The Vision of Sir Launfal

“The Vision of Sir Launfal” is an epic narrative poem by American poet James Russell Lowell. This very popular poem was published in 1848 and is considered one of the poet’s best works, while many of his later works were less well-received. The poem is based on the legend of the medieval English King Arthur and the Holy Grail. Sir Launfal was King Arthur’s steward. Despite the original English setting, Lowell’s poem contains a great deal of description of the American landscape. This focus on the beauty and importance of nature, as well as heroism and charity, led to Lowell’s inclusion among the Romantic poets, whose influence is evident in his work. In his role as man of letters, Lowell studied and wrote critical essays on the English Romantic poets such as Milton, Keats, and Tennyson.

Poet Biography

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) was born into a wealthy family in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was the youngest of six siblings, and his mother shared with him her appreciation for literature from an early age. Lowell attended Harvard College from the age of 15 but claimed to have done no academic work, although he edited the Harvardiana literary magazine in his senior year and some of his own poems were printed. Unsure what to do after graduating, he eventually chose to study law at Harvard University. He met a classmate, Maria White, whom he married in 1844. Theirs was said to be a devoted and ideal marriage, although tragedy was to hit the couple in the form of the death of three of their four children.

Lowell published his own poems for free and then started the literary journal The Pioneer. His intention was to produce a critical review of high status, but the journal soon failed. Lowell continued to write and publish poems and articles, many critiquing and satirizing modern society, and he was prolific on the topic of the need for the abolition of slavery. In 1853 his wife Maria died, leaving the bereft Lowell depressed. His cousin invited Lowell to give some lectures on the English Poets, and the success of these talks led to him being offered a Professorship of Modern Languages at Harvard, which he took up after a year abroad. He remained in the post for 20 years. In 1857, Lowell married Frances Dunlap, his remaining daughter’s governess, which Lowell claimed was the “wisest act of my life.” Lowell went on to edit further literary magazines, using his position to make social commentary, in particular against slavery.

Lowell moved from teaching into politics, speaking on behalf of presidential candidate Rutherford B Hayes in 1876. Admired for his diplomacy and skill at languages, Lowell was offered an ambassador role in Spain. This was followed by his appointment as Minister to England, where he impressed Queen Victoria and where his writing became well-known. After the death of his wife Frances, Lowell moved to live with his daughter Mabel and continued to publish political and poetic works. He died in 1891.

During his lifetime, Lowell’s literary works received mixed reviews. These range from Lowell being called one of the most important writers in the United States by British author Thomas Hughes, to the statement by critic Margaret Fuller, that “posterity will not remember him.” Despite receiving such a damning slur, Lowell has become one of America’s favorite poets and belongs to the group known as the Fireside Poets for their simple, clear, and very readable works, suitable for children to enjoy with their families. Other members of this group are Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The excerpt from the poem beginning “And what is so rare as a day in June?” (Lines 33-93) has become a national favorite, included in most anthologies of American literature. On a more serious note, his poem “The National Crisis,” criticizing slavery, is said to have been influential in the civil rights movement and was quoted by Martin Luther King in his speeches and sermons.

Poem Text

Prelude to Part First

Over his keys the musing organist,

  Beginning doubtfully and far away,

First lets his fingers wander as they list,

  And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay:

Then, as the touch of his loved instrument

  Gives hopes and fervor, nearer draws his theme,

First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent

  Along the wavering vista of his dream.

  Not only around our infancy

  Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;

  Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,

  We Sinais climb and know it not;

Over our manhood bend the skies;

  Against our fallen and traitor lives

The great winds utter prophecies;

  With our faint hearts the mountain strives;

Its arms outstretched, the druid wood

  Waits with its benedicite;

And to our age's drowsy blood

  Still shouts the inspiring sea.

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;

  The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,

The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,

  We bargain for the graves we lie in;

At the Devil's booth are all things sold

Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;

  For a cap and bells our lives we pay,

Bubbles we earn with a whole soul's tasking:

  'T is heaven alone that is given away,

'T is only God may be had for the asking;

There is no price set on the lavish summer,

And June may be had by the poorest comer.

And what is so rare as a day in June?

Then, if ever, come perfect days;

Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,

And over it softly her warm ear lays:

Whether we look, or whether we listen,

We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;

Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within it that reaches and towers,

And, groping blindly above it for light,

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;

The flush of life may well be seen

Thrilling back over hills and valleys;

The cowslip startles in meadows green,

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,

And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean

To be some happy creature's palace;

The little bird sits at his door in the sun,

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,

And lets his illumined being o'errun

With the deluge of summer it receives;

His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,

And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;

He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,—

In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

Now is the high-tide of the year,

And whatever of life hath ebbed away

Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;

Now the heart is so full that a drop over-fills it,

We are happy now because God wills it;

No matter how barren the past may have been,

'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;

We sit in the warm shade and feel right well

How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;

We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing

That skies are clear and grass is growing;

The breeze comes whispering in our ear,

That dandelions are blossoming near,

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,

That the river is bluer than the sky,

That the robin is plastering his house hard by;

And if the breeze kept the good news back,

For other couriers we should not lack;

 We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,—

And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,

Warmed with the new wine of the year,

Tells all in his lusty crowing!

