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And he sat in the gateway and saw all night
The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold,
Through the window-slits of the castle old,
Build out its piers of ruddy light

Against the drift of the cold.

Part Second.

There was never a leaf on bush or tree,
The bare boughs rattled shudderingly;
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.

Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate,
For another heir in his earldom sate;
An old, bent man, worn out and frail,

He came back from seeking the Holy Grail;
Little he recked of his earldom's loss,

No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross,
But deep in his soul the sign he wore,
The badge of the suffering and the poor.

Sir Launfal's raiment, thin and spare,

Was idle mail 'gainst the barbèd air,
For it was just at the Christmas time;
So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime,
And sought for a shelter from cold and snow
In the light and warmth of long ago:

He sees the snake-like caravan crawl

O'er the edge of the desert, black and small,
Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one,

He can count the camels in the sun,

As over the red-hot sands they pass

To where, in its slender necklace of grass,
The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade,
And with its own self like an infant played,
And waved its signal of palms.

"For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms;"-
The happy camels may reach the spring,
But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing,
Tht leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone,
That cowers beside him, a thing as lone
And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas
In the desolate horror of his disease.

And Sir Launfal said, "I behold in thee
An image of Him who died on the tree;

Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns—

Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns—

And to thy life were not denied

The wounds in the hands and feet and side:

Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me;

Behold, through him, I give to thee!"

Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes
And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he
Remembered in what a haughtier guise

He had flung an alms to leprosie,

When he girt his young life up in gilded mail
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail.

The heart within him was ashes and 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,
'Twas a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread,
"Twas water out of a wooden bowl-

Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed,

And 'twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul.

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,

Shining and tall and fair and straight

As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate

Himself the Gate whereby men can

Enter the temple of God in Man.

His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine,
And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine,
Which mingle their softness and quiet in one
With the shaggy unrest they float down upon;
And the voice that was calmer than silence said,
"Lo, it is I, be not afraid!

In many climes, without avail,

Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail;
Behold it is here-this cup which thou
Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now;
This crust is my body broken for thee,
This water His blood that died on the 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."

Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound :-
"The Grail in my castle here is found!
Hang my idle armor up on the wall,
Let it be the spider's banquet hall;
He must be fenced with stronger mail
Who would seek and find the Holy Grail.”

The castle gate stands open now,

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 ground,

She lingers and smiles there the whole year round;

The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land

Has hall and bower at his command;

And there's no poor man in the North Countree

But is lord of the earldom as much as he.

FURTHER READING.-See American Classics for School, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., for admirable selections from American authors.

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INDEX,

BIOGRAPHICAL AND TOPICAL.

Addison, Joseph, b. at Milston, in 1672; entered Queen's College, Oxford, 1687, and passed to Magdalen College, 1689; a good scholar and a writer of Latin verse; intended for the Church, but Halifax persuaded him to enter the service of the state; a pension of £300 in 1699; visited France and Italy; lost the pension, and returned 1703; wrote The Campaign in praise of Marlborough; under-secretary of state in 1706; M. P. in 1708; secretary to Lord Wharton, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with salary of £2000, 1709; began with Steele The Spectator-a daily from March 1, 1711, to December, 1712, and revived as a tri-weekly in 1714. Again secretary to Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; took his seat at the Board of Trade in 1715, and began The Freeholder; married the countessdowager of Warwick in 1716, and lived three years to regret it; secretary of state, 1717; d. 1719...........195, 219-24 Adhelm, b. about 656, in Wessex; taught by the learned Adrian; entered the monastery at Malmesbury at the age of sixteen; afterwards abbot; went to Rome; upon his return helped to settle the dispute concerning the celebration of Easter: d. 707. 28 Ælfred, b. in Berkshire 848; sent at the age of five to Rome and again at the age of seven; remained there a year; came to the throne, 871; driven by the Danes from it; routed them at Eddington, 878; was recognized as king of all England, 886; rebuilt London that year; kingdom again invaded by

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211

70

Akenside, Mark. Andrew of Wyntoun.. Ascham, Roger, b. about 1515; took his B.A. at Cambridge, 1534; college lecturer on Greek in 1537; Toxophilus, 1544; famous for his penmanship; tutor to princess Elizabeth; Latin Secretary to Queens Mary and Elizabeth; The Schoolmaster published by his widow, 1570; believed that boys could be lured to learning by love better than driven to it by beating; d. 1568 73 Austen, Miss, b. at Steventon, 1775; educated by her father; novels picture the life of the middle classes; Scott says that her talent for describing the characters of ordinary life was most wonderful; d. 1817..... 269 Bacon, Lord, b. at London, 1561, son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, and nephew of Lord Burleigh; studied at Cambridge; visited France; returned to England at his father's death, 1579; admitted to the bar, 1582; M. P., 1589, and sat in every Parliament till 1614; was a noted speaker. "The fear of every man who heard him was, that he should make an end," says Ben Jonson; was counsellor-extraordinary

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