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 Dreamland for his lay:

Then, as the touch of his loved instrument

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws 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;
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb and know it not.

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

With our faint hearts the mountain strives,

Its arms outstretched, the druid wood
Waits with its benedicite,
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

Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's

tasking:

'Tis 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 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,

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 mean

To be some happy creature's palace; The little bird sits at his door in the sun, Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives;

His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,

And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;

He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,

In the nice ear of Nature which song the best?

is

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 blossoms 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,

For other couriers we should not lack; We could guess it all by yon heifer's

lowing,

Like burnt-out craters healed with

snow.

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

PART FIRST.

1.

"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.

11.

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 bo,
Save to lord or lady of high degree:
Summer besieged it on every side,
But the churlish stone her assaults de-
fied;

She could not scale the chilly wall,
Though around it for leagues her pa
vilions 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.

III.

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.

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

He sculptured every summer delight In his halls and chambers out of sight; Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt Down through a frost-leaved forestcrypt,

Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed

trees

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 bulrushtops

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 sum.