s: That sowed our enemies in her field for seed


s: And made her shores fit harbourage for thy soul.


s: Then in her green south fields, a poor man's child,


s: Thou hadst thy short sweet fill of half-blown joy,


s: With full-blown pain and passion; ere the wild


s: World caught thee by the fiery heart, and smiled


s: To make so swift end of the godlike boy.


s: For thou, if ever godlike foot there trod


s: These fields of ours, wert surely like a god.


s: Who knows what splendour of strange dreams was shed


s: With sacred shadow and glimmer of gold and red


s: From hallowed windows, over stone and sod,


s: On thine unbowed bright insubmissive head?


s: The shadow stayed not, but the splendour stays,


s: Our brother, till the last of English days.


s: No day nor night on English earth shall be


s: For ever, spring nor summer, Junes nor Mays,


s: But somewhat as a sound or gleam of thee


s: Shall come on us like morning from the sea.


s: Like sunrise never wholly risen, nor yet


s: Quenched; or like sunset never wholly set,


s: The cold unlit close lids of one that lies


s: Dead, or a ray returned from death's far skies


s: To fire us living lest our lives forget.


s: For in that heaven what light of lights may be,


s: What splendour of what stars, what spheres of flame


s: Sounding, that none may number nor may name,


s: We know not, even thy brethren; yea, not we


s: Whose eyes desire the light that lightened thee,


s: Whose ways and thine are one way and the same.


s: But if the riddles that in sleep we read,


s: And trust them not, be flattering truth indeed,


s: As he that rose our mightiest called them,--he,


s: Much higher than thou as thou much higher than we--


s: There, might we say, all flower of all our seed,


s: All singing souls are as one sounding sea.


s: All those that here were of thy kind and kin,


s: Beside thee and below thee, full of love,


s: Full-souled for song,--and one alone above


s: Whose only light folds all your glories in--


s: With all birds' notes from nightingale to dove


s: Fill the world whither we too fain would win.


s: The world that sees in heaven the sovereign light


s: Of sunlike Shakespeare, and the fiery night


s: Whose stars were watched of Webster; and beneath,


s: The twin-souled brethren of the single wreath,


s: Grown in kings' gardens, plucked from pastoral heath,


s: Wrought with all flowers for all men's heart's delight.


s: And that fixed fervour, iron-red like Mars,


s: In the mid moving tide of tenderer stars,


s: That burned on loves and deeds the darkest done,


s: Athwart the incestuous prisoner's bride-house bars;


s: And thine, most highest of all their fires but one,


s: Our morning star, sole risen before the sun.


s: And one light risen since theirs to run such race


s: Thou hast seen, O Phosphor, from thy pride of place.


s: Thou hast seen Shelley, him that was to thee


s: As light to fire or dawn to lightning; me,


s: Me likewise, O our brother, shalt thou see,


s: And I behold thee, face to glorious face?


s: You twain the same swift year of manhood swept


s: Down the steep darkness, and our father wept.


s: A holier aureole rounds your memories, kept


s: Most fervent-fresh of all the singing spheres,


s: And April-coloured through all months and years.


s: You twain fate spared not half your fiery span;


s: Stand smiling, crowned as gods with foot on fate.


s: For stronger was your blessing than his ban,


s: And earliest whom he struck, he struck too late.


s: Yet love and loathing, faith and unfaith yet


s: And one desire that makes three spirits as one


s: Takes great and small as in one spiritual net


s: Woven out of hope toward what shall yet be done


s: Woven out of faith and hope and love too great


s: To bear the bonds of life and death and fate:


s: Woven out of love and hope and faith too dear


s: To take the print of doubt and change and fear:


s: And interwoven with lines of wrath and hate


s: Blood-red with soils of many a sanguine year.


s: Who cannot hate, can love not; if he grieve,


s: His tears are barren as the unfruitful rain


s: That rears no harvest from the green sea's plain,


s: And as thorns crackling this man's laugh is vain.


s: Nor can belief touch, kindle, smite, reprieve


s: His heart who has not heart to disbelieve.


