that dares

rude

Rock-rib of our earth here was tamed and subdued;

Thou hast written them plain on the face of the planet

In brave, deathless letters of iron and granite;

Thou hast printed them deep for all time; they are set

From the same runic type-fount and alphabet 560

With thy stout Berkshire hills and the arms of thy Bay,

They are staves from the burly old Mayflower lay.

If the drones of the Old World, in querulous ease,

Ask thy Art and thy Letters, point proudly to these,

Or, if they deny these are Letters and Art,

Toil on with the same old invincible heart;

Thou art rearing the pedestal broad-based and grand

Whereon the fair shapes of the Artist shall stand,

And creating, through labors undaunted

and long,

The theme for all Sculpture and Painting and Song !

570

Whether flour 'll be so dear, for, as sure as she's living,

She will use rye-and-injun then, whether the pig

By this time ain't got pretty tolerable big,

And whether to sell it outright will be best,

Or to smoke hams and shoulders and salt down the rest,

At this minute, she'd swop all my verses, ah, cruel!

For the last patent stove that is saving of fuel;

So I'll just let Apollo go on, for his phiz

Shows I've kept him awaiting too long as it is.'

590

That are trodden upon are your own or your foes'.

1 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 favorite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's court to go in search of it. Sir Galahad was at last successful in finding it, as may be read in the seventeenth book of the Romance of King Arthur. Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the most exquisite of his poems.

The plot (if I may give that name to anything so slight) of the following poem is my own, and, to serve its purposes, I have enlarged the circle of competition in search of the miraculous cup in such a manner as to include, not only other persons than the heroes of the Round Table, but also a period of time subsequent to the supposed date of King Arthur's reign. (LOWELL.) 2 Holmes begins a poem of welcome to Lowell on his return from England:

This is your month, the month of 'perfect days.' June was indeed Lowell's month. Not only in the famous passage of this 'Prelude,' but in Under the Willows' (originally called 'A June Idyl'), 'Al Fresco' (originally A Day in June'), 'Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line' of the Biglow Papers, and The Nightingale in the Study,' he has made it peculiarly his

own.

Heaven lies about us in our Infancy! (WORDSWORTH, in the fifth stanza of the Ode: Intimations of Immortality.')

See Lowell's letter, of Sunday, September 3, 1848, to his friend C. F. Briggs.

And to our age's drowsy blood Still shouts the inspiring sea.

20

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives

us;

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,

The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,

We bargain for the graves we lie in; At the devil's booth are all things sold, Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;

For a cap and bells our lives we pay, Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking:

"T is heaven alone that is given away, 'Tis only God may be had for the ask

ing;

No price is set on the lavish summer; June may be had by the poorest comer.

And what is so rare as a day in June?

Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries 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,

30

An instinct within it that reaches and

The castle alone in the landscape lay
Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray:
'T was the proudest hall in the North
Countree,

And never its gates might opened be,
Save to lord or lady of high degree;
Summer besieged it on every side,
But the churlish stone her assaults defied;
She could not scale the chilly wall,
Though around it for leagues her pavilions
tall

Stretched left and right,
Over the hills and out of sight;

Green and broad was every tent,
And out of each a murmur went
Till the breeze fell off at night.

III

121

The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang,
And through the dark arch a charger sprang,
Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, 130
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