THE COMMEMORATION ODE

"According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus Christ 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. Sir Galahad was at last successful in findingit, as may be read in the seventeenth book of the Romance of King Arthur. Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the most exquisite of his poems."The plot (if I may give that name to anything so slight) of the following poem is my own, and, to serve its purposes, I have enlarged the circle of competition in search of the miraculous cup in such a manner as to include not only other persons than the heroes of the Round Table, but also a period of time subsequent to the date of King Arthur's reign."

"The plot (if I may give that name to anything so slight) of the following poem is my own, and, to serve its purposes, I have enlarged the circle of competition in search of the miraculous cup in such a manner as to include not only other persons than the heroes of the Round Table, but also a period of time subsequent to the date of King Arthur's reign."

In the last sentence there is a sly suggestion of Lowell's playfulness. Of course every one may compete in the search for the Grail, and the "time subsequent to King Arthur's reign" includes the present time. The Romance of King Arthur is theMorte Darthurof Sir Thomas Malory. Lowell's specific indebtedness to the medieval romances extended only to the use of the symbol of consecration to some noble purpose in the search for the Grail, and to the name of his hero. It is a free version of older French romances belonging to the Arthurian cycle.Sir Launfalis the title of a poem written by Sir Thomas Chestre in the reign of Henry VI, which may be found in Ritson'sAncient English Metrical Romances. There is nothing suggestive of Lowell's poem except the quality of generosity in the hero, who—

"gaf gyftys largelyche,Gold and sylver; and clodes ryche,To squyer and to knight."

One of Lowell's earlier poems,The Search, contains the germ ofThe Vision of Sir Launfal. It represents a search for Christ, first in nature's fair woods and fields, then in the "proud world" amid "power and wealth," and the search finally ends in "a hovel rude" where—

"The King I sought for meekly stood:A naked, hungry childClung round his gracious knee,And a poor hunted slave looked up and smiledTo bless the smile that set him free."

And Christ, the seeker learns, is not to be found by wandering through the world.

"His throne is with the outcast and the weak."

A similar fancy also is embodied in a little poem entitledA Parable. Christ goes through the world to see "How the men, my brethren, believe in me," and he finds "in church, and palace, and judgment-hall," a disregard for the primary principles of his teaching.

"Have ye founded your throne and altars, then,On the bodies and souls of living men?And think ye that building shall endure,Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?"

These early poems and passages in others written at about the same time, taken in connection with theVision, show how strongly the theme had seized upon Lowell's mind.

The structure of the poem is complicated and sometimes confusing. At the outset the student must notice that there is a story within a story. The action of the major story covers only a single night, and the hero of this story is the real Sir Launfal, who in his sleep dreams the minor story, the Vision. The action of this story covers the lifetime of the hero, the imaginary Sir Launfal, from early manhood to old age, and includes his wanderings in distant lands. The poem is constructed on the principles of contrast and parallelism. By holding to this method of structure throughout Lowell sacrificed the important artistic element of unity, especiallyin breaking the narrative with the Prelude to the second part. The first Prelude describing the beauty and inspiring joy of spring, typifying the buoyant youth and aspiring soul of Sir Launfal, corresponds to the second Prelude, describing the bleakness and desolation of winter, typifying the old age and desolated life of the hero. But beneath the surface of this wintry age there is a new soul of summer beauty, the warm love of suffering humanity, just as beneath the surface of the frozen brook there is an ice-palace of summer beauty. In Part First the gloomy castle with its joyless interior stands as the only cold and forbidding thing in the landscape, "like an outpost of winter;" so in Part Second the same castle with Christmas joys within is the only bright and gladsome object in the landscape. In Part First the castle gates never "might opened be"; in Part Second the "castle gates stand open now." And thus the student may find various details contrasted and paralleled. The symbolic meaning must be kept constantly in mind, or it will escape unobserved; for example, the cost of earthly things in comparison with the generosity of June corresponds to the churlish castle opposed to the inviting warmth of summer; and each symbolizes the proud, selfish, misguided heart of Sir Launfal in youth, in comparison with the humility and large Christian charity in old age. The student should search for these symbolic hints, passages in which "more is meant than meets the ear," but if he does not find all that the poet may or may not have intended in his dreamy design, there need be no detraction from the enjoyment of the poem.

