VI.

Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he Remembered in what a haughtier guise 290 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. The heart within him was ashes and dust; He parted in twain his single crust, 295 He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink, And gave the leper to eat and drink: 'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, 'T was water out of a wooden bowl,-- Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 300 And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul.

[Illustration: So he Mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime.]