Vision of Sir Launfal_. It represents a search for Christ, first in
nature's fair woods and fields, then in the "proud world" amid "power
and wealth," and the search finally ends in "a hovel rude" where--

"The King I sought for meekly stood:
A naked, hungry child
Clung round his gracious knee,
And a poor hunted slave looked up and smiled
To bless the smile that set him free."

And Christ, the seeker learns, is not to be found by wandering through
the world.

"His throne is with the outcast and the weak."

A similar fancy also is embodied in a little poem entitled _A
Parable_. Christ goes through the world to see "How the men, my
brethren, believe in me," and he finds "in church, and palace, and
judgment-hall," a disregard for the primary principles of his
teaching.

"Have ye founded your throne and altars, then,
On the bodies and souls of living men?
And think ye that building shall endure,
Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?"

These early poems and passages in others written at about the same
time, taken in connection with the _Vision_, show how strongly the
theme had seized upon Lowell's mind.

The structure of the poem is complicated and sometimes confusing. At
the outset the student must notice that there is a story within a
story. The action of the major story covers only a single night, and
the hero of this story is the real Sir Launfal, who in his sleep
dreams the minor story, the Vision. The action of this story covers
the lifetime of the hero, the imaginary Sir Launfal, from early
manhood to old age, and includes his wanderings in distant lands. The
poem is constructed on the principles of contrast and parallelism. By
holding to this method of structure throughout Lowell sacrificed the
important artistic element of unity, especially in breaking the
narrative with the Prelude to the second part. The first Prelude
describing the beauty and inspiring joy of spring, typifying the
buoyant youth and aspiring soul of Sir Launfal, corresponds to the
second Prelude, describing the bleakness and desolation of winter,
typifying the old age and desolated life of the hero. But beneath the
surface of this wintry age there is a new soul of summer beauty, the
warm love of suffering humanity, just as beneath the surface of the
frozen brook there is an ice-palace of summer beauty. In Part First
the gloomy castle with its joyless interior stands as the on