An old, bent man, worn out and frail, No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, The badge of the suffering and the poor. 255 III. Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare 260 O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, 265 To where, in its slender necklace of grass, The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, IV. "For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms; 270 275 V. And Sir Launfal said, "I behold in thee The wounds in the hands and feet and side: Behold, through him, I give to Thee!" VI. Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes He had flung an alms to leprosie, When he girt his young life up in gilded mail 'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 280 285 290 295 300 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, Shining and tall and fair and straight As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate,— 305 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; In whatso we share with another's need: IX. Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound: X. The castle gate stands open now, And the wanderer is welcome to the hall 310 315 320 325 338 As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough; When the first poor outcast went in at the door, 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; And there's no poor man in the North Countree 340 345 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 |