The Vision of Sir Launfal Part 11

46. Compare _Al Fresco_, lines 34-39:

"The rich, milk-tingeing b.u.t.tercup Its tiny polished urn holds up, Filled with ripe summer to the edge, The sun in his own wine to pledge."

56. Nice: Delicately discriminating.

62. This line originally read "because G.o.d so wills it."

71. Maize has sprouted: There is an anxious period for the farmer after his corn is planted, for if the spring is "backward" and the weather cold, his seed may decay in the ground before sprouting.

73. So in _Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line_, when robin-redbreast sees the "hossches'nuts' leetle hands unfold" he knows--

"Thet arter this ther' 's only blossom-snows; So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse, He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house."

77. Note the happy effect of the internal rhyme in this line.

93. Healed with snow: Explain the appropriateness of the metaphor.

94-95. Is the transition here from the prelude to the story abrupt, or do the preceding lines lead up to it appropriately? Just why does Sir Launfal now remember his vow? Do these lines introduce the "theme"

that the musing organist has finally found in dreamland, or the symbolic ill.u.s.tration of his theme?

97. Richest mail: The knight's coat of mail was usually of polished steel, often richly decorated with inlaid patterns of gold and jewels.

To serve his high purpose, Sir Launfal brings forth his most precious treasures.

99. Holy Grail: According to medieval legend, the Sangreal was the cup or chalice, made of emerald, which was used by Christ, at the last supper, and in which Joseph of Arimathea caught the last drops of Christ's blood when he was taken down from the cross. The quest of the Grail is the central theme of the Arthurian Romances. Tennyson's _Holy Grail_ should be read, and the student should also be made familiar with the beautiful versions of the legend in Abbey's series of mural paintings in the Boston Public Library, and in Wagner's _Parsifal_.

103. On the rushes: In ancient halls and castles the floors were commonly strewn with rushes. In _Taming of the Shrew_, when preparing for the home-coming of Petruchio and his bride, Grumio says: "Is supper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept?"

109. The crows flapped, etc.: Suggestive of the quiet, heavy flight of the crow in a warm day. The beginning and the end of the stanza suggest drowsy quiet. The vision begins in this stanza. The nature pictures are continued, but with new symbolical meaning.

114. Like an outpost of winter: The cold, gloomy castle stands in strong contrast to the surrounding landscape filled with the joyous suns.h.i.+ne of summer. So the proud knight's heart is still inaccessible to true charity and warm human sympathy. So aristocracy in its power and pride stands aloof from democracy with its humility and aspiration for human brotherhood. This stanza is especially figurative. The poet is unfolding the main theme, the underlying moral purpose, of the whole poem, but it is still kept in vague, dreamy symbolism.

116. North Countree: The north of England, the home of the border ballads. This form of the word "countree," with accent on the last syllable, is common in the old ballads. Here it gives a flavor of antiquity in keeping with the story.

122. Pavilions tall: The trees, as in line 125, the broad green tents.

Note how the military figure, beginning with "outposts," in line 115, is continued and developed throughout the stanza, and reverted to in the word "siege" in the next stanza.

130. Maiden knight: A young, untried, unpracticed knight. The expression occurs in Tennyson's _Sir Galahad_. So "maiden mail" below.

137. As a locust-leaf: The small delicate leaflets of the compound locust-leaf seem always in a "lightsome" movement.

138. The original edition has "unscarred mail."

138-139. Compare the last lines of Tennyson's _Sir Galahad_:

"By bridge and ford, by park and pale, All-armed I ride, whate'er betide, Until I find the Holy Grail."

147. Made morn: Let in the morning, or came into the full morning light as the huge gate opened.

148. Leper: Why did the poet make the crouching beggar a leper?

152. For "gan shrink" the original has "did shrink."

155. Bent of stature: Criticise this phrase.

158. So he tossed ... in scorn: This is the turning-point of the moral movement of the story. Sir Launfal at the very beginning makes his fatal mistake; his n.o.ble spirit and lofty purposes break down with the first test. He refuses to see a brother in the loathsome leper; the light and warmth of human brotherhood had not yet entered his soul, just as the summer suns.h.i.+ne had not entered the frowning castle.

