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.

Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare
Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air,
For it was just at the Christmas time; 260
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