"When softly down a tangled way

A dim fair woman, white as day,

Rode on a palfrey misty gray.

"Upon her brow a circlet burned

Of jewels, and the fire, inurned

Within them, changed, and turned and turned.

"I stared like one, who, wild and pale,

Spurs, hag-led, through the night and hail:

When, lo! adown a forest vale

An angel with the Holy Grail.