We moved along the gravelled way
Between the laurels and the yews,
Some touch of old enchantment lay
About us, some remembered news
Of men who rode among the trees
With burning dreams of Camelot,
Whose names are beauty’ s litanies,
As Galahad and Launcelot.
We looked along the vaulted gloom
Of boughs unstripped of winter’ s bane,
As for some pride of scarf and plume
And painted shield and broidered rein,
And through the cloven laurel walls
We searched the darkling pines and pale
Beech-boles and woodbine coronals,
As for the passing of the Grail.
But Launcelot no travel keeps,
For brother Launcelot is dead,
And brother Galahad he sleeps
This long while in his quiet bed,
And we are all the knights that pass
Among the yews and laurels now.
They are but fruit among the grass,
And we but fruit upon the bough.
No coloured blazon meets us here
Of all that courtly company;
Elaine is not, nor Guenevere,
The dream is but of dreams that die.
But yet the purple violet lies
Beside the golden daffodil,
And women strong of limb and wise
And fierce of blood are with us still.
And never through the woodland goes
The Grail of that forgotten quest,
But still about the woodland flows
The sap of God made manifest
In boughs that labour to their time,
And birds that gossip secret things,
And eager lips that seek to rhyme
The latest of a thousand springs.