eyes

And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he

Remembered in what a haughtier guise
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,
'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown
bread,

"T was water out of a wooden bowl,Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fel,

And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul.

His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine,

And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine,

With the shaggy unrest they float down upon;

And the voice that was calmer than silence said,

"Lo it is I, be not afraid!

In many climes, without avail,
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy
Grail;

Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now;
Behold, it is here, this cup which thou
This crust is my body broken for thee,
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."

NOTE.― According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus partook of the last

one

England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration,