The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell Part 30

IV

'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.

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!'

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 290 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.

'Twas a mouldy crust of coa.r.s.e brown bread, 'Twas water out of a wooden bowl,-- Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 300 And 'twas 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, s.h.i.+ning 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 G.o.d in Man.

VIII

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 s.h.a.ggy 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, 320 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, 330 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; 341 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.

LETTER FROM BOSTON

_December, 1846._

Dear M---- By way of saving time, I'll do this letter up in rhyme, Whose slim stream through four pages flows Ere one is packed with tight-screwed prose, Threading the tube of an epistle, Smooth as a child's breath through a whistle.

The great attraction now of all Is the 'Bazaar' at Faneuil Hall, Where swarm the anti-slavery folks As thick, dear Miller, as your jokes. 10 There's GARRISON, his features very Benign for an incendiary, Beaming forth suns.h.i.+ne through his gla.s.ses On the surrounding lads and la.s.ses, (No bee could blither be, or brisker,)-- A Pickwick somehow turned John Ziska, His b.u.mp of firmness swelling up Like a rye cupcake from its cup.

And there, too, was his English tea-set, 19 Which in his ear a kind of flea set, His Uncle Samuel for its beauty Demanding sixty dollars duty, ('Twas natural Sam should serve his trunk ill; For G., you know, has cut his uncle,) Whereas, had he but once made tea in't, His uncle's ear had had the flea in't, There being not a cent of duty On any pot that ever drew tea.

There was MARIA CHAPMAN, too, With her swift eyes of clear steel-blue, 30 The coiled-up mainspring of the Fair, Originating everywhere The expansive force without a sound That whirls a hundred wheels around, Herself meanwhile as calm and still As the bare crown of Prospect Hill; A n.o.ble woman, brave and apt, c.u.maean sibyl not more rapt, Who might, with those fair tresses shorn, The Maid of Orleans' casque have worn, 40 Herself the Joan of our Ark, For every shaft a s.h.i.+ning mark.

And there, too, was ELIZA FOLLEN, Who scatters fruit-creating pollen Where'er a blossom she can find Hardy enough for Truth's north wind, Each several point of all her face Tremblingly bright with the inward grace, As if all motion gave it light Like phosph.o.r.escent seas at night.

There jokes our EDMUND, plainly son 51 Of him who bearded Jefferson, A non-resistant by conviction, But with a b.u.mp in contradiction, So that whene'er it gets a chance His pen delights to play the lance, And--you may doubt it, or believe it-- Full at the head of Joshua Leavitt The very calumet he'd launch, And scourge him with the olive branch. 60 A master with the foils of wit, 'Tis natural he should love a hit; A gentleman, withal, and scholar, Only base things excite his choler, And then his satire's keen and thin As the lithe blade of Saladin.

Good letters are a gift apart, And his are gems of Flemish art, True offspring of the fireside Muse, Not a rag-gathering of news 70 Like a new hopfield which is all poles, But of one blood with Horace Walpole's.

There, with cue hand behind his back, Stands PHILLIPS b.u.t.toned in a sack, Our Attic orator, our Chatham; Old fogies, when he lightens at 'em, Shrivel like leaves; to him 'tis granted Always to say the word that's wanted, So that he seems but speaking clearer The tiptop thought of every hearer; 80 Each flash his brooding heart lets fall Fires what's combustible in all, And sends the applauses bursting in Like an exploded magazine.

His eloquence no frothy show, The gutter's street-polluted flow, No Mississippi's yellow flood Whose shoalness can't be seen for mud;-- So simply clear, serenely deep, 89 So silent-strong its graceful sweep, None measures its unrippling force Who has not striven to stem its course; How fare their barques who think to play With smooth Niagara's mane of spray, Let Austin's total s.h.i.+pwreck say.

He never spoke a word too much-- Except of Story, or some such, Whom, though condemned by ethics strict, The heart refuses to convict.

Beyond; a crater in each eye, 100 Sways brown, broad-shouldered PILLSBURY, Who tears up words like trees by the roots, A Theseus in stout cow-hide boots, The wager of eternal war Against that loathsome Minotaur To whom we sacrifice each year The best blood of our Athens here, (Dear M., pray brush up your Lempriere.) A terrible denouncer he, Old Sinai burns unquenchably 110 Upon his lips; he well might be a Hot-blazing soul from fierce Judea, Habakkuk, Ezra, or Hosea.

