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, 66 The Summer's long siege at last is o'er; When the first poor outcast went in at the door, 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 serf67 on Sir Launfal's land Has halles and bower69 at his command; And there's no poor man in the North Countree But is lord of the earldom as much as he. -James Russell Lowell. EXERCISES PRELUDE TO PART FIRST Words and Expressions for Study: musing organist, list, lay, fervor, theme, faint auroral flushes, wavering vista, cringe, Sinais, fallen and traitor lives, druid wood, benedicite, shrives, Devil's booth, dross, cap and bells, bubbles, a whole soul's tasking, climbs to a Soul, chalice, chanticleer, unscarred heaven, sulphurous rifts, burnt-out craters. 1. What is suggested by the word "Vision"? 65 Hangbird. The Baltimore oriole, which, like some other birds, builds a nest that hangs from the bough of a tree. 66 Turrets. Small towers. 67 Serf. In the Middle Ages, a member of the lowest class of servants, who were sold with the land. The meanest serf is the one lowest in rank. 68 Hall. The great public room of a mediaeval castle. 69 Bower. A chamber. 2. Tell the story of the Holy Grail. 3. What is a prelude? 4. What, in the second stanza, has Lowell added to Wordsworth's "Heaven lies about us in our infancy"? 5. Explain "We Sinais climb and know it not." 6. What five influences plead with each individual to be his best? 7. What is the meaning of the general statement in line 21? 8. According to Lowell, how many things have to be paid for? 9. Explain "For a cap and bells our lives we pay." 10. What, then, is the meaning of away"? ""Tis heaven alone that is given 11. Memorize lines 33-42 and 80-85. 12. What central thought connects the stanzas of the prelude? 13. Why does Sir Launfal now remember the keeping of his vow? 14. What is his vow? PART FIRST Words and Expressions for Study: richest mail, rushes, high degree, besieged, churlish stone, pavilions tall, tent, drawbridge, surly clang, charger, maiden knight, unscarred mail, rebuffed, loathing, alms, all-sustaining Beauty. 15. What now makes us feel that he is going to keep his vow? 16. What is the vision that flew into his soul as he slept on the rushes? 17. Describe the landscape around "the proudest hall in the North Countree." 18. Select the passages which tell us the character of the young knight as he sets out. 19. Explain "the maiden knight." 20. Explain "made morn through the darksome gate." 21. Just what tells you the condition of the leper? 22. How did the appearance of the leper affect Sir Launfal? 23. What is shown of Sir Launfal in that "he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn"? 24. Why did not the leper raise the gold from the dust? 25. Give in your own words the substance of the leper's thought, lines 160-173. PRELUDE TO PART SECOND Words and Expressions for Study: wold, groined, matched his beams, crystal spars, frost-leaved forest-crypt, steelstemmed, counterfeit, fretwork, arabesques, crystalled the beams, fairy masonry, elfin builders, corbel, Yule-log, flamepennons, belly and tug, soot-forest's tangled darks, seneschal, piers of ruddy light. 26. Why does Lowell choose a winter scene for the Prelude to Part Second? 27. What time has elapsed between the two parts of the poem? 28. Contrast winter here with June in the Prelude to Part First. 29. By what sharp contrasts is the desolate condition of the wanderer shown? 30. Contrast the Sir Launfal at starting with the Sir Launfal pictured to us in this Prelude. 31. What "Christmas Carol" did the icy wind sing him? PART SECOND Words and Expressions for Study: rattled shudderingly, sapless, decrepitly, earldom, recked, surcoat, blazoned the cross, sign, idle mail, snake-like caravan, slender necklace of grass, waved its signal of palms, grewsome, rain-blanched bone, tree, buffets, ashes and dust, Beautiful Gate, shaggy unrest, Holy Supper. 32. Describe Sir Launfal as pictured to us in stanza 2. 33. What interrupted Sir Launfal's musings? 34. What shows to us the desolate horror of the leper's disease? 35. What change has come over Sir Launfal? 36. What causes Sir Launfal to see in the leper "an image of Him who died on the tree"? 37. How did Sir Launfal keep the Holy Supper? 38. Explain stanza 7. 39. What did Sir Launfal learn from his vision? 40. What proof that he learned the lesson? 41. How may each one learn the same lesson without going on a pilgrimage? ADDITIONAL READINGS LOWELL: The Search. The. Present Crisis. Stanzas on Freedom. Yussouf. WHITTIER: The Brother of Mercy. The Eternal Goodness. Laus Deo. TENNYSON: The Holy Grail. Sir Galahad. HUNT: Abou Ben Adhem. LONGFELLOW: Santa Filomena. The Legend Beautiful. Excelsior. BUNYAN: Pilgrim's Progress. STEVENSON: The House Beautiful. PIATT: The Gift of Empty Hands. IAN MACLAREN: Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush. MATTHEW Xxv, 34-46. LUKE X, 25-37: Story of the Good Samaritan. MASON: The Voyage. WORDSWORTH: The Wishing-Gate. BROOKS: The Beauty of a Life of Service. MY SYMPHONY To live content with small means. To seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion. To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich. To study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly. To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart. To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony. -William Ellery Channing. THANATOPSIS "THANATOPSIS alone would establish a claim to genius," said the Scottish author, Sir Christopher North, when he read this wonderful poem. Young William Cullen Bryant had been encouraged by his father to read and to write poetry. At the age of sixteen, the young man entered the sophomore class of Williams College with a reputation for writing poetry "that was printed." His money gave out, however, and his college course was cut short. Greatly disappointed, he returned to his home and began to study law. At this time, while not yet eighteen years of age, he wrote the first draft of Thanatopsis. Six years later, his father came upon the manuscript by mere chance and at once recognized the merit of the poem. Without a word, the proud father hastened to Boston and placed the poem in the hands of the editor of the North American Review. The story is that the editor at once left his work and hurried to Harvard College to show his fellow editors what a rare "find" he had made. One of the editors, the distinguished Richard Henry Dana, is said to have declared "that there was some fraud in the |