'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;

'T is as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,

"T is 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,

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

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 only the worthless gold

Who gives from a sense of duty; But he who gives but 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
And whirled it like sleet on the wan-
It had gathered all the cold,
derer'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,

That 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 sum

mer day,