Full Day (To K. D.)

We moved along the gravelled wayBetween the laurels and the yews,Some touch of old enchantment layAbout us, some remembered newsOf men who rode among the treesWith burning dreams of Camelot,Whose names are beauty’s litanies,As Galahad and Launcelot.

We looked along the vaulted gloomOf boughs unstripped of winter’s bane,As for some pride of scarf and plumeAnd painted shield and broidered rein,And through the cloven laurel wallsWe searched the darkling pines and paleBeech-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 sleepsThis long while in his quiet bed,And we are all the knights that passAmong the yews and laurels now.They are but fruit among the grass,And we but fruit upon the bough.

No coloured blazon meets us hereOf all that courtly company;Elaine is not, nor Guenevere,The dream is but of dreams that die.

But yet the purple violet liesBeside the golden daffodil,And women strong of limb and wiseAnd fierce of blood are with us still.

And never through the woodland goesThe Grail of that forgotten quest,But still about the woodland flowsThe sap of God made manifestIn boughs that labour to their time,And birds that gossip secret things,And eager lips that seek to rhymeThe latest of a thousand springs.