SIR GALAHAD My good blade carves the casques of men, The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, They reel, they roll in clanging lists, How sweet are looks that ladies bend On whom their favours fall! For them I battle till the end, To save from shame and thrall; But all my heart is drawn above, My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine: I never felt the kiss of love, Nor maiden's hand in mine. More bounteous aspects on me beam, 12 24 When down the stormy crescent goes, Then by some secret shrine I ride; I hear a voice but none are there; Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres I leap on board: no helmsman steers: A gentle sound, an awful light! Three angels bear the Holy Grail: And starlike mingles with the stars. When on my goodly charger borne Thro' dreaming towns I go, The cock crows ere the Christmas morn, The tempest crackles on the leads, And, ringing, springs from brand and mail; 36 48 But o'er the dark a glory spreads, And gilds the driving hail. I leave the plain, I climb the height; Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields. A maiden knight-to me is given Such hope, I know not fear; I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven I muse on joy that will not cease, Pure spaces clothed in living beams, Pure lilies of eternal peace, Whose odours haunt my dreams; And, stricken by an angel's hand, This mortal armour that I wear, This weight and size, this heart and eyes, The clouds are broker in the sky, Swells up and shakes and falls. Until I find the Holy Grail. 1834. 1842. Lord Tennyson, 60 72 84 TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA I WONDER do you feel to-day As I have felt since, hand in hand, We sat down on the grass, to stray In spirit better through the land, This morn of Rome and May? For me, I touched a thought, I know, Help me to hold it! First it left The yellowing fennel, run to seed There, branching from the brickwork's cleft, Some old tomb's ruin; yonder weed Took up the floating weft, Where one small orange cup amassed Five beetles-blind and green they grope Among the honey-meal: and last, Everywhere on the grassy slope I traced it. Hold it fast! The champaign with its endless fleece Of feathery grasses everywhere! 5 10 15 20 Silence and passion, joy and peace, An everlasting wash of airRome's ghost since her decease. 25 Such life here, through such lengths of hours, Such miracles performed in play, Such primal naked forms of flowers, Such letting nature have her way While heaven looks from its towers! How say you? Let us, O my dove, To love or not to love? I would that you were all to me, You that are just so much, no more. Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free! Where does the fault lie? What the core O' the wound, since wound must be? I would I could adopt your will, See with your eyes, and set my heart Beating by yours, and drink my fill At your soul's springs,-your part my part In life, for good and ill. No, I yearn upward, touch you close, 30 35 40 45 50 |