s: But you, most perfect in your hate and love,


s: Our great twin-spirited brethren; you that stand


s: Head by head glittering, hand made fast in hand,


s: And underfoot the fang-drawn worm that strove


s: Look love, not scorn, on ours that was your land.


s: For love we lack, and help and heat and light


s: To clothe us and to comfort us with might.


s: What help is ours to take or give? but ye--


s: O, more than sunrise to the blind cold sea,


s: That wailed aloud with all her waves all night,


s: Much more, being much more glorious, should you be.


s: As fire to frost, as ease to toil, as dew


s: To flowerless fields, as sleep to slackening pain,


s: As hope to souls long weaned from hope again


s: To dry-drawn limbs and every pulseless vein,


s: Even so toward us should no man be but you.


s: One rose before the sunrise was, and one


s: Before the sunset, lovelier than the sun.


s: And now the heaven is dark and bright and loud


s: With wind and starry drift and moon and cloud,


s: And night's cry rings in straining sheet and shroud,


s: What help is ours if hope like yours be none?


s: Then are we not forsaken. This kind earth


s: Made fragrant once for all time with your birth,


s: And bright for all men with your love, and worth


s: The clasp and kiss and wedlock of the sea,


s: Were not your mother if not your brethren we.


s: Because the days were dark with gods and kings


s: And in time's hand the old hours of time as rods,


s: When force and fear set hope and faith at odds,


s: Ye failed not nor abased your plume-plucked wings;


s: And we that front not more disastrous things,


s: How should we fail in face of kings and gods?


s: For now the deep dense plumes of night are thinned


s: Surely with winnowing of the glimmering wind


s: Whose feet are fledged with morning; and the breath


s: Begins in heaven that sings the dark to death.


s: And all the night wherein men groaned and sinned


s: Sickens at heart to hear what sundawn saith.


s: O first-born sons of hope and fairest, ye


s: Whose prows first clove the thought-unsounded sea


s: Whence all the dark dead centuries rose to bar


s: The spirit of man lest truth should make him free,


s: The sunrise and the sunset, seeing one star,


s: Take heart as we to know you that ye are.


s: Ye rise and set like hopes that set and rise


s: Look yet but seaward from a land-locked bay;


s: But where at last the sea's line is the sky's


s: And truth and hope one sunlight in your eyes,


s: No sunrise and no sunset marks their day.


s: In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland,


s: At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee,


s: Walled round with rocks as an inland island,


s: A girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses


s: The steep square slope of the blossomless bed


s: Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses


s: The fields fall southward, abrupt and broken,


s: To the low last edge of the long lone land.


s: If a step should sound or a word be spoken,


s: Would a ghost not rise at the strange guest's hand?


s: So long have the grey bare walks lain guestless,


s: Through branches and briars if a man make way,


s: He shall find no life but the sea-wind's, restless


s: The dense hard passage is blind and stifled


s: That crawls by a track none turn to climb


s: To the strait waste place that the years have rifled


s: Of all but the thorns that are touched not of time.


s: The thorns he spares when the rose is taken;


s: The rocks are left when he wastes the plain.


s: The wind that wanders, the weeds wind-shaken,


s: Not a flower to be pressed of the foot that falls not;


s: As the heart of a dead man the seed-plots are dry;


s: From the thicket of thorns whence the nightingale calls not,


s: Could she call, there were never a rose to reply.


s: Over the meadows that blossom and wither


s: Rings but the note of a sea-bird's song;


s: The sun burns sere and the rain dishevels


s: One gaunt bleak blossom of scentless breath.


s: In a round where life seems barren as death.


s: Here there was laughing of old, there was weeping,


s: Whose eyes went seaward a hundred sleeping


s: Heart handfast in heart as they stood, "Look thither,"


s: Did he whisper? "look forth from the flowers to the sea;


s: For the foam-flowers endure when the rose-blossoms wither,


s: And men that love lightly may die--but we?"


s: And the same wind sang and the same waves whitened,


s: And or ever the garden's last petals were shed,


s: In the lips that had whispered, the eyes that had lightened,


s: Or they loved their life through, and then went whither?


