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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.

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III.

Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare
Was idle mail 'gainst the barbéd 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

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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

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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.

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"For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms;
The happy camels may reach the spring,
But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing,
The 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.

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V.

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!"

VI.

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,

'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,

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And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty

soul.

VII.

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,—

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Himself the Gate whereby men can

Enter the temple of God in Man.

VIII.

His words were shed softer than leaves from the

pine, And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine, That mingle their softness and quiet in one With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; And the voice that was softer 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."

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

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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.

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WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT was born at Cummington, Massachusetts, November 3, 1794; he died in New York, June 12, 1878. His first poem, The Embargo, was published in Boston in 1809, and was written when he was but

thirteen years old; his last poem, Our Fellow Worshippers, was published in 1878. His long life thus was a long career as a writer, and his first published poem prefigured the twofold character of his literary life, for while it was in poetic form it was more distinctly a political article. He showed very early a taste for poetry, and was encouraged to read and write verse by his father, Dr. Peter Bryant, a country physician of strong character and cultivated tastes. He was sent to Williams College in the fall of 1810, where he remained two terms, when he decided to leave and enter Yale College; but pecuniary troubles interfered with his plans, and he never completed his college course. He pur sued his literary studies at home, then began the study of law and was admitted to the bar in 1815. Meantime he had been continuing to write, and during this period wrote with many corrections and changes the poem by which he is still perhaps best known, Thanatopsis. It was published in the North American Review for September, 1817, and the same periodical published a few months afterward his lines To a Waterfowl, one of the most characteristic and lovely of Bryant's poems. Literature divided his attention with law, but evidently had his heart. In 1821 he was

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