THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL.

PRELUDE TO PART FIRST.

OVER his keys the musing organist,
Beginning doubtfully and far away,
First lets his fingers wander as they
list,

And builds a bridge from Dream-
land for his lay:

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,

Then, as the touch of his loved instru- 'Tis only God may be had for the

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws No price is set on the lavish summer ; June may be had by the poorest comer.

his theme, First guessed by faint auroral flushes

sent

Along the wavering vista of his dream.

Not only around our infancy
Doth heaven with all its splendors

lie;

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then 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;

Daily, with souls that cringe and Every clod feels a stir of might,

plot,

We Sinais climb and know it not.

Over our manhood bend the skies;
Against our fallen and traitor lives
The great winds utter prophecies;

With our faint hearts the mountain

strives;

An instinct within it that reaches

and towers,

And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flow-

ers;

The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys;

Its arms outstretched, the druid wood The cowslip startles in meadows green,

His mate feels the eggs beneath her | Warmed with the new wine of the

wings,

And the heart in her dumb breast flut

ters and sings;

year,

Tells all in his lusty crowing!

He sings to the wide world, and she to Joy comes, grief goes, we know not

In the nice ear of Nature which song Everything is happy now,

is the best?

Now is the high-tide of the year,

Everything is upward striving;

'T is as easy now for the heart to be

true

And whatever of life hath ebbed As for grass to be green or skies to be

away

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,

'Tis 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 blos

soms swell;

We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing

That skies are clear and grass is growing;

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,

blue,

'Tis 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;

The soul partakes the season's youth,
And the sulphurous rifts of passion

and woe

Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,

Like burnt-out craters healed with

snow.

What wonder if Sir Launfal now
Remembered the keeping of his vow?

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,

For other couriers we should not Till I begin my vow to keep;

In the pool drowsed the cattle up to Sir Launfal flashed forth in his maiden

And the very leaves seemed to sing on It was morning on hill and stream and

'T was the proudest hall in the North Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, And gloomed by itself apart ;

And never its gates might opened The season brimmed all other things

Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden For this man, so foul and bent of stat

In his gilded mail, that flamed so Rasped harshly against his dainty na

It seemed the dark castle had gath- And seemed the one blot on the sum

Those shafts the fierce sun had shot So he tossed him a piece of gold in

Though I turn me empty from his To the soul that was starving in dark

door;

That is no true alms which the hand

can hold ;

He gives only the worthless gold

Who gives from a sense of duty; But he who gives but a slender mite, And gives to that which is out of

sight,

ness before."

PRELUDE TO PART SECOND.

Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak,

From the snow five thousand summers old;

That thread of the all-sustaining On open wold and hill-top bleak

Beauty

It had gathered all the cold,

Which runs through all and doth all And whirled it like sleet on the wan

unite,

derer's cheek;