s: And were one to the end--but what end who knows?


s: Love deep as the sea as a rose must wither,


s: As the rose-red seaweed that mocks the rose.


s: Shall the dead take thought for the dead to love them?


s: They are loveless now as the grass above them


s: Not known of the cliffs and the fields and the sea.


s: Not a breath of the time that has been hovers


s: In the air now soft with a summer to be.


s: Not a breath shall there sweeten the seasons hereafter


s: Of the flowers or the lovers that laugh now or weep,


s: When as they that are free now of weeping and laughter


s: Here change may come not till all change end.


s: From the graves they have made they shall rise up never,


s: Who have left nought living to ravage and rend.


s: Earth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing,


s: While the sun and the rain live, these shall be;


s: Till a last wind's breath upon all these blowing


s: Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble,


s: Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink,


s: Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble


s: The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink,


s: Here now in his triumph where all things falter,


s: Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,


s: As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,


s: This flower that smells of honey and the sea,


s: White laurustine, seems in my hand to be


s: Lit in the heaven of dear times dead to me.


s: A star out of the skies love used to know


s: Here held in hand, a stray left yet to show


s: What flowers my heart was full of in the days


s: That are long since gone down dead memory's flow.


s: Dead memory that revives on doubtful ways,


s: Half hearkening what the buried season says


s: Where the lost Aprils are, and the lost Mays.


s: Flower, once I knew thy star-white brethren bred


s: Nigh where the last of all the land made head


s: Against the sea, a keen-faced promontory,


s: Flowers on salt wind and sprinkled sea-dews fed.


s: Their hearts were glad of the free place's glory;


s: The wind that sang them all his stormy story


s: Had talked all winter to the sleepless spray,


s: And as the sea's their hues were hard and hoary.


s: Like things born of the sea and the bright day,


s: They laughed out at the years that could not slay,


s: And stronger than all storms that range for prey.


s: A keen-edged odour of the sun and showers


s: Made sweet for mouths of none but paramours.


s: Out of the hard green wall of leaves that clomb


s: They showed like windfalls of the snow-soft foam,


s: Or feathers from the weary south-wind's wing,


s: Fair as the spray that it came shoreward from.


s: And thou, as white, what word hast thou to bring?


s: If my heart hearken, whereof wilt thou sing?


s: For some sign surely thou too hast to bear,


s: Some word far south was taught thee of the spring.


s: White like a white rose, not like these that were


s: Taught of the wind's mouth and the winter air,


s: Poor tender thing of soft Italian bloom,


s: Where once thou grewest, what else for me grew there?


s: Born in what spring and on what city's tomb,


s: By whose hand wast thou reached, and plucked for whom?


s: There hangs about thee, could the soul's sense tell,


s: Of days more sweet than thou wast sweet to smell,


s: Of flower-soft thoughts that came to flower and fell,


s: Of loves that lived a lily's life and died,


s: Of dreams now dwelling where dead roses dwell.


s: O white birth of the golden mountain-side


s: That for the sun's love makes its bosom wide


s: At sunrise, and with all its woods and flowers


s: Takes in the morning to its heart of pride!


s: Thou hast a word of that one land of ours,


s: And of the fair town called of the Fair Towers,


s: A word of April's greenest-girdled hours.


s: Of the old breached walls whereon the wallflowers ran


s: Called of Saint Fina, breachless now of man,


s: Though time with soft feet break them stone by stone,


s: Who breaks down hour by hour his own reign's span.


s: That all that flowerage clothed as flesh clothes bone,


s: Whereof here lies one witness overblown.


s: The fair brave trees with all their flowers at play,


s: How king-like they stood up into the day!


s: How sweet the day was with them, and the night!


s: Such words of message have dead flowers to say.


s: This that the winter and the wind made bright,


s: Before I throw them and these words away,


s: Who knows but I what memories too take flight?


