Classic Poem

The City of the Grail

Where lies the city of the Holy Grail,
And who will guide me thither?
For spent with sorrow, oft at point to fail
The heart doth sink, the holy purpose wither.

Where shall I find the city, by what token
Know her for Heaven's chosen,
Way-weary oftentimes and nigh heart-broken,
Beset with robber fiends that lure and cozen?

The city high-uplifted o'er the plain,
Dawn-girdled, starry-crown'd,
Whose bells sink down upon the world like rain —
In this sad fleeting world may she be found? ANGEL:

The city of the Grail abides in Heaven,
With sorrow unacquainted,
Yet many a foreglimpse on this earth is given,
This earth so many-troubled, many-sainted.

The city of the Grail is God's own palace,
And needs not sun or moon,
But manifold amid earth's recreant malice
Reflections of her mirror'd light are strewn.

Dear child, how oft beside me hast thou stept
To these most holy places,
And oftentimes the heart within thee leapt
Born on the wave of high accepted graces.

How many a belfried eyrie saw we lifted
Rock-pillar'd in the sky,
Forth-gazing like a watchtower o'er the rifted
Brave mountain-heart of elder Italy,

And Norman river-valleys husht at even,
And Kerry's haunted shore —
To win thee forward were these shadows
Until the light shall dawn for evermore.English