THE FIRST MORRIS 261 displaying that preternatural activity, that heightened acuteness of perception, which possesses the body at moments of crisis, the signal of an exalted mood. It needs but a touch to complete the illusion, to make it all but reality. The touch is not withheld. A sacring- bell rings sharply, the Grail glimmers through the forest, " images of wonder " submit the choosing-cloths of doom. The chant of the verse goes on like the voice of a priest. The light that falls on the page is that of a painted window. On all sides we see none but the strained abrupt gestures of people wrought by a pro- found spiritual tension. These bowed knights and burdened queens, moving with the awkwardness of anchorites, seem the servers of a mystery too great to be entrusted to their words. It is impossible not to believe that we are the witnesses of a supreme ceremonial. And when, with Galahad, we watch the bright shrivelling and concentration of all bodily things — " As I sat there not moving, less and less I saw the melted snow that hung in beads Upon my steel-shoes ; less and less I saw Between the tiles the bunches of small weeds" — we feel we are participants too ; that for us also the scroll is about to part and the earth to crumple into a sign. II It is true that as the pages turn, and the book pro- gresses, there are many changes of ostensible motive : The Defence gives place to a battle-piece ; love-songs, lonely ballads, lyrics of a sweet helplessness follow ; but this sense of mystery, of revelation, endures un- challenged — as implicit in a lost refrain : — Two red roses across the moon ;