s: The night last night was strange and shaken:


s: Once more, for the old love's love forsaken,


s: For the old love's love-sake dead and buried,


s: We watched the waves set in, the serried


s: With chafe and change of surges chiming,


s: Faint lights fell this way, that way floated,


s: From the rolled surf that flashed, and noted


s: Shores and faint cliffs and bays and skies.


s: With weak heart heaved up once in death--


s: With light sweet touches and small sound--


s: These could not move us, could not waken


s: Hearts to look forth, eyes to look round.


s: Clouds and blown stars and broken light.


s: Full of cold clouds and moonbeams drifted


s: And streaming storms and straying fires,


s: Our souls in us were stirred and shifted


s: By doubts and dreams and foiled desires.


s: Swam, dipped, and dropped, and grazed the sea:


s: As the white wing the white wave's fringes


s: Touched and slid over and flashed past--


s: Last shadow of flame and faith benighted,


s: Sees falter and flutter and fail the shrine)


s: Your winged heart touched mine and went,


s: And the swift spirits kissed, and sighing,


s: Slight as the sea's sight of the sea-mew,


s: Who snares and tames with fear and danger


s: Best leave or take the perfect creature,


s: Change feet for wings or wings for feet.


s: Strange eyes, new limbs, can no man give her;


s: No soul she hath, we see, to outlive her;


s: Time brings us all by handfuls, wronging


s: Ah, too soon shot, the fool's bolt misses!


s: You could not tame your light white sea-mew,


s: For you the jungle and me the sea-spray,


s: Splashed stiff with sea-scurf and salt weather,


s: Till the acrid hour aches out and ceases,


s: And the sheathed eyeball sleepier swims,


s: The deep flank smoothes its dimpling creases.


s: Till dreams of sharp grey north-sea weather


s: As on strange sands a strayed bird's feather


s: Gilt with sweet dust from gold-grained anthers


s: From the ardours of the chaliced centre,


s: That scorch and smutch all wings that enter,


s: But as to a bee's gilt thighs and winglets


s: The flower-dust with the flower-smell clings;


s: Leave the sand marked with print of rings;


s: As a bird sleeping in the nest of night,


s: Among soft leaves that give the starlight way


s: To touch its wings but not its eyes with light;


s: This was the measure of my soul's delight;


s: Nor part in the large lordship of the light;


s: Had all its will of dreams and pleasant night,


s: And all the love and life that sleepers may.


s: But such life's triumph as men waking may


s: It might not have to feed its faint delight


s: Between the stars by night and sun by day,


s: Shut up with green leaves and a little light;


s: Because its way was as a lost star's way,


s: A world's not wholly known of day or night.


s: All loves and dreams and sounds and gleams of night


s: Made it all music that such minstrels may,


s: And all they had they gave it of delight;


s: What place shall be for any starry light,


s: What part of heaven in all the wide sun's way?


s: Yet the soul woke not, sleeping by the way,


s: Watched as a nursling of the large-eyed night,


s: And sought no strength nor knowledge of the day,


s: Nor mightier joy nor truer than dreamers may,


s: Nor more of song than they, nor more of light.


s: For who sleeps once and sees the secret light


s: Whereby sleep shows the soul a fairer way


s: Between the rise and rest of day and night,


s: Shall care no more to fare as all men may,


s: There shall he dwell, beholding night as day.


s: Song, have thy day and take thy fill of light


s: Before the night be fallen across thy way;


s: Sing while he may, man hath no long delight.


s: From the depths of the green garden-closes


s: From the maze that a flower-belt encloses


s: To the stones and sea-grass on the strand


s: From the first blade blown to the sheaf,


s: And its spirit was quenched not of night,


s: From the sea which had borne her and burned,


s: And her passage is song through the air,


s: And her presence is spring through the world.


s: With the fires that were shed from her feet,


s: Through the darkness thrilled with its breath,


s: From the bloom and the gloom that encloses


s: To the hour-glass that breaks in his hand;


s: From the change in the grey garden-closes


s: Couldst thou not watch with me one hour? Behold,


s: Dawn skims the sea with flying feet of gold,


s: With sudden feet that graze the gradual sea;


s: What, not one hour? for star by star the night


s: Falls, and her thousands world by world take flight;


s: They die, and day survives, and what of thee?