Critical judgment uponThe Vision of Sir Launfalis generally severe in respect to its structural faults. Mr. Greenslet declares that "through half a century, nine readers out of ten have mistaken Lowell's meaning," even the "numerous commentators" have "interpretedthe poem as if the young knight actually adventured the quest and returned from it at the end of years, broken and old." This, however, must be regarded as a rather exaggerated estimate of the lack of unity and consistency in the poem. Stedman says: "I think thatThe Vision of Sir Launfalowed its success quite as much to a presentation of nature as to its misty legend. It really is a landscape poem, of which the lovely passage, 'And what is so rare as a day in June?' and the wintry prelude to Part Second, are the specific features." And the English critic, J. Churton Collins, thinks that "Sir Launfal, except for the beautiful nature pictures, scarcely rises above the level of an Ingoldsby Legend."

The popular judgment of the poem (which after all is the important judgment) is fairly stated by Mr. Greenslet: "There is probably no poem in American literature in which a visionary faculty like that [of Lowell] is expressed with such a firm command of poetic background and variety of music as inSir Launfal... its structure is far from perfect; yet for all that it has stood the searching test of time: it is beloved now by thousands of young American readers, for whom it has been a first initiation to the beauty of poetic idealism."

While studyingThe Vision of Sir Launfalthe student should be made familiar with Tennyson'sSir GalahadandThe Holy Grail, and the libretto of Wagner'sParsifal. Also Henry A. Abbey's magnificent series of mural paintings in the Boston Public Library, representing the Quest of the Holy Grail, may be utilized in theCopley Prints. If possible the story of Sir Galahad's search for the Grail in the seventeenth book of Sir Thomas Malory'sMorte Darthurshould be read. It would be well also to read Longfellow'sKing Robert of Sicily, which to some extent presents a likeness of motive and treatment.

In April, 1865, the Civil War was ended and peace was declared. On July 21 Harvard College held a solemn service in commemoration of her ninety-three sons who had been killed in the war. Eight of these fallen young heroes were of Lowell's own kindred. Personal grief thus added intensity to the deep passion of his utterance upon this great occasion. He was invited to give a poem, and the ode which he presented proved to be the supreme event of the noble service. The scene is thus described by Francis H. Underwood, who was in the audience:

"The services took place in the open air, in the presence of a great assembly. Prominent among the speakers were Major-General Meade, the hero of Gettysburg, and Major-General Devens. The wounds of the war were still fresh and bleeding, and the interest of the occasion was deep and thrilling. The summer afternoon was drawing to its close when the poet began the recital of the ode. No living audience could for the first time follow with intelligent appreciation the delivery of such a poem. To be sure, it had its obvious strong points and its sonorous charms; but, like all the later poems of the author, it is full of condensed thought and requires study. The reader to-day finds many passages whose force and beauty escaped him during the recital, but the effect of the poem at the time was overpowering. The face of the poet, always singularly expressive, was on this occasion almost transfigured—glowing, as if with an inward light. It was impossible to look away from it. Our age has furnished many great historic scenes, but this Commemoration combined the elements of grandeur and pathos, and produced an impression as lasting as life."

Of the delivery and immediate effect of the poem Mr.Greenslet says: "Some in the audience were thrilled and shaken by it, as Lowell himself was shaken in its delivery, yet he seems to have felt with some reason that it was not a complete and immediate success. Nor is this cause for wonder. The passion of the poem was too ideal, its woven harmonies too subtle to be readily communicated to so large an audience, mastered and mellowed though it was by a single deep mood. Nor was Lowell's elocution quite that of the deep-mouthed odist capable of interpreting such organ tones of verse. But no sooner was the poem published, with the matchless Lincoln strophe inserted, than its greatness and nobility were manifest."

The circumstances connected with the writing of the ode have been described by Lowell in his private letters. It appears that he was reluctant to undertake the task, and for several weeks his mind utterly refused to respond to the high duty put upon it. At last the sublime thought came to him upon the swift wings of inspiration. "The ode itself," he says, "was an improvisation. Two days before the commemoration I had told my friend Child that it was impossible—that I was dull as a door-mat. But the next day something gave me a jog, and the whole thing came out of me with a rush. I sat up all night writing it out clear, and took it on the morning of the day to Child." In another letter he says: "The poem was written with a vehement speed, which I thought I had lost in the skirts of my professor's gown. Till within two days of the celebration I was hopelessly dumb, and then it all came with a rush, literally making me lean (mi fece magro), and so nervous that I was weeks in getting over it." In a note in Scudder's biography of Lowell (Vol. II., p. 65), it is stated upon the authority of Mrs. Lowell that the poem was begun at ten o'clock the night before the commemoration day, and finished at four o'clock in the morning. "She opened her eyesto see him standing haggard, actually wasted by the stress of labor and the excitement which had carried him through a poem full of passion and fire, of five hundred and twenty-three lines, in the space of six hours."

Critical estimates are essentially in accord as to the deep significance and permanent poetic worth of this poem. Greenslet, the latest biographer of Lowell, says that the ode, "if not his most perfect, is surely his noblest and most splendid work," and adds: "Until the dream of human brotherhood is forgotten, the echo of its large music will not wholly die away." Professor Beers declares it to be, "although uneven, one of the finest occasional poems in the language, and the most important contribution which our Civil War has made to song." Of its exalted patriotism, George William Curtis says: "The patriotic heart of America throbs forever in Lincoln's Gettysburg address. But nowhere in literature is there a more magnificent and majestic personification of a country whose name is sacred to its children, nowhere a profounder passion of patriotic loyalty, than in the closing lines of the Commemoration Ode. The American whose heart, swayed by that lofty music, does not thrill and palpitate with solemn joy and high resolve does not yet know what it is to be an American."

With the praise of a discriminating criticism Stedman discusses the ode in hisPoets of America: "Another poet would have composed a less unequal ode; no American could have glorified it with braver passages, with whiter heat, with language and imagery so befitting impassioned thought. Tried by the rule that a true poet is at his best with the greatest theme, Lowell's strength is indisputable. The ode is no smooth-cut verse from Pentelicus, but a mass of rugged quartz, beautiful with prismatic crystals, and deep veined here and there with virgin gold. The early strophes, though opening with a fine abrupt line, 'weak-winged is song,' are scarcelyfirm and incisive. Lowell had to work up to his theme. In the third division, 'Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil,' he struck upon a new and musical intonation of the tenderest thoughts. The quaver of this melodious interlude carries the ode along, until the great strophe is reached,—

Such was he, our Martyr-Chief,

in which the man, Abraham Lincoln, whose death had but just closed the national tragedy, is delineated in a manner that gives this poet a preëminence, among those who capture likeness in enduring verse, that we award to Velasquez among those who fasten it upon the canvas. 'One of Plutarch's men' is before us, face to face; an historic character whom Lowell fully comprehended, and to whose height he reached in this great strophe. Scarcely less fine is his tearful, yet transfiguring, Avete to the sacred dead of the Commemoration. The weaker divisions of the production furnish a background to these passages, and at the close the poet rises with the invocation,—

'Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release!'

a strain which shows that when Lowell determinedly sets his mouth to the trumpet, the blast is that of Roncesvalles."

W.C. Brownell, the latest critic of Lowell's poetry, says of this poem: "The ode is too long, its evolution is defective, it contains verbiage, it preaches. But passages of it—the most famous having characteristically been interpolated after its delivery—are equal to anything of the kind. The temptation to quote from it is hard to withstand. It is the cap-sheaf of Lowell's achievement." In this ode "he reaches, if he does not throughout maintain, his own 'clear-ethered height' and hisverse has the elevation of ecstasy and the splendor of the sublime."

The versification of this poem should be studied with some particularity. Of the forms of lyric expression the ode is the most elaborate and dignified. It is adapted only to lofty themes and stately occasions. Great liberty is allowed in the choice and arrangement of its meter, rhymes, and stanzaic forms, that its varied form and movement may follow the changing phases of the sentiment and passion called forth by the theme. Lowell has given us an account of his own consideration of this matter. "My problem," he says, "was to contrive a measure which should not be tedious by uniformity, which should vary with varying moods, in which the transitions (including those of the voice) should be managed without jar. I at first thought of mixed rhymed and blank verses of unequal measures, like those in the choruses ofSamson Agonistes, which are in the main masterly. Of course, Milton deliberately departed from that stricter form of Greek chorus to which it was bound quite as much (I suspect) by the law of its musical accompaniment as by any sense of symmetry. I wrote some stanzas of theCommemoration Odeon this theory at first, leaving some verses without a rhyme to match. But my ear was better pleased when the rhyme, coming at a longer interval, as a far-off echo rather than instant reverberation, produced the same effect almost, and yet was gratified by unexpectedly recalling an association and faint reminiscence of consonance."

