4. "My golden spurs now bring to me,
And bring to me my richest mail,
For to-morrow I go over land and sea
In search of the Holy Grail;

Shall never a bed for me be spread,
Nor shall a pillow be under my head,
Till I begin my vow to keep;
Here on the rushes will I sleep,

And perchance there may come a vision true
Ere day create the world anew.”

Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim,
Slumber fell like a cloud on him,

And into his soul the vision flew.

5. The crows flapped over by twos and threes, In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees, The little birds sang as if it were

The one day of summer in all the year,

And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees; The castle alone in the landscape lay

Like an outpost of winter dull and gray;

'Twas the proudest hall in the North Countree,
And never its gates might opened be,
Save to lord or lady of high degree;
Summer besieged it on every side,

But the churlish stone her assaults defied;

She could not scale the chilly wall,

Though round it for leagues her pavilions tall

Stretched left and right,

Over the hills and out of sight;

Green and broad was every tent,

And out of each a murmur went Till the breeze fell off at night.

6. The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang, And through the dark arch a charger sprang, Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight,

In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright,
It seemed the dark castle had gathered all
Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall
In his siege of three hundred summers long;
And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf,
Had cast them forth so young and strong,
And lightsome as a locust-leaf,

Sir Launfal flashed forth in his unscarred mail,
To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail.

7. As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate,
He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the same,
Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate;
And a loathing over Sir Launfal came;

The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill,
The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink and crawl,
And midway its leap his heart stood still

Like a frozen waterfall;

For this man so foul and bent of stature,
Rasped harshly against his dainty nature,
And seemed the one blot on the summer morn,-
So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn.

8. The leper raised not the gold from the dust :
"Better to me the poor man's crust;
Better the blessing of the poor,

Though I turn me empty from his door;
That is no true alms which the hand can hold ;
He gives nothing but worthless gold

Who gives from a sense of duty;

But he who gives a slender mite,
And gives to that which is out of sight,
That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty
Which runs through all and doth all unite,-
The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms,
The heart outstretches its eager palms,

For a god goes with it and makes it store

To the soul that was starving in darkness before."

According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus partook of the last supper with his disciples. It was brought into England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years in the keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon those who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word and deed: but one of the keepers having broken this condition, the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it was a favorite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's court to go in search of it.

LESSON XXIX.

THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL.

W

PART SECOND.

ITHIN the hall are song and laughter,

The cheeks of Christmas grow red and jolly,
And sprouting is every corbel and rafter
With lightsome green of ivy and holly.
But the wind without was eager and sharp,
Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp,
And rattles and wrings

The icy strings,

Singing in dreary monotone,

A Christmas carol of its own,

Whose burden still, as he might guess,

Was Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!"

2. Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate,
For another heir in his 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,

No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross,
But deep in his soul the sign he wore,
The badge of the suffering and the poor.

3. Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare
Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed' air,

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

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,
The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade,
And waved its signal of palms.

And with its own self like an infant played,
And waved its signal of palms.

4. "For Christ's sweet sake I beg an alms;"
The happy camels may reach the spring,
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.

5. 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

The wounds in the hands, and feet and side:
Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me;

Behold, through him I give to Thee!"

6. Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he 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;

He parted in twain his single crust,

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

'Twas a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread,
"Twas water out of a wooden bowl,—

Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed,

And 'twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul.

7. As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face,

A light shone round about the place;

The leper no longer crouched at his side,
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.

8. His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine, Which mingle their softness and quiet in one

With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; And the voice that was calmer than silence said, "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;

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 in another's need;
Not what we give, but what we share,—

For the gift without the giver is bare;
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,-
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.'

9. Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound :-
"The Grail in my castle here is found!