Within the hall are song and laughter, The cheeks of Christmas grow red and jolly, And sprouting is every corbel and rafter With lightsome green of ivy and holly; Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide 215 Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide The broad flame-pennons droop and flap And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, Hunted to death in its galleries blind; 220 And swift little troops of silent sparks, Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks Like herds of startled deer. But the wind without was eager and sharp, 225 Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, And rattles and wrings The icy strings, Singing, in dreary monotone, A Christmas carol of its own, 230 Whose burden still, as he might guess, Was--"Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!" The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, And he sat in the gateway and saw all night 235 The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, Through the window-slits of the castle old, Build out its piers of ruddy light Against the drift of the cold. [Footnote 4: The Empress of Russia, Catherine II., in a magnificent freak, built a palace of ice, which was a nine-days' wonder. Cowper has given a poetical description of it in _The Task_, Book V. lines 131-176.] [Footnote 5: The Yule-log was anciently a huge log burned at the feast of Juul (pronounced Yule) by our Scandinavian ancestors in honor of the god Thor. Juul-tid (Yule-time) corresponded in time to Christmas tide, and when Christian festivities took the place of pagan, many ceremonies remained. The great log, still called the Yule-log, was dragged in and burned in the fireplace after Thor had been forgotten.] PART SECOND. I. There was never a leaf on bush or tree, 240 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; 245 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. II. Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, 250 For another heir in his earldom sate; An old, bent man, worn out and frail, He came back from seeking the Holy Grail; Little he recked of his earldom's loss, No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, 255 But deep in his soul the sign he wore, The badge of the suffering and the poor. III.