

Tainted this land, and all things holy fled.

The Sangraal was not: on a summer eve, 110

The silence of the sky brake up in sound!

The tree of Joseph glowed with ruddy light:

A harmless fire, curved like a molten vase,
Around the bush, and from the midst, a voice:
Thus hewn by Merlin on a runic stone: —
Ririoth : el : Zannah : aulohee : pedah :

“Then said the shuddering seer—he heard and knew
The unutterable words that glide in Heaven,
Without a breath or tongue, from soul to soul—

“‘The land is lonely now: Anathema! 120
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; 130
His vassals shall be noble, to a man:
Knights strong in battle till the war is won:
Then while the land is husht on Tamar side,
So that the warder upon Carradon
Shall hear at once the river and the sea—
That king shall a Quest: a kindling cry:
‘Ho! for the Sangraal! vanish’d 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— 140
He with the shield of Sarras; and the lance,
Ruddy and moisten’d with a freshening stain,
As from a sever’d wound of yesterday—
He shall achieve the Graal: he alone!’”

“Thus wrote the 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; 150
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 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. 160
High-hearted men! the purpose and the theme,
Smote the fine chord that thrills the warrior’s soul
With a 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! 170
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 their 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. 180
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 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, 190
His yearning Cross along the peopled sea,
The innumerable 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; 200
The portal of their pit, the polar gate,
Their fiery dungeon mocked with northern snow:
There, 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 thy perfume, breath of heaven!
Myriads, in girded albs, for ever young,
Their stately semblance of embodied air, 210
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. continued. . .