In tournament or tilt¹, Sir Percivale,

  Whom Arthur and his knighthood called The Pure,

  Had passed into the silent life of prayer,

  Praise, fast, and alms; and leaving for the cowl

  The helmet in an abbey far away

  From Camelot, there, and not long after, died.

 

     And one, a fellow-monk⁴ among the rest,

  Ambrosius, loved him much beyond the rest,

  And honoured him, and wrought⁵ into his heart

  A way by love that wakened love within,

  To answer that which came:  and as they sat

  Beneath a world-old yew-tree, darkening half

  The cloisters⁶, on a gustful April morn

  That puffed⁷ the swaying branches into smoke

  Above them, ere the summer when he died

  The monk Ambrosius questioned Percivale:

 

     “O brother, I have seen this yew-tree smoke,

  Spring after spring, for half a hundred years:

  For never have I known the world without,

  Nor ever strayed beyond the pale:  but thee,

  When first thou camest—such a courtesy

  Spake through the limbs and in the voice—I knew

  For one of those who eat in Arthur’s hall;

  For good ye are and bad, and like to coins,

  Some true, some light, but every one of you

  Stamped with the image of the King; and now

  Tell me, what drove thee from the Table Round,

  My brother? was it earthly passion crost?”

 

     “Nay⁹,” said the knight²; “for no such passion mine.

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