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. The leper raised not the gold from the dust: 'Better to me the poor man's crust. Better the blessing of the poor, Though I turn me empty from his door; _That is no true alms which, the hand can hold_.'" Sir Launfal proceeds in search of the Holy Grail; but he finds it not. He returns an old man, worn with toil, and sad at heart, and full of tender commiseration for all the afflicted and distressed. It is winter when he returns to his castle. There sits the same miserable leper, and moans out the same prayer for alms; but this time it is answered in a very different spirit. "Straightway he Remembered in what a haughty guise He had flung an alms to leprosie, When he caged his young life up in gilded mail To 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 to drink; 'Twas a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, 'Twas water out of a wooden bowl,-- Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, And 'twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, A light shone round about the place; The leper no longer crouched at his side, But stood before him glorified, And a voice that was calmer than silence said-- 'In many climes, without avail, Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail; Behold it is here,--this cup which thou Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now! The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, In whatso we share with another's need.'"