Horace E. Scudder:James Russell Lowell: A Biography. 2 vols. The standard biography.

Ferris Greenslet:James Russell Lowell: His Life and Work. The latest biography (1905) and very satisfactory.

Francis H. Underwood:James Russell Lowell: A Biographical Sketch and Lowell the Poet and the Man. Interesting recollections of a personal friend and editorial associate.

Edward Everett Hale:Lowell and His Friends.

Edward Everett Hale, Jr.:James Russell Lowell. (Beacon Biographies.)

Charles Eliot Norton:Letters of James Russell Lowell. 2 vols. Invaluable and delightful.

Edmund Clarence Stedman:Poets of America.

W.C. Brownell:James Russell Lowell. (Scribner's Magazine, February, 1907.) The most recent critical estimate.

George William Curtis:James Russell Lowell: An Address.

John Churton Collins.Studies in Poetry and Criticism, "Poetry and Poets of America." Excellent as an English estimate.

Barrett Wendell:Literary History of AmericaandStelligeri, "Mr. Lowell as a Teacher."

Henry James:Essays in London and Library of the World's Best Literature.

George E. Woodberry:Makers of Literature.

William Watson:Excursions in Criticism.

W.D. Howells:Literary Friends and Acquaintance.

Charles E. Richardson:American Literature.

M.A. DeWolfe Howe:American Bookmen.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson:Old Cambridge.

Frank Preston Stearns:Cambridge Sketches. 1905.

Richard Burton:Literary Leaders of America. 1904.

John White Chadwick: Chambers'sCyclopedia of English Literature.

Hamilton Wright Mabie:My Study Fire. Second Series, "Lowell's Letters."

Margaret Fuller:Art, Literature and the Drama. 1859.

Richard Henry Stoddard:Recollections, Personal and Literary, "At Lowell's Fireside."

Edwin P. Whipple:Outlooks on Society, Literature and Politics, "Lowell as a Prose Writer."

H.R. Haweis:American Humorists.

Bayard Taylor:Essays and Notes.

G.W. Smalley:London Letters, Vol. 1., "Mr. Lowell, why the English liked him."

Longfellow'sHerons of Elmwood; Whittier'sA Welcome to Lowell; Holmes'sFarewell to Lowell, At a Birthday Festival, andTo James Russell Lowell; Aldrich'sElmwood; Margaret J. Preston'sHome-Welcome to Lowell; Richard Watson Gilder'sLowell; Christopher P. Cranch'sTo J.R.L. on His Fiftieth Birthday, andTo J.R.L. on His Homeward Voyage; James Kenneth Stephen'sIn Memoriam; James Russell Lowell, "Lapsus Calami and Other Verses"; William W. Story'sTo James Russell Lowell, Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. 150; Eugene Field'sJames Russell Lowell; Edith Thomas'sOn Reading Lowell's "Heartsease and Rue."

