He finds that
his castle is occupied by others, and that he himself is an outcast. His
cloak is torn; and instead of the charger in gilded trappings he was
mounted upon when as a young man, he started out with great hopes and
ambitions, he is afoot and leaning on a staff. While sitting there and
meditating, he is met by the same poor and needy leper he passed the
morning he started, the one who in his need asked for aid, and to whom
he had flung a coin in scorn, as he hurried on in his eager desire to be
in the Master's service. But matters are changed now, and he is a wiser
man. Again the poor leper says:--
"'For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms';--
The happy camels may reach the spring,
But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing,
The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone,
That cowers beside him, a thing as lone
And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas
In the desolate horror of his disease.
"And Sir Launfal said: 'I behold in thee
An image of Him who died on the tree;
Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns,--
Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns,--
And to thy life were not denied
The wounds in the hands and feet and side:
Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me;
Behold, _through him_, I give to thee!'
"Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes
And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway be
Remembered in what a haughtier guise
He had flung an alms to leprosie,
When he girt his young life up in gilded mail
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail.
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