And to our age's drowsy blood

Still 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; At 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, 'Tis 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; Then Heaven tries 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,

An 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 seen

Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its
chalice,

And there's never a leaf nor a blade too

Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, Into 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;

We sit in the warm shade and feel right well

How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;

We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing

That skies are clear and grass is grow

ing;

The breeze comes whispering in our ear, That 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,

For 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!

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how; Everything is happy now,

Everything is upward striving; 'Tis as easy now for the heart to be

true

PART FIRST

I

"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, 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

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.

II

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:
'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,

But the churlish stone her assaults defied;
She could not scale the chilly wall,

Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free,
And gloomed by itself apart;
The season brimmed all other things up
Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup.

V

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,

Bending to counterfeit a breeze;

Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew
But silvery mosses that downward grew;
Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief
With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf;
Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear
For the gladness of heaven to shine
through, and here

He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops And 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 device Could match this winter-palace of ice; 'T was as if every image that mirrored lay In 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 masonry By 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 rafter

With lightsome green of ivy and holly; Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide

Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide;
The broad flame-pennons droop and flap

And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, Hunted 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 darks Like herds of startled deer.

DEAR M

December, 1846.

By way of saving time,
I'll do this letter up in rhyme,
Whose slim stream through four pages flows
Ere one is packed with tight-screwed prose,
Threading the tube of an epistle,
Smooth as a child's breath through a whistle.

The great attraction now of all
Is the "Bazaar" at Faneuil Hall,
Where swarm the anti-slavery folks
As thick, dear Miller, as your jokes.
There's GARRISON, his features very
Benign for an incendiary,

Beaming forth sunshine through his glasses
On the surrounding lads and lasses,
(No bee could blither be, or brisker,) —
A Pickwick somehow turned John Ziska,
His bump of firmness swelling up
Like a rye cupcake from its cup.
And there, too, was his English tea-set,
Which in his ear a kind of flea set
His Uncle Samuel for its beauty
Demanding sixty dollars duty,

('T was natural Sam should serve his trunk ill,

For G., you know, has cut his uncle,)
Whereas, had he but once made tea in't,
His uncle's ear had had the flea in 't,
There being not a cent of duty
On any pot that ever drew tea.

There was MARIA CHAPMAN, too,

of The Pennsylvania Freeman, where the verses were first published.

With her swift eyes of clear steel-blue,
The coiled-up mainspring of the Fair,
Originating every where

The expansive force without a sound
That whirls a hundred wheels around,
Herself meanwhile as calm and still
As the bare crown of Prospect Hill;
A noble woman, brave and apt,
Cumæan sibyl not more rapt,

Who might, with those fair tresses shorn,
The Maid of Orleans' casque have worn,
Herself the Joan of our Ark,
For every shaft a shining mark.

And there, too, was ELIZA FOLLEN,
Who scatters fruit-creating pollen
Where'er a blossom she can find
Hardy enough for Truth's north wind,
Each several point of all her face
Tremblingly bright with the inward grace,
As if all motion gave it light
Like phosphorescent seas at night.

There jokes our EDMUND, plainly son
Of him who bearded Jefferson,
A non-resistant by conviction,
But with a bump in contradiction,
So that whene'er it gets a chance
His pen delights to play the lance,
And - you may doubt it, or believe it.
Full at the head of Joshua Leavitt
The very calumet he'd launch,
And scourge him with the olive branch.
A master with the foils of wit,