225 But the wind without was eager and sharp, Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, And rattles and wrings

230

The icy strings,

Singing, in dreary monotone,

A Christmas carol of its own,

Whose burden still, as he might guess,

Was

"Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!" The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch

As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, 235 And he sat in the gateway and saw all night The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold,

Through the window-slits of the castle old,
Build out its piers of ruddy light
Against the drift of the cold.

PART SECOND.

I.

240 THERE was never a leaf on bush or tree, The bare boughs rattled shudderingly; The river was dumb and could not speak,

245

For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun;
A single crow on the tree-top bleak

From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun ;
Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold,

As if her veins were sapless and old,

And she rose up decrepitly

For a last dim look at earth and sea.

II.

250 Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, For another heir in the earldom sate;

An old, bent man, worn out and frail,

He came back from seeking the Holy Grail;

Little he recked of his earldom's loss,

255 No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, But deep in his soul the sign he wɔre,

The badge of the suffering and the poor.

III.

Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air, 260 For it was just at the Christmas time;

So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime,
And sought for a shelter from cold and snow
In the light and warmth of long-ago;

He sees the snake-like caravan crawl

265 O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, He can count the camels in the sun,

As over the red-hot sands they pass

To where, in its slender necklace of grass, 270 The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, And with its own self like an infant played, And waved its signal of palms.

IV.

"For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms; The happy camels may reach the spring, 275 But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing, The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, That cowers beside him, a thing as lone And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas In the desolate horror of his disease.

V.

180 And Sir Launfal said, -"I behold in thee An image of Him who died on the tree; Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns,

Thou also hast had the world's buffets and

scorns,

And to thy life were not denied

285 The wounds in the hands and feet and side:
Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me;
Behold, through him, I give to Thee!"

VI.

Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he 290 Remembered in what a haughtier guise

He had flung an alms to leprosie,

When he girt his young life up in gilded mail
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail.
The heart within him was ashes and dust;

295 He parted in twain his single crust,

He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink,
And gave the leper to eat and drink,

'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread,
'T was water out of a wooden bowl,

300 Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul.

VII.

As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face,

A light shone round about the place;

The leper no longer crouched at his side,

305 But stood before him glorified,

Shining and tall and fair and straight

As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate,
Himself the Gate whereby men can

Enter the temple of God in Man.

VIII.

310 His words were shed softer than leaves from the

pine,

And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the

brine,

That mingle their softness and quiet in one

With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; And the voice that was calmer than silence said, 315"Lo it is I, be not afraid!

In many climes, without avail,

Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail;
Behold, it is here, this cup which thou
Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now;
320 This crust is my body broken for thee,

This water His blood that died on the tree
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,

In whatso we share with another's need: Not what we give, but what we share,325 For the gift without the giver is bare;

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me."

IX.

Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound: "The Grail in my castle here is found! 330 Hang my idle armor up on the wall,

335

Let it be the spider's banquet-hall;
He must be fenced with stronger mail
Who would seek and find the Holy Grail."

X.

The castle gate stands open now,

And the wanderer is welcome to the hall
As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough;
No longer scowl the turrets tall,

The Summer's long siege at last is o'er;

When the first poor outcast went in at the door, 340 She entered with him in disguise,

And mastered the fortress by surprise;

There is no spot she loves so well on ground,

She lingers and smiles there the whole year round;
The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land

345 Has hall and bower at his command;

And there's no poor man in the North Countree
But is lord of the earldom as much as he.

II.

UNDER THE WILLOWS.

FRANK-HEARTED hostess of the field and wood,
Gypsy, whose roof is every spreading tree,
June is the pearl of our New England year.
Still a surprisal, though expected long,
5 Her coming startles. Long she lies in wait,
Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws coyly back,
Then, from some southern ambush in the sky,
With one great gush of blossom storms the world.
A week ago the sparrow was divine;

Io The bluebird, shifting his light load of song
From post to post along the cheerless fence,
Was as a rhymer ere the poet come;

But now, O rapture! sunshine winged and voiced,
Pipe blown through by the warm wild breath of the

West

15 Shepherding his soft droves of fleecy cloud,

Gladness of woods, skies, waters, all in one,