The Vision of Sir Launfal

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B.H. Sanborn, 1899 - 28 pages

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Page 17 - 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.
Page 2 - 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...
Page 5 - We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing: And hark! how clear bold Chanticleer, Warmed with the new wine of the year, Tells all in his lusty crowing ! Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how.
Page 39 - New occasions teach new duties ; Time makes ancient good uncouth ; They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth ; Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires ! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key.
Page 26 - My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee ; The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, Who, from the dark old tree Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, And I, secure in childish piety, Listened as if I heard an angel sing With news from heaven, which he could bring Fresh every day to my untainted ears When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.
Page 9 - That is no true alms which the hand can hold; He gives nothing but worthless gold Who gives from a sense of duty; But he who gives a slender mite, And gives to that which is out of sight, That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty Which runs through all and doth all unite, -- The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms...
Page 3 - Every clod feels a stir of might, An instinct within it that reaches and towers And, groping blindly above it for light, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers...
Page 11 - Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, Lest the happy model should be lost, Had been mimicked in fairy masonry By the elfin builders of the frost.
Page 25 - T is the spring's largess, which she scatters now To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, Though most hearts never understand To take it at God's value, but pass by The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. " Thou art my tropics and mine Italy ; To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime ; The eyes thou givest me Are in the heart, and heed not space or time : Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment In the white lily's breezy tent, His conquered Sybaris, than...
Page 13 - The bare boughs rattled shudderingly ; The river was dumb and could not speak, For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun ; A single crow on the tree-top bleak From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun ; Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold, As if her veins were sapless and old, And she rose up decrepitly For a last dim look at earth and sea.

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