His words are red hot iron searers, And nightmare-like he mounts his hearers, Spurring them like avenging Fate, or As Waterton his alligator.

Hard by, as calm as summer even, Smiles the reviled and pelted STEPHEN, The unappeasable Boanerges 120 To all the Churches and the Clergies, The grim _savant_ who, to complete His own peculiar cabinet, Contrived to label 'mong his kicks One from the followers of Hicks; Who studied mineralogy Not with soft book upon the knee, But learned the properties of stones By contact sharp of flesh and bones, And made the _experimentum crucis_ 130 With his own body's vital juices; A man with caoutchouc endurance, A perfect gem for life insurance, A kind of maddened John the Baptist, To whom the harshest word comes aptest, Who, struck by stone or brick ill-starred, Hurls back an epithet as hard, Which, deadlier than stone or brick, Has a propensity to stick.

His oratory is like the scream 140 Of the iron-horse's frenzied steam Which warns the world to leave wide s.p.a.ce For the black engine's swerveless race.

Ye men with neckcloths white, I warn you-- _Habet_ a whole haymow _in cornu_.

A Judith, there, turned Quakeress, Sits ABBY in her modest dress, Serving a table quietly, As if that mild and downcast eye Flashed never, with its scorn intense, 150 More than Medea's eloquence.

So the same force which shakes its dread Far-blazing blocks o'er aetna's head, Along the wires in silence fares And messages of commerce bears.

No n.o.bler gift of heart and brain, No life more white from spot or stain, Was e'er on Freedom's altar laid Than hers, the simple Quaker maid.

These last three (leaving in the lurch 160 Some other themes) a.s.sault the Church, Who therefore writes them in her lists As Satan's limbs and atheists; For each sect has one argument Whereby the rest to h.e.l.l are sent, Which serve them like the Graiae's tooth, Pa.s.sed round in turn from mouth to mouth;-- If any _ism_ should arise, Then look on it with constable's eyes, 169 Tie round its neck a heavy _athe-_, And give it kittens' hydropathy.

This trick with other (useful very) tricks Is laid to the Babylonian _meretrix_, But 'twas in vogue before her day Wherever priesthoods had their way, And Buddha's Popes with this struck dumb The followers of Fi and Fum.

Well, if the world, with prudent fear Pay G.o.d a seventh of the year, And as a Farmer, who would pack All his religion in one stack, 181 For this world works six days in seven And idles on the seventh for Heaven, Expecting, for his Sunday's sowing, In the next world to go a-mowing The crop of all his meeting-going;-- If the poor Church, by power enticed, Finds none so infidel as Christ, Quite backward reads his Gospel meek, (As 'twere in Hebrew writ, not Greek,) 190 Fencing the gallows and the sword With conscripts drafted from his word, And makes one gate of Heaven so wide That the rich orthodox might ride Through on their camels, while the poor Squirm through the scant, unyielding door, Which, of the Gospel's straitest size, Is narrower than bead-needles' eyes, What wonder World and Church should call The true faith atheistical? 200

Yet, after all, 'twixt you and me, Dear Miller, I could never see That Sin's and Error's ugly smirch Stained the walls only of the Church; There are good priests, and men who take Freedom's torn cloak for lucre's sake; I can't believe the Church so strong, As some men do, for Right or Wrong, But, for this subject (long and vext) I must refer you to my next, 210 As also for a list exact Of goods with which the Hall was packed.

READER! _walk up at once (it will soon be too late), and buy at a perfectly ruinous rate._

A FABLE FOR CRITICS;

OR, BETTER--

_I like, as a thing that the reader's first fancy may strike, an old fas.h.i.+oned t.i.tle-page, such as presents a tabular view of the volumes contents_,--

A GLANCE AT A FEW OF OUR LITERARY PROGENIES

(Mrs. Malaprop's Word)

FROM THE TUB OF DIOGENES;

A VOCAL AND MUSICAL MEDLEY,

THAT IS,