Eastward! the source and spring of life and light. Thence came, and thither went, the rush of worlds When the great cone of space was sown with stars. There rolled the gateway of the double dawn When the mere God shone down a breathing man. There, up from Bethany, the Syrian twelve Watched their dear Master darken into day. ------- Sir Galahad holds the Orient arrow’s name, His chosen hand unbars the gate of day. There glows that Heart, filled with his mother’s blood, That rules in every pulse the world of man, Link of the awful Three, with many a star. O blessed East! ’mid visions such as thine, ’Twere well to grasp the Sangreal, and die. In one passage Mr. Hawker seems to be speaking the feeling of loneliness that he ever felt in his own heart: he was, as he says in one of his letters, “the ever alone.” Ha! sirs, ye seek a noble crest to-day— To win and wear the starry Sangreal, The link that binds to God a lonely land. Would that my arm went with you like my heart! But the true shepherd must not shun the fold; For in this flock are crouching grievous wolves, And chief among them all my own false kin. Therefore I tarry by the cruel sea To hear at eve the treacherous mermaid’s song, And watch the wallowing monsters of the wave, ’Mid all things fierce and wild and strange—_alone_! Ay! all beside can win companionship: The churl may clip his mate beneath the thatch, While his brown urchins nestle at his knees; The soldier gives and grasps a mutual palm, Knit to his flesh in sinewy bonds of war; The knight may seek at eve his castle-gate, Mount the old stair, and lift the accustomed latch, To find, for throbbing brow and weary limb, That paradise of pillows, one true breast. But he, the lofty ruler of the land, Like yonder Tor, first greeted by the dawn, And wooed the latest by the lingering day, With happy homes and hearths beneath his breast, Must soar and gleam in solitary snow: The lonely one is ever more the king! Here are some beautiful lines on Cornwall:—