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,
'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown
bread,

'T was water out of a wooden bowl, Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed,

And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul.

With the shaggy unrest they float down upon;

And the voice that was softer than silence said,

"Lo it is I, be not afraid!
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy
In many climes, without avail,
Grail;

Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now;
Behold, it is here, this cup which thou
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.

IX.

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."

X.

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,
There is no spot she loves so well on
And mastered the fortress by surprise;
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.

-

NOTE. According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus partook of the Last Supper with his disciples. It was brought into

England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration,