Or this description:—
"In the courtyard a fountain leaped alway,
A Triton blowing jewels through his shell
Into the sunshine."
In the second volume we have another legend, or rather a legendary vision, of the author's own invention, which is of a higher import, and still more redolent of poetry. It is called "The vision of Sir Launfal." This knight has a vision, or a dream, in which he beholds himself going forth from his proud castle to accomplish a vow he had made, namely, to seek "over land and sea for the Holy Grail." What the Holy Grail is, Mr Lowell is considerate enough to inform, or remind his readers, in a note which runs thus,—"According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus partook of the Last Supper with his disciples. It was brought into England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years in the keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon those who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, and deed; but one of the keepers having broken this condition, the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it was a favourite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's court to go in search of it." Well, Sir Launfal, in his vision, starts forth upon this knightly and pious enterprise. It is the month of June when he sallies from his castle, and the poet revels in a description of the glories of the summer:—
"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, grasping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers.
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf or a blade too mean
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, she to her nest.
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,
Everything is upward striving;
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,—
'Tis 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,
And the heart forgets its sorrow and ache;
And the soul partakes the season's youth."
The drawbridge of the castle is let down, and Sir Launfal, on his charger, springs from under the archway, clothed in his glittering mail—
"To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail."
"As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate
He was ware of a leper, crouched by the same,
Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate;
And a loathing over Sir Launfal came;
The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill,
The flesh 'neath his armour did shrink and crawl,
For this man, so foul and bent of stature,
Rasped harshly against his dainty nature,
And seemed the one blot on the summer morn,—
So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn.