Classic Poem

A TRANSCRIPT

'T WAS when the great Telesma of the sun
With ardent flame inform'd the torrid zone,
And summer's heavy heat possess'd the air
With spells successively of rapture, great
Strange longing, ardour dim. A day of bland
And happy parable was 'blazon'd round
With symbols — matron Nature teeming, rich,
Full-lipp'd and yielding. In such tide I left
My house of dreams and forth I fared alone
Into the splendid sacramental world,
Where, all the sacramental veils dissolved,
Shone midst the light flamboyant and flaming heat
The Corpus Christi feast of earth and sea.

A night of ecstasy, so deep, so full,
So holy follow'd — as of mystic death,
When lips of spirit upon spirit lips
Have kiss'd and tasted rapture, unity.
Now, other morn has broken; the hush'd night
Hath surely pass'd; without that house of dreams —
Midmost within the city — I pause, and know
What wonder and high truth of all the world
Stands at the doors and knocks. All dream is done!
He then shall hear who will — a rich device —
The quest and pageant of the coming King!

All in the little tower that crowns the Church,
Hear ye the pleasant bells which stir in sleep
With muffled cadences and whisper'd chimes! . .
Files past the fair procession! Those twin yews,
The two proud peacocks of the legend, shaped
Uncouthly, feeling, through their long drear spell,
That pride and vanity are over, stir
All tremulous, as if with sudden wind.

For in the night we rode to save the town.
And overtaking ever and anon
Belated market-waggons, saw, aroused
And wonderstruck, how yokels heavy-eyed
Marked — scared in vision — that goodly train go by,
With the great Graal's glad light encompassing;
Fair horses plunging, steaming in the light;
Vast banners streaming, swirling, taken past
By Gilead winds; the King of all the world —
So in my heart I hail'd my heart's dear lord —
Rex quondam ille et futurus rex —
Riding his great white horse with reverend mien
Behind the holy vessel, set about
With sweetness and with savour. Next in place,
Of mien erect but still an ancient man,
The King's sword-bearer came; Excalibur
Lay keen in sheath, the sharp quick light thereof,
Like unto thirty torches, the red gold
Inscription round it, ray'd on every side,
And all the scabbard's wealth of jewell'd length
And haft transfigured.

Past the roadside stream,
Where crooked willows trembled, crouch'd and croon'd;
The windy rookery swaying in the old
Elm-tops; the narrow bridge — a shallow pool
Below it shining faintly; and across
The little remnant of the open heath
Dotted with pointed tents all white and ghostly;
Past old decaying houses shrouded deeply
In ivy thicker than the walls which bore it;
Past windows dim, with dainty blinds drawn close
In little villas; and past the creaking sign
Whereby the great roads enter from the West
An abject village street; past shutter'd shops
Of that mute place; still eastward, where the bridge
Crosses the road; and as we drew to this
A train of waggons, steaming slowly, shew'd
Forth-hanging guards and drivers eager-eyed,
Awestruck and crying.

Thereat I fell to dream:
What wonder in the city of the King,
When the King came into his own: what joy
Among the common people, when the King
Stood manifest: what poets should come out
To meet him: with what lights should altars blaze:
What flowers be strewn: what bells and bells peal forth:
What merchants, councillors and princes haste
To proffer homage: and what peace in all:
What putting by of sorrow and of shame:
What goodness raised to sanctity: what sins
By pardon purified: what wounds made whole:
What sudden change in heart and hope of all.
Thereafter pass'd the pictures of the quest;
The inception's fever and high colouring
Kindled its fires within me, going out
From the great city through those long green lanes,
By a free way, far stretch'd into the West.
Came too the pain of doubt, the questioning,
The aching sense of loneness and of loss,
Faring through mournful marshes — where the mist
At sunset flamed with a dull ruddy light,
Which after ever in the moonlight turn'd
To rolling seas. Again, distraught, I heard,
Through smoke and smoulder of the sunset-time,
The plaint of plovers; heard the bitterns cry
Strangely, with breasts and wings incarnadined,
Flocking and flying towards the falling sun.
And further still, descending steep hillsides,
I saw below me the forest tree-tops sweep,
Bending and crashing before the risen wind,
Spelling out wild reverberant messages.

Through fields of bearded barley, fields of rye,
Through winding byways all among tall ripe wheat,
Still faring forward many a morning after;
Betwixt the teeming life of lush hedgerows,
The rich disorder'd growth of bank and ditch,
Right in the drowsy heat and harvest wealth —
Scented and songful — of early autumn sunshine;
By circling, gaudy moths, the birr and buzz
Of bees, dove-croonings, splendid heavy flight
Of armour'd dragon-flies; by lonely wells
Disused and the forgotten source of springs;
By open roads scored white on breezy hills
And white and brown through miles of lilting vales
And worlds embower'd of pool and meeting stream;
Past apple-orchards, russet, green and red;
So to the sea — the questing restless waste
Of the tumultuous ocean! How it cried
Loud in the moonlight terribly — how broke
Ever its long white line of angry surf,
Chafing beyond the bar, broke and reform'd,
Toss'd high, toss'd higher, where the beacon-lamps —
Set in tide-isolated light-house towers —
Seem'd to flash watchwords through the infinite!

