The icy strings,

Singing, in dreary monotone,

A Christmas carol of its own,

Whose burden still, as he might guess,

Was" Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless ! "

230

The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch

As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch,

235

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,
The bare boughs rattled shudderingly;
The river was dumb and could not speak,

240

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;

245

Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold,

No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross,

255

But deep in his soul the sign he wore,

The badge of the suffering and the poor.

III

Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare
Was idle mail 'gainst the barbèd air,
For it was just at the Christmas time;

260

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,

265

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

270

"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.

275

V

And Sir Launfal said,

"I behold in thee

280

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!"

285

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,

290

295

He broke the ice on the stream let'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.

300

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, -
Himself the Gate whereby men can

Enter the temple of God in Man.

VIII

-305

His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, 310 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 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;

315

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 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;

320

325

330

335

340

The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land
Has hall and bower at his command;

345

And there's no poor men in the North Countree
But is lord of the earldom as much as he.

TENNYSON'S IDYLLS OF THE KING

In Professor Maccallum's valuable book on Tennyson's Idylls of the King and Arthurian Story we read: "In the Idylls is probably to be found the finest development that the cycle of Arthurian story has yet attained, or will for long attain. Perhaps it might even be said that they deliver the classic version of that story as a whole, and present it in the highest perfection of which it is capable. It may be maintained that its peculiar merits and defects correspond so closely with the inherent limitations and excellencies of Tennyson's genius that in him it found its unique predestined interpreter." Let us examine into the manner in which the poet serves as the nineteenth-century interpreter of medieval chivalry.

Though Tennyson goes directly to Malory for his story, he exercises throughout the Idylls an artist's privilege of departing from the original whenever such departure seems to be to the advantage of his poem. There is no doubt that the subject of the legend appealed to the poet, largely on account of the moral significance which he was able to read out of it or infuse into it. Not that it is at all necessary or wise to regard the whole poem as an allegory, as some critics have tried to do, with each separate character or incident standing as the symbol of some abstract truth. Such a view of the Idylls would detract greatly from their simple epic interest. Still, in a general way, no doubt the motif underlying them, as Tennyson himself has said, is to depict "Sense at war with Soul.” The guilty love of Lancelot and the Queen stands out as the main thread of the plot. In every one of the Idylls the blighting influence of their sin is felt. The conflict between evil and good is everywhere prominent. But though the Round Table is at last dissolved, the spiritual nobility of the king towers above the littleness and evil that surround him. We feel with Dr. van Dyke, "His life is not a failure, but a glorious success; for it demonstrates the freedom of the will and the strength of the soul against the powers of evil and the fate of sin.”

Tennyson's interest in the Arthurian legend is seen as early as 1832, when in The Lady of Shalott he foreshadowed, in lyrical form, the theme afterward enlarged and modified into Lancelot and Elaine. Ten years later the Morte d'Arthur was published — a poem which later still, in unchanged form, appeared as the main portion of the Passing of Arthur, the last of the idylls. But the plan of the whole series was, then, evidently not yet conceived; and it was not till 1859 that the four idylls were published which formed its first instalment. In 1869 four more were published; afterward, at scattered intervals, still others, the last not appearing till 1885 - more than half a century after The Lady of Shalott.