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 for the natural way of living:

Who knows whither the clouds have fled?

In the unscarred heaven they leave not wake,

And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;

The soul partakes the season's youth,

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe

Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,

Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.

What wonder if Sir Launfal now

Remembered the keeping of his vow?

Part First

              I

"My golden spurs now bring to me,

  And bring to me my richest mail,

For to-morrow I go over land and sea

  In search of the Holy Grail;

Shall never a bed for me be spread,

Nor shall a pillow be under my head,

Till I begin my vow to keep;

Here on the rushes will I sleep,

And perchance there may come a vision true

Ere day create the world anew."

  Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim,

  Slumber fell like a cloud on him,

And into his soul the vision flew.

              II

The crows flapped over by twos and threes,

In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees,

  The little birds sang as if it were

  The one day of summer in all the year,

And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees:

The castle alone in the landscape lay

Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray;

'T was the proudest hall in the North Countree,

And never its gates might opened be,

Save to lord or lady of high degree;

Summer besieged it on every side,

But the churlish stone her assaults defied;

She could not scale the chilly wall,

Though round it for leagues her pavilions tall

Stretched left and right,

Over the hills and out of sight;

  Green and broad was every tent,

  And out of each a murmur went

Till the breeze fell off at night.

             III

The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang,

And through the dark arch a charger sprang,

Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight,

In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright

It seemed the dark castle had gathered all

Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall

  In his siege of three hundred summers long,

And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf,

  Had cast them forth: so, young and strong,

And lightsome as a locust-leaf,

Sir Launfal flashed forth in his unscarred mail,

To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail.

             IV

It was morning on hill and stream and tree,

  And morning in the young knight's heart;

Only the castle moodily

Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free,

  And gloomed by itself apart;

The season brimmed all other things up

Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup.

              V

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 armor did shrink and crawl,

And midway its leap his heart stood still

  Like a frozen waterfall;

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.

              VI

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;

He gives nothing but worthless gold

  Who gives from a sense of duty;

But he who gives a slender mite,

And gives to that which is out of sight,

  That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty

Which runs through all and doth all unite, –

The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms,

The heart outstretches its eager palms,

For a god goes with it and makes it store

To the soul that was starving in darkness before."

Prelude to Part Second

Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak,

  From the snow five thousand summers old;

On open wold and hill-top bleak

  It had gathered all the cold,

And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek;

It carried a shiver everywhere

From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare;

The little brook heard it and built a roof

'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof;

All night by the white stars' frosty gleams

He groined his arches and matched his beams;

Slender and clear were his crystal spars

As the lashes of light that trim the stars;

He sculptured every summer delight

In his halls and chambers out of sight;

Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt

Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt,

Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees

Bending to counterfeit a breeze;

Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew

But silvery mosses that downward grew;

Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief

With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf;

Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear

For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here

He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops

And hung them thickly with diamond drops,

Which crystalled the beams of moon and sun,

And made a star of every one:

No mortal builder's most rare device

Could match this winter-palace of ice;

'T was as if every image that mirrored lay

In his depths serene through the summer day,

Each flitting shadow of earth and sky,

  Lest the happy model should be lost,

Had been mimicked in fairy masonry

  By the elfin builders of the frost.

Within the hall are song and laughter,

  The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly,

And sprouting is every corbel and rafter

  With the lightsome green of ivy and holly;

Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide

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;

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,

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,

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

  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.

Part Second

I

There was never a leaf on bush or tree,

The bare boughs rattled shudderingly;

The river was dumb and could not speak,

  For the frost's swift shuttles its shroud had spun;

A single crow on the tree-top bleak

  From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun;

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,

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.

             III

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 leapt in the shade,

And with its own self like an infant played,

And waved its signal of palms.

              IV

"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.

              V

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!"

              VI

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.

              VII

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.

              VIII

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 had spent thy life for the Holy Grail;

Behold, it is here, – this cup which thou

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;

Who bestows himself with his alms feeds three, –

Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me."

               IX

Sir Launfal awoke, as from a swound: –

"The Grail in my castle here is found!

Hang my idle armor up on the wall,

Let it be the spider's banquet-hall;

He must be fenced with stronger mail

Who would seek and find the Holy Grail."

               X

The castle-gate stands open now,

  And the wanderer is welcome to the hall

As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough;

  No longer scowl the turrets tall,

The Summer's long siege at last is o'er;

When the first poor outcast went in at the door,

She entered with him in disguise,

And mastered the fortres by surprise;

There is no spot she loves so well on ground,

She lingers and smiles there the whole year round;

The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land

Has hall and bower at his command;

And there 's no poor man in the North Countree

But is lord of the earldom as much as he.

Lowell, James Russell. “The Vision of Sir Launfal.” 1848. The Camelot Project.