Estate them with large land and territory In mine own realm beyond the narrow seas,

To keep them in all joyance: more than this

I could not; this she would not, and she died.'

He pausing, Arthur answer'd, 'O my knight,

It will be to thy worship, as my knight, And mine, as head of all our Table Round,

To see that she be buried worshipfully.'

So toward that shrine which then in

all the realm

Was richest, Arthur leading, slowly went The marshall'd Order of their Table Round,

And Lancelot sad beyond his wont, to see The maiden buried, not as one unknown, Nor meanly, but with gorgeous obsequies, And mass, and rolling music, like a queen.

And when the knights had laid her comely head

Low in the dust of half-forgotten kings, Then Arthur spake among them, 'Let her tomb

Be costly, and her image thereupon, And let the shield of Lancelot at her feet

Be carven, and her lily in her hand.

And let the story of her dolorous voyage For all true hearts be blazon'd on her

tomb

In letters gold and azure!' which was wrought

Thereafter; but when now the lords and dames

And people, from the high door streaming, brake

Disorderly, as homeward each, the Queen, Who mark'd Sir Lancelot where he moved apart,

Drew near, and sigh'd in passing, 'Lancelot,

Forgive me; mine was jealousy in love.' He answer'd with his eyes upon the ground,

"That is love's curse; pass on, my Queen, forgiven.'

But Arthur, who beheld his cloudy brows, Approach'd him, and with full affection said,

'Lancelot, my Lancelot, thou in whom I have

Most joy and most affiance, for I know What thou hast been in battle by my side,

And many a time have watch'd thee at the tilt

Strike down the lusty and long-practised knight,

And let the younger and unskill'd go by To win his honour and to make his name, And loved thy courtesies and thee, a man Made to be loved; but now I would to God,

Seeing the homeless trouble in thine eyes, Thou couldst have loved this maiden, shaped, it seems,

By God for thee alone, and from her face, If one may judge the living by the dead, Delicately pure and marvellously fair, Who might have brought thee, now a lonely man

Wifeless and heirless, noble issue, sons Born to the glory of thy name and fame, My knight, the great Sir Lancelot of the Lake.'

A man wellnigh a hundred winters old, Spake often with her of the Holy Grail, A legend handed down thro' five or six, And each of these a hundred winters old, From our Lord's time. And when King Arthur made

His Table Round, and all men's hearts became

Clean for a season, surely he had thought That now the Holy Grail would come again;

But sin broke out. Ah, Christ, that it would come,

And heal the world of all their wickedness!

"O Father!" ask'd the maiden, "might

Rose-red with beatings in it, as if alive. Till all the white walls of my cell were dyed

With rosy colours leaping on the wall; And then the music faded, and the Graï Past, and the beam decay'd, and from the walls

The rosy quiverings died into the night. So now the Holy Thing is here again Among us, brother, fast thou too and pray,

And tell thy brother knights to fast and pray,

That so perchance the vision may be seen By thee and those, and all the world be heal'd."