laid low the snow-white swan,--
He whom in anger I thrust out-of-doors.
Where has he wandered since that luckless day?
But look! Behold the spear! It is the Spear
For which my eager heart has longed and prayed!
O holy day, on which the Spear comes home!
O happy day to which my soul awakes!"

And when the knight had ended all his prayer,
He slowly rose, and looked about and saw
The aged hermit, snowy-crowned with age;
And suddenly he knew that kindly form,
And rushed to Gurnemanz with eager face,
And crying: "Good my friend, all hail to thee!
Thank Heaven that I find thee once again!"

And Gurnemanz: "Dost thou remember me,
After so many long and weary years,
And bent with grief and care as now I am,
And covered with the clustering snow of age?
But tell me, what has passed since last we met?
And how didst thou come here, and whence, and why?"

And Parsifal--for it was he--replied:
"Through error and through sufferings I come,
Through many failures and through countless woes.
Thus was the guileless One at last enlightened,
And taught the depths of pity and of love.
And can it be that now the trials are ended
And peace has come, and holiness at last?
Yet here I am within this holy wood,
And here art thou, dear servant of the Grail.
But, do I err, this place seems somehow changed
From what it was in days of yore? The life,
The joy seem to have vanished, and I feel
As if a cloud hung over Monsalvat."

Then Gurnemanz: "Too true thine every word,
But tell me, pray, for whom thou here dost seek?"

And with a wondrous light within his eyes,
Did Parsifal with earnest words reply:
"I come to him whose piteous moans of pain
I heard long years ago, nor understood.--
The guileless One went forth from thee a boy,
Impetuous, fierce, who did not know himself;
He comes again a man with tenderest pity,
And deep experience and heart enlightened,
To be the healer of the stricken King.
But long the course by which I learned the way,
And bitter all the wanderings, where sin
Had laid its snares, and sought to curse my soul.
Many the perils and right fierce the strife,
Yet clung I to the pathway of the right.
And at the last I won the sacred Spear
By God's good mercy and His boundless love.
But even with the Spear within my hands
Oft came a fearful dread upon my heart,
Lest I might lose this treasure that He gave
Into my keeping, for never durst I use
This sacred Spear in battle-blows or strife,--
It was for healing woun