Over his keys the musing organist,Beginning doubtfully and far away,First lets his fingers wander as they list,And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay:5Then, as the touch of his loved instrumentGives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme,First guessed by faint auroral flushes sentAlong the wavering vista of his dream.Not only around our infancy10Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,We Sinais, climb and know it not.Over our manhood bend the skies;Against our fallen and traitor lives15The great winds utter prophecies;With our faint hearts the mountain strives;Its arms outstretched, the druid woodWaits with its benedicite;And to our age's drowsy blood20Still shouts the inspiring sea.Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,We bargain for the graves we lie in:25At the Devil's booth are all things sold,Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;For a cap and bells our lives we pay,Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking'T is heaven alone that is given away,30'T is only God may be had for the asking;No price is set on the lavish summer;June may be had by the poorest comer.And what is so rare as a day in June?Then, if ever, come perfect days;35Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,And over it softly her warm ear lays:Whether we look, or whether we listen,We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;Every clod feels a stir of might,40An instinct within it that reaches and towers,And, groping blindly above it for light,Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;The flush of life may well be seenThrilling back over hills and valleys;45The cowslip startles in meadows green,The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,And there's never a leaf nor a blade too meanTo be some happy creature's palace;The little bird sits at his door in the sun,50Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,And lets his illumined being o'errunWith the deluge of summer it receives;His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;55He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,—In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?Now is the high-tide of the yearAnd whatever of life hath ebbed awayComes flooding back, with a ripply cheer,60Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,We are happy now, because God wills it;No matter how barren the past may have been,'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green;65We sit in the warm shade and feel right wellHow the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowingThat skies are clear and grass is growing:The breeze comes whispering in our ear70That dandelions are blossoming near,That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,That the river is bluer than the sky,That the robin is plastering his house hard by;And if the breeze kept the good news back,75For other couriers we should not lack;We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,—And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,Warmed with the new wine of the year,Tells all in his lusty crowing!80Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;Everything is happy now,Everything is upward striving;'T is as easy now for the heart to be trueAs for grass to be green or skies to be blue,—85'T is the natural way of living:Who knows whither the clouds have fled?In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake;And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;90The soul partakes the season's youth,And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woeLie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.What wonder if Sir Launfal now95Remembered the keeping of his vow?

Not only around our infancy10Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,We Sinais, climb and know it not.Over our manhood bend the skies;Against our fallen and traitor lives15The great winds utter prophecies;With our faint hearts the mountain strives;Its arms outstretched, the druid woodWaits with its benedicite;And to our age's drowsy blood20Still shouts the inspiring sea.

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,We bargain for the graves we lie in:25At the Devil's booth are all things sold,Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;For a cap and bells our lives we pay,Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking'T is heaven alone that is given away,30'T is only God may be had for the asking;No price is set on the lavish summer;June may be had by the poorest comer.

And what is so rare as a day in June?Then, if ever, come perfect days;35Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,And over it softly her warm ear lays:Whether we look, or whether we listen,We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;Every clod feels a stir of might,40An instinct within it that reaches and towers,And, groping blindly above it for light,Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;The flush of life may well be seenThrilling back over hills and valleys;45The cowslip startles in meadows green,The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,And there's never a leaf nor a blade too meanTo be some happy creature's palace;The little bird sits at his door in the sun,50Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,And lets his illumined being o'errunWith the deluge of summer it receives;His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;55He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,—In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

Now is the high-tide of the yearAnd whatever of life hath ebbed awayComes flooding back, with a ripply cheer,60Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,We are happy now, because God wills it;No matter how barren the past may have been,'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green;65We sit in the warm shade and feel right wellHow the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowingThat skies are clear and grass is growing:The breeze comes whispering in our ear70That dandelions are blossoming near,That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,That the river is bluer than the sky,That the robin is plastering his house hard by;And if the breeze kept the good news back,75For other couriers we should not lack;We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,—And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,Warmed with the new wine of the year,Tells all in his lusty crowing!

80Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;Everything is happy now,Everything is upward striving;'T is as easy now for the heart to be trueAs for grass to be green or skies to be blue,—85'T is the natural way of living:Who knows whither the clouds have fled?In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake;And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;90The soul partakes the season's youth,And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woeLie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.What wonder if Sir Launfal now95Remembered the keeping of his vow?

"My golden spurs now bring to me.And bring to me my richest mail,For to-morrow I go over land and seaIn search of the Holy Grail:100Shall 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 true105Ere 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.

II.

The crows flapped over by twos and threes,110In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees,The little birds sang as if it wereThe one day of summer in all the year,And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees:The castle alone in the landscape lay115Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray;'T was 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,120But the churlish stone her assaults defied;She could not scale the chilly wall,Though around it for leagues her pavilions tallStretched left and right,Over the hills and out of sight;125Green and broad was every tent,And out of each a murmur wentTill the breeze fell off at night.

III.

The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang,And through the dark arch a charger sprang,130Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight,In his gilded mail, that flamed so brightIt seemed the dark castle had gathered allThose shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wallIn his siege of three hundred summers long,135And, 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 maiden mail,To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail.

IV.

