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