The regeneration of his soul must be worked out through wandering and suffering. Compare the similar plot of the _Ancient Mariner_.

163. No true alms: The alms must also be in the heart.

164. Originally "He gives nothing but worthless gold."

166. Slender mite: An allusion to the widow's "two mites." (_Luke_ xxi, 1-4.)

168. The all-sustaining Beauty: The all-pervading spirit of G.o.d that unites all things in one sympathetic whole. This divinity in humanity is its highest beauty. In _The Oak_ Lowell says:

"Lord! all thy works are lessons; each contains Some emblem of man's all-containing soul."

172. A G.o.d goes with it: The G.o.d-like quality of real charity, of heart to heart sympathy. In a letter written a little after the composition of this poem Lowell speaks of love and freedom as being "the sides which Beauty presented to him then."

172. Store: Plenty, abundance.

175. Summers: What is gained by the use of this word instead of winters?

176. Wold: A high, open and barren field that catches the full sweep of the wind. The "wolds" of north England are like the "downs" of the south.

181. The little brook: In a letter written in December, 1848, Lowell says: "Last night I walked to Watertown over the snow with the new moon before me and a sky exactly like that in Page's evening landscape. Orion was rising behind me, and, as I stood on the hill just before you enter the village, the stillness of the fields around me was delicious, broken only by the tinkle of a little brook which runs too swiftly for Frost to catch it. My picture of the brook in _Sir Launfal_ was drawn from it." See the poem _Beaver Brook_ (originally called _The Mill_), and the winter picture in _An Indian-Summer Reverie_, lines 148-196.

184. Groined: Groined arches are formed by the intersection of two arches crossing at any angle, forming a ribbed vault; a characteristic feature of Gothic architecture.

190. Forest-crypt: The crypt of a church is the bas.e.m.e.nt, filled with arched pillars that sustain the building. The cavern of the brook, as the poet will have us imagine it, is like this subterranean crypt, where the pillars are like trees and the groined arches like interlacing branches, decorated with frost leaves. The poet seems to have had in mind throughout the description the interior of the Gothic cathedrals, as shown by the many suggestive terms used, "groined," "crypt," "aisles," "fretwork," and "carvings."

193. Fretwork: The ornamental work carved in intricate patterns, in oak or stone, on the ceilings of old halls and churches.

195. Sharp relief: When a figure stands out prominently from the marble or other material from which it is cut, it is said to be in "high relief," in distinction from "low relief," _bas relief_.

196. Arabesques: Complicated patterns of interwoven foliage, flowers and fruits, derived from Arabian art. Lowell had undoubtedly studied many times the frost designs on the window panes.

201. That crystalled the beams, etc.: That caught the beams of moon and sun as in a crystal. For "that" the original edition has "which."

204. Winter-palace of ice: An allusion, apparently, to the ice-palace built by the Empress of Russia, Catherine II, "most magnificent and mighty freak. The wonder of the North," Cowper called it. Compare Lowell's description of the frost work with Cowper's similar description in _The Task_, in the beginning of Book V.

205-210. 'Twas as if every image, etc.: Note the exquisite fancy in these lines. The elves have preserved in the ice the pictures of summer foliage and clouds that were mirrored in the water as models for another summer.

211. The hall: In the old castles the hall was always the large banqueting room, originally the common living room. Here all large festivities would take place.

213. Corbel: A bracket-like support projecting from a wall from which an arch springs or on which a beam rests. The poet has in mind an ancient hall in which the ceiling is the exposed woodwork of the roof.

214. This line at first read: "With the lightsome," etc. Why did Lowell's refining taste strike out "the"?