140It was morning on hill and stream and tree,And morning in the young knight's heart;Only the castle moodilyRebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free,And gloomed by itself apart;145The season brimmed all other things upFull as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup.

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;150And 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 stillLike a frozen waterfall;155For 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.

VI.

The leper raised not the gold from the dust:"Better to me the poor man's crust,160Better 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 only the worthless gold165Who 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 BeautyWhich runs through, ail and doth all unite,—170The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms,The heart outstretches its eager palms,For a god goes with it and makes it storeTo the soul that was starving in darkness before."

Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak,175From the snow five thousand summers old;On open, wold and hill-top bleakIt had gathered all the cold,And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek:It carried a shiver everywhere180From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare;The little brook heard it and built a roof'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof;All night by the white stars' frosty gleamsHe groined his arches and matched his beams:185Slender and clear were his crystal sparsAs the lashes of light that trim the stars;He sculptured every summer delightIn his halls and chambers out of sight;Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt190Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt,Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed treesBending to counterfeit a breeze;Sometimes the roof no fretwork knewBut silvery mosses that downward grew;195Sometimes it was carved in sharp reliefWith quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf;Sometimes it was simply smooth and clearFor the gladness of heaven to shine through, and hereHe had caught the nodding bulrush-tops200And hung them thickly with diamond-drops,That crystalled the beams of moon and sun,And made a star of every one:No mortal builder's most rare deviceCould match this winter-palace of ice;205'Twas as if every image that mirrored layIn his depths serene through the summer day,Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky,Lest the happy model should be lost,Had been mimicked in fairy masonry210By the elfin builders of the frost.Within the hall are song and laughter.The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly,And sprouting is every corbel and rafterWith lightsome green of ivy and holly:215Through the deep gulf of the chimney wideWallows the Yule-log's roaring tide;The broad flame-pennons droop and flapAnd belly and tug as a flag in the wind;Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap,220Hunted to death in its galleries blind;And swift little troops of silent sparks,Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear,Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darksLike herds of startled deer.225But the wind without was eager and sharp,Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp,And rattles and wringsThe icy strings,Singing, in dreary monotone,230A Christmas carol of its own,Whose burden still, as he might guess,Was—"Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!"The voice of the seneschal flared like a torchAs he shouted the wanderer away from the porch,235And he sat in the gateway and saw all nightThe great hall-fire, so cheery and bold,Through the window-slits of the castle old,Build out its piers of ruddy lightAgainst the drift of the cold.

Within the hall are song and laughter.The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly,And sprouting is every corbel and rafterWith lightsome green of ivy and holly:215Through the deep gulf of the chimney wideWallows the Yule-log's roaring tide;The broad flame-pennons droop and flapAnd belly and tug as a flag in the wind;Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap,220Hunted to death in its galleries blind;And swift little troops of silent sparks,Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear,Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darksLike herds of startled deer.

225But the wind without was eager and sharp,Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp,And rattles and wringsThe icy strings,Singing, in dreary monotone,230A Christmas carol of its own,Whose burden still, as he might guess,Was—"Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!"

The voice of the seneschal flared like a torchAs he shouted the wanderer away from the porch,235And he sat in the gateway and saw all nightThe great hall-fire, so cheery and bold,Through the window-slits of the castle old,Build out its piers of ruddy lightAgainst the drift of the cold.

240There was never a leaf on bush or tree,The bare boughs rattled shudderingly;The river was dumb and could not speak,For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun;A single crow on the tree-top bleak245From 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 decrepitlyFor a last dim look at earth and sea.

II.

250Sir 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,255No 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.

III.

Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spareWas idle mail 'gainst the barbed air,260For 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 snowIn the light and warmth of long ago;He sees the snake-like caravan crawl265O'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 passTo where, in its slender necklace of grass,270The 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,275But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing,The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone,That cowers beside him, a thing as loneAnd white as the ice-isles of Northern seasIn the desolate horror of his disease.

280And Sir Launfal said,—"I behold in theeAn 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 denied285The 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 eyesAnd looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he290Remembered in what a haughtier guiseHe had flung an alms to leprosie,When he girt his young life up in gilded mailAnd set forth in search of the Holy Grail.The heart within him was ashes and dust;295He 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 moldy crust of coarse brown bread,'T was water out of a wooden bowl,—300Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed,And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul.

VII.

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