It carried a shiver everywhere From the unleafed boughs and pas tures bare; Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, Lest the happy model should be lost, The little brook heard it and built a Had been mimicked in fairy masonry roof 'Neath which he could house him, win ter-proof; All night by the white stars' frosty gleams By the elfin builders of the frost. Within the hall are song and laughter, The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, He groined his arches and matched his And sprouting is every corbel and As the lashes of light that trim the Through the deep gulf of the chimney stars; He sculptured every summer delight In his halls and chambers out of sight; Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt Down through a frost-leaved forest crypt, 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; Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed Like a locust shrills the imprisoned 'T was as if every image that mirrored The voice of the seneschal flared like And he sat in the gateway and saw all night And sought for a shelter from cold and snow The great hall-fire, so cheery and In the light and warmth of long ago; bold, He sees the snake-like caravan crawl Through the window-slits of the O'er the edge of the desert, black and castle old, Build out its piers of ruddy light Against the drift of the cold. PART SECOND. I. THERE was never a leaf on bush or tree, small, Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, He can count the camels in the sun, To where, in its slender necklace of grass, The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, The bare boughs rattled shudderingly; And with its own self like an infant The river was dumb and could not speak, For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun; A single crow on the tree-top bleak From 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 decrepitly For a last dim look at earth and sea. II. played, Sir Launfal turned from his own hard And white as the ice-isles of Northern And Sir Launfal said, "I behold in thee Little he recked of his earldom's loss, Remembered in what a haughtier In many climes, without avail, And set forth in search of the Holy Didst fill at the streamlet for me but Grail. now; The heart within him was ashes and This crust is my body broken for thee, This water his blood that died on the 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, 'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, 'Twas water out of a wooden bowl, — Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. tree; The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, In whatso we share with 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." IX. VII. 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, X. Shining and tall and fair and straight The castle gate stands open now, tiful Gate, Himself the Gate whereby men can Enter the temple of God in Man. VIII. His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine, That mingle their softness and quiet in one And the wanderer is welcome to the hall As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough; No longer scowl the turrets tall, 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 | Has hall and bower at his command; And there's no poor man in the North ground, THE PIONEER. WHAT man would live coffined with brick and stone, Imprisoned from the healing touch of air, And cramped with selfish landmarks everywhere, What man with men would push and altercate, Piecing out crooked means to crooked ends, When he can have the skies and woods for friends, When all before him stretches, furrow- Snatch back the rudder of his undis What man would watch life's oozy element Creep Letheward forever, when he might Down some great river drift be yond men's sight, To where the undethroned forest's Yet not with mutual help; each man |
