'Our mightiest!' answer'd Lance

lot, with a groan;

⚫O King!' — and when he paused, methought I spied

A dying fire of madness in his eyes'O King, my friend, if friend of thine I be,

Happier are those that welter in their sin,

Swine in the mud, that cannot see for slime,

Slime of the ditch: but in me lived a sin

So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure,

Noble, and knightly in me twined and clung

Round that one sin, until the wholesome flower

And poisonous grew together, each as each,

Not to be pluck'd asunder; and when

thy knights

Sware, I sware with them only in the hope

That could I touch or see the Holy Grail

They might be pluck'd asunder. Then I spake

To one most holy saint, who wept and said,

That save they could be pluck'd asunder, all

My quest were but in vain; to whom

I vow'd

That I would work according as he will'd.

And forth I went, and while I yearn'd and strove

To tear the twain asunder in my

heart,

All in my folly to the naked shore, Wide flats, where nothing but course grasses grew;

But such a blast, my King, began to blow,

So loud a blast along the shore and

sea,

Ye could not hear the waters for the blast,

Tho' heapt in mounds and ridges all the sea

Drove like a cataract, and all the sand Swept like a river, and the clouded heavens

Were shaken with the motion and the sound.

And blackening in the sea-foam sway'd a boat,

Half-swallow'd in it, anchor'd with a chain;

And in my madness to myself I said, "I will embark and I will lose myself, And in the great sea wash away my sin."

I burst the chain, I sprang into the boat.

Seven days I drove along the dreary deep,

And with me drove the moon and all the stars;

And the wind fell, and on the seventh night

I heard the shingle grinding in the surge,

And felt the boat shock earth, and looking up,

Behold, the enchanted towers of Carbonek,

A castle like a rock upon a rock, With chasm-like portals open to the

sea,

away;

There was I beaten down by little

men,

Mean knights, to whom the moving of my sword

And shadow of my spear had been

enow

To scare them from me once; and then I came

was none

Stood near it but a lion on each side That kept the entry, and the moon was full.

Then from the boat I leapt, and up the stairs.

There drew my sword. With suddenflaring manes

Those two great beasts rose upright like a man,

When God make music thro' them, could but speak

His music by the framework and the chord;

And as ye saw it ye have spoken truth.

"Nay- but thou errest, Lancelot : never yet

Could all of true and noble in knight and man

Twine round one sin, whatever it might be,

With such a closeness, but apart there grew,

Save that he were the swine thou spakest of,

Some root of knighthood and pure nobleness;

Whereto see thou, that it may bear its flower.

"And spake I not too truly, O my knights?

Was I too dark a prophet when I said To those who went upon the Holy Quest,

That most of them would follow

"Lead then," she said; and thro' the woods they went.

And while they rode, the meaning in his eyes,

His tenderness of manner, and chaste awe,