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, But the churlish stone her assaults defied; Though around it for leagues her pavilions tall 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, Had cast them forth: so, young and strong, Sir Launfal flashed forth in his maiden mail, 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 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 'gan shrink and crawl, And midway its leap his heart stood still Like a frozen waterfall; For this man, so foul and bent of stature, And seemed the one blot on the summer morn,— 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; Who gives from a sense of duty; But he who gives but a slender mite, That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty To the soul that was starving in darkness before." PRELUDE TO PART SECOND Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, On open wold and hilltop bleak It had gathered all the cold, And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek; It carried a shiver everywhere From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare; The little brook heard it and built a roof As the flashes of light that trim the stars; He sculptured every summer delight For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here And hung them thickly with diamond-drops, And made a star of every one: No mortal builder's most rare device 'T was as if every image that mirrored lay In his depths serene through the summer day, Within the hall are song and laughter, With lightsome green of ivy and holly; And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; 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, 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 I THERE was never a leaf on bush or tree, 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, And she rose up decrepitly For a last dim look at earth and sea. II Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, An old, bent man, worn out and frail, He came back from seeking the Holy Grail; No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, III Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare He sees the snake-like caravan crawl O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, 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. IV "For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms;"- |