But after, in the morning glory's pearl
Of shell, pale pink, convolvulus and rose —
Bell-like, far-echoing, caroll'd along the coast —
Sea voices taking shape, as soul's take flesh,
Scatter'd light music, breath'd between the songs
Sweet little words of prophecy, soft words
Of promise, high resounding words of hope.
Then all the landscapes and the seascapes merged
In world of dream, the hills abode in light
Down streaming from the gold-bright city above;
All visible realities assumed
A richer tincture, an uplifted type;
And in the human side of earthly things
A higher magic confess'd its mystery
Even in cottage homes and humble farms.

So swept the path of quest into a place
Of very sacrament and mystery.
Vested in samite strange ships glided down
Sea-ways, full-tided, swirling, glisterful;
The odour and the spicery of the world
Hung over all the shore; high mystic chants
Swept and re-echoed through the haunted air,
Telling of Aromat and the Holy Cup.
There fell the subtle hint of perilous quests
On turrets dimly seen between old trees,
On moated manors mouldering far away
From all frequented roads. Unlook'd for glades
Of strange encounter open'd out in bosks,
Where steaming summer draws rich humid scents
From yielding leaf-mould; in waste places rose
Old chapels, and the sieges set therein
Were less for worship than for vision's gifts;
The reverence of high feasting rang throughout
The sparged and censed extent of castle halls;
Pavilions rose on lawns by power of words;
White doves flew past with golden censers borne
In bills anointed, from their choric wings —
Spread wide — expanding measured melody;
Children in sacred vestments went before,
With sacred lights, far-shining priest-like men
From those far countries which are reached by none
That traverse sea or land.

In such a place
The path of quest and promise was closed about
With eager faces; on the faces fell
The white light shining from the Holy Graal.
I saw them — even I — a man unclean:
The faces shone of angels and of men;
The face of Galahad, of Perceval,
The face of Lancelot sanctified by woe
And seal'd by priesthood. More than all I saw
The fair uncover'd visage of the King,
The King's face in his splendour, as the King
Came out of Avalon, in the morning glory
Passing with royal train along the coast,
Whereon the light sea scatter'd foam and song.
Fair orchards ripen'd in the mellow sun;
The white road ran behind his horse's hoofs;
Over the bridges, over the hills, and all
Through fields of barley, miles of wheat and rye;
Out of the West, far forth into the East,
By secret paths for many and many a day
All reverend riding behind the Holy Graal,
Amidst all manner of sweetness and of savour.
And reaching now the lion-guarded gates
Of that old convent-house and school of saints
Which, past the river and a hundred meads,
Descries the dim horizon of the hills,
I saw the vision of a pallid nun,
With quivering aureole, watching on her knees
And praying. Then I knew the mourning queen
Had look'd again upon her master's face,
And all must come to pass as I was warn'd
Already in my quest. The glorious train
Swept by; there fell a hush among the stars,
A stir in streets, a spell upon the wind;
And whereabouts the silent highway flows
Beneath the rude arch of a formless bridge,
Some homeless urchin on the kerb asleep,
Lifting his bare head from his ragged knees,
Scream'd worship as an angel's broider'd hem —
The twelfth fair master in a scarlet cope
And white dalmatic — brush'd with sudden touch
His naked feet.
In that same hour a light
Began to kindle faintly in the East;
The eastern heaven dissolv'd its scatter'd stars
In many-hued solutions. For the morn
Was now at hand; the stir of human life
Must soon begin; whereat I felt my heart
Leap in my side, foreseeing those great things
Which every man should witness. As I rode
My palfrey humbly far behind the train,
The narrow street which skirts the water-side
In squalid slumber stirr'd; at early inns
And coffee-houses, waggoners look'd forth
From grimy windows; bargemen crowding doors
Stared as in dream, stone-turn'd for wonderment.
So pass'd the pageant; on the hush thereof
An awestruck sob ensued a stir spread wide
Through all the ways, shouting of many voices,
Clatter of doors and casements. Over all
That shoeless urchin shriek'd, and beat the air
With yearning hands, fast following.
Below
The bridge, a whistle of some early steamer
Blew keenly in the thin keen morning air,
As first we enter'd on the smoother ways
And broader streets, where life awaited light
And light of life unlook'd for thus drew nigh.

Amidst dull echoes of a hundred feet
In the old capital of Middlesex,
Again the cloud enveloped us; again
We rode invisible; his own choice kept back
The blessed revelation of the King,
Because the Holy Graal must first be set
For worship on the minster's altar high,
Midmost within the city. Whatsoe'er
Wild rumours of some unknown mystery
Run like light fire from all the western side,
The great metropolis to light of day
Shall wake once more, on common toil intent,
Nor know what must betide it. . . . I alone,
Foreseeing all, steal hurriedly and close
My house of dreams; I cast the keys away,
And riding thence in haste to reach betimes
The minster shrine, hereby proclaim to all
The quest and pageant of the coming King.