Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear

For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here
He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops

Aud 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;
'Twas as if every image that mirrored lay
In his depths serene through the summer day,
Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky,

Lest the happy model should be lost,
Had been mimicked in fairy masonry
By the elfin builders of the frost.

Within the hall are song and laughter,

The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly,
And sprouting is every corbel and rafter

With the lightsome green of ivy and holly;
Through the deep gulf of the chimney 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;
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap,

Hunted to death in its galleries blind; And swift little troops of silent sparks,

Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks Like herds of startled deer.

But the wind without was eager and sharp,
Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp,
And rattles and wrings

The icy strings,

Singing, in dreary monotone,

A Christmas carol of its own,

Whose burden still, as he might guess,
Was-"Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!"

The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch
As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch,

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.

Whittier's The Eternal Goodness.

O friends! with whom my feet have trod
The quiet aisles of prayer,

Glad witness to your zeal for God
And love of man I bear.

I trace your lines of argument;
Your logic, linked and strong,
I weigh as one who dreads dissent,
And fears a doubt as wrong.

But still my human hands are weak
To hold your iron creeds;
Against the words ye bid me speak
My heart within me pleads.

Who fathoms the Eternal Thought?
Who talks of scheme and plan?
The Lord is God! He needeth not
The poor device of man.

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground
Ye tread, with boldness shod;

I dare not fix with mete and bound
The love and power of God.

Ye praise His justice; even such
His pitying love I deem:

Ye seek a king; I fain would touch
The robe that hath no seam.

Ye see the curse which overbroods
A world of pain and loss;
I hear our Lord's beatitudes,
And prayer upon the cross.

More than your schoolmen teach, within
Myself, alas! I know;

Too dark ye cannot paint the sin,

Too small the merit show.

I bow my forehead to the dust,
I veil mine eyes for shame,
And urge, in trembling self-distrust,
A prayer without a claim.