The Vision of Sir Launfal

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J. R. Osgood, 1875 - 33 pages
 

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Page 11 - And what is so rare as a day in June ? Then, if ever, come perfect days ; Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays : Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; Every clod feels a stir of might, An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, groping blindly above it for light, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers...
Page 30 - 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...
Page 31 - 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.
Page 12 - Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, We are happy now because God wills it...
Page 9 - Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent Along the wavering vista of his dream. Not only around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie ; Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais climb and know it not.
Page 13 - T is as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 'T is the natural way of living : Who knows whither the clouds have fled? In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake ; And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache ; The soul partakes...
Page 26 - But the wind without was eager and sharp, Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, And rattles and wrings 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...
Page 13 - The breeze comes whispering in our ear, That dandelions are blossoming near, That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, That the river is bluer than the sky, That the robin is plastering his house hard by; And if the breeze kept the good news back, For other couriers we should not lack; We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,— And hark!
Page 17 - In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright It seemed the dark castle had gathered all Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall In his siege of three hundred summers long...
Page 11 - To be some happy creature's palace ; The little bird sits at his door in the sun ; Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives. His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings ; He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — In the nice ear of nature which song is the best?

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