THE SECRET OF PIETY.

181

THE SECRET OF PIETY.

W. R. ALGER'S "POETRY OF THE EAST."

A PINING Sceptic towards a raptured saint inclined,

And asked him how the Boundless Lover, God,

to find.

A smile divine across the saint's pale features

stole,

And thus in wise and pitying love he poured his

soul:

"Ah, hapless wanderer! long from life's true. bliss shut out,

In night of sin forlorn and wilderness of doubt, Prepared am I with thy sad lot to sympathize, For o'er my own dim tracks thy dark experience lies.

Now list and ponder deep, the secret while I tell Of all the love with which angelic bosoms swell. Whoso would careless tread one worm that crawls

the sod,

That cruel man is darkly alienate from God; But he that lives, embracing all that is, in love, To dwell with him God bursts all bounds, below, above."

16

FROM "THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL."

J. R. LOWELL.

SIR Launfal turned from his own hard gate,
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,
But deep in his soul the sign he wore,
The badge of the suffering and the poor.

Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare
Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air,
For it was just at the Christmas time:
So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime,
And sought for a shelter from cold and snow
In the light and warmth of long ago;

He sees the snake-like caravan crawl
O'er the edge of the desert, black and small,
Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one,
He can count the camels in the sun,
As over the red-hot sands they pass

To where, in its slender necklace of grass,
The little spring laughed and leaped in the shade

* The vessel used by the Saviour at the Last Supper.

THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL.

183

And with its own self like an infant played,
And waved its signal of palms.

"For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms"
The happy camels may reach the spring,
But Sir Launfal sees naught save the grewsome
thing,

The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone,
That cowered beside him, a thing as lone
And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas
In the desolate horror of his disease.

And Sir Launfal said: "I behold in thee
An image of Him who died on the tree;
Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns,

Thou also hast had the world's buffets and

scorns,

And to thy life were not denied

The wounds in the hands and feet and side:

Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me;

Behold, through him, I give to thee!"

Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he Remembered in what a haughtier guise

He had flung an alms to leprosie,

When he caged 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 fed,
And 't was 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,

Shining and tall and fair and straight

As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, — Himself the Gate whereby men can

Enter the temple of God in Man.

His words were shed softer than leaves from the

pine,

And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the

brine,

Which mingle their softness and quiet in one 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;
Behold, it is here, this cup which thou

A PRAYER OF AFFECTION.

Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now;
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 that which we give, but what we share,
For the gift without the giver is bare;

185

Who bestows himself with his alms feeds three,Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.”

A PRAYER OF AFFECTION

MRS. HEMANS.

BLESSINGS, O Father, shower!

Father of mercies! round his precious head! On his lone walks, and on his thoughtful hour, And the pure visions of his midnight bed, Blessings be shed!

Father! I pray thee not

For earthly treasure to that most beloved,
Fame, fortune, power;- O, be his spirit proved
By these, or by their absence, at thy will!
But let thy peace be wedded to his lot,
Guarding his inner life from touch of ill,
With its dove-pinion still!