"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 noble 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 sunshine 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 God that unites all things in one sympathetic whole. This divinity in humanity is its highest beauty. In The Oak Lowell says: