“O brother, I have seen this yew-tree smoke, Spring after spring, for half a hundred years: For never have I known the world without, Nor ever strayed beyond the pale: but thee, When first thou camest—such a courtesy Spake through the limbs and in the voice—I knew For one of those who eat in Arthur’s hall; For good ye are and bad, and like to coins, Some true, some light, but every one of you Stamped with the image of the King; and now Tell me, what drove thee from the Table Round, My brother? was it earthly passion crost?” “Nay,” said the knight; “for no such passion mine. But the sweet vision of the Holy Grail Drove me from all vainglories, rivalries, And earthly heats that spring and sparkle out Among us in the jousts, while women watch Who wins, who falls; and waste the spiritual strength Within us, better offered up to Heaven.” To whom the monk: “The Holy Grail!—I trust We are green in Heaven’s eyes; but here too much We moulder—as to things without I mean— Yet one of your own knights, a guest of ours, Told us of this in our refectory, But spake with such a sadness and so low We heard not half of what he said. What is it? The phantom of a cup that comes and goes?” “Nay, monk! what phantom?” answered Percivale. “The cup, the cup itself, from which our Lord Drank at the last sad supper with his own. This, from the blessed land of Aromat— After the day of darkness, when the dead Went wandering o’er Moriah—the good saint Arimathaean Joseph, journeying brought To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord. And there awhile it bode; and if a man Could touch or see it, he was healed at once, By faith, of all his ills. But then the times Grew to such evil that the holy cup Was caught away to Heaven, and disappeared.” To whom the monk: “From our old books I know That Joseph came of old to Glastonbury, And there the heathen Prince, Arviragus, Gave him an isle of marsh whereon to build; And there he built with wattles from the marsh A little lonely church in days of yore, For so they say, these books of ours, but seem Mute of this miracle, far as I have read. But who first saw the holy thing today?” “A woman,” answered Percivale, “a nun, And one no further off in blood from me Than sister; and if ever holy maid With knees of adoration wore the stone, A holy maid; though never maiden glowed, But that was in her earlier maidenhood, With such a fervent flame of human love, Which being rudely blunted, glanced and shot Only to holy things; to prayer and praise She gave herself, to fast and alms. And yet, Nun as she was, the scandal of the Court, Sin against Arthur and the Table Round, And the strange sound of an adulterous race, Across the iron grating of her cell Beat, and she prayed and fasted all the more.