ly cold
and forbidding thing in the landscape, "like an outpost of winter;" so
in Part Second the same castle with Christmas joys within is the only
bright and gladsome object in the landscape. In Part First the castle
gates never "might opened be"; in Part Second the "castle gates stand
open now." And thus the student may find various details contrasted
and paralleled. The symbolic meaning must be kept constantly in mind,
or it will escape unobserved; for example, the cost of earthly things
in comparison with the generosity of June corresponds to the churlish
castle opposed to the inviting warmth of summer; and each symbolizes
the proud, selfish, misguided heart of Sir Launfal in youth, in
comparison with the humility and large Christian charity in old age.
The student should search for these symbolic hints, passages in which
"more is meant than meets the ear," but if he does not find all that
the poet may or may not have intended in his dreamy design, there need
be no detraction from the enjoyment of the poem.

Critical judgment upon _The Vision of Sir Launfal_ is generally severe
in respect to its structural faults. Mr. Greenslet declares that
"through half a century, nine readers out of ten have mistaken
Lowell's meaning," even the "numerous commentators" have "interpreted
the poem as if the young knight actually adventured the quest and
returned from it at the end of years, broken and old." This, however,
must be regarded as a rather exaggerated estimate of the lack of unity
and consistency in the poem. Stedman says: "I think that _The Vision
of Sir Launfal_ owed its success quite as much to a presentation of
nature as to its misty legend. It really is a landscape poem, of which
the lovely passage, 'And what is so rare as a day in June?' and the
wintry prelude to Part Second, are the specific features." And the
English critic, J. Churton Collins, thinks that "_Sir Launfal_, except
for the beautiful nature pictures, scarcely rises above the level of
an Ingoldsby Legend."

The popular judgment of the poem (which after all is the important
judgment) is fairly stated by Mr. Greenslet: "There is probably no
poem in American literature in which a visionary faculty like that [of
Lowell] is expressed with such a firm command of poetic background and
variety of music as in _Sir Launfal_ ... its structure is far from
perfect; yet for all that it has stood the searching test of time: it
is beloved now by thousands of young