head, to let him see
How boundless might his soul's horizons be,
How vast, yet of what clear transparency!
How it were good to live there, and breathe free;
How fair a lot to fill
Is left to each man still!

THE BETTER PART

Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man,
How angrily thou spurn'st all simpler fare!
"Christ," some one says, "was human as we are;
No judge eyes us from Heaven, our sin to scan;
We live no more when we have done our span."--
"Well, then, for Christ," thou answerest, "who can care?
From sin, which Heaven records not, why forbear?
Live we like brutes our life without a plan!"
So answerest thou; but why not rather say,
"Hath man no second life?--Pitch this one high!
Sits there no judge in Heaven our sin to see?--
More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!
Was Christ a man like us?--Ah! let us try
If we then, too, can be such men as he!"

THE LAST WORD

Creep into thy narrow bed,
Creep, and let no more be said!
Vain thy onset! all stands fast.
Thou thyself must break at last.

Let the long contention cease!
Geese are swans, and swans are geese.
Let them have it how they will!
Thou art tired; best be still.

They out-talked thee, hissed thee, tore thee?
Better men fared thus before thee;
Fired their ringing shot and passed,
Hotly charged--and sank at last.

Charge once more, then, and be dumb!
Let the victors, when they come,
When the forts of folly fall,
Find thy body by the wall!

THE ARTHURIAN LEGENDS

(Eighth to Twelfth Centuries)

BY RICHARD JONES

For nearly a thousand years, the Arthurian legends, which lie at the
basis of Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King,' have furnished unlimited
literary material, not to English poets alone, but to the poets of all
Christendom. These Celtic romances, having their birthplace in Brittany
or in Wales, had been growing and changing for some centuries, before
the fanciful 'Historia Britonum' of Geoffrey of Monmouth flushed them
with color and filled them with new life. Through the version of the
good Benedictine they soon became a vehicle for the dissemination of
Christian doctrine. By the year 1200 they were the common property of
Europe, influencing profoundly the literature of t