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 ;
Every thing is happy now,

Every thing is upward striving;

'T is as easy now for the heart to be true

As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,

'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; 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?

1

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 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.

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,

Though round it for leagues her pavilions 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.

13

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 lightsome as a locust-leaf,

and strong,

Sir Launfal flashed forth in his unscarred mail, To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail.

IV.

It was morning on hill and stream and tree,

And morning in the young knight's heart; Only the castle moodily

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' did 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,

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,

Better the blessing of the poor,

Though I turn me empty from his door;