s: Lo, far in heaven the web of night undone,


s: Wave to wave answers, tree responds to tree;


s: Sunbeam by sunbeam creeps from line to line,


s: Foam by foam quickens on the brightening brine;


s: Sail by sail passes, flower by flower gets free;


s: Last year, a brief while since, an age ago,


s: A whole year past, with bud and bloom and snow,


s: O moon that wast in heaven, what friends were we!


s: Old moons, and last year's flowers, and last year's snows!


s: Who now saith to thee, moon? or who saith, rose?


s: O dust and ashes, once found fair to see!


s: O dust and ashes, once thought sweet to smell!


s: With me it is not, is it with thee well?


s: O sea-drift blown from windward back to lee!


s: The old year's dead hands are full of their dead flowers.


s: The old days are full of dead old loves of ours,


s: Born as a rose, and briefer born than she;


s: Could two days live again of that dead year,


s: One would say, seeking us and passing here,


s: _Where is she?_ and one answering, _Where is he?_


s: If we were they, none knows us what we were,


s: Nor aught of all their barren grief and glee.


s: Half false, half fair, all feeble, be my verse


s: Upon thee not for blessing nor for curse;


s: For some must stand, and some must fall or flee;


s: As a new moon above spent stars thou wast;


s: But stars endure after the moon is past.


s: Couldst thou not watch one hour, though I watch three?


s: What of the night? The night is full, the tide


s: Storms inland, the most ancient rocks divide;


s: Yet some endure, and bow nor head nor knee;


s: Since thou art not as these are, go thy ways;


s: Thou hast no part in all my nights and days.


s: Lie still, sleep on, be glad--as such things be;


s: There is no woman living that draws breath


s: So sad as I, though all things sadden her.


s: There is not one upon life's weariest way


s: Who is weary as I am weary of all but death.


s: Toward whom I look as looks the sunflower


s: All day with all his whole soul toward the sun;


s: While in the sun's sight I make moan all day,


s: And all night on my sleepless maiden bed


s: Weep and call out on death, O Love, and thee,


s: That thou or he would take me to the dead,


s: And know not what thing evil I have done


s: That life should lay such heavy hand on me.


s: Alas, Love, what is this thou wouldst with me?


s: What honour shall thou have to quench my breath,


s: Or what shall my heart broken profit thee?


s: O Love, O great god Love, what have I done,


s: That thou shouldst hunger so after my death?


s: My heart is harmless as my life's first day:


s: Seek out some false fair woman, and plague her


s: Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed:


s: I am the least flower in thy flowery way,


s: Let me live out my flower-time in the sun


s: Though my leaves shut before the sunflower.


s: O Love, Love, Love, the kingly sunflower!


s: Shall he the sun hath looked on look on me,


s: That live down here in shade, out of the sun,


s: Here living in the sorrow and shadow of death?


s: Shall he that feeds his heart full of the day


s: Care to give mine eyes light, or my lips breath?


s: Because she loves him shall my lord love her


s: Who is as a worm in my lord's kingly way?


s: I shall not see him or know him alive or dead;


s: But thou, I know thee, O Love, and pray to thee


s: That in brief while my brief life-days be done,


s: And the worm quickly make my marriage-bed.


s: For underground there is no sleepless bed:


s: These eyes have slept not, seeing all night and day


s: His sunlike eyes, and face fronting the sun.


s: I would fain find and fold him fast to me,


s: That I may sleep with the world's eldest dead,


s: With her that died seven centuries since, and her


s: That went last night down the night-wandering way.


s: For this is sleep indeed, when labour is done,


s: Without love, without dreams, and without breath,


s: And without thought, O name unnamed! of thee.


s: Ah, but, forgetting all things, shall I thee?


s: There underground as here before the sun?


s: Shall not thy vision vex me alive and dead,


s: Thy moving vision without form or breath?


s: I read long since the bitter tale of her


s: Who read the tale of Launcelot on a day,


s: Lost with her love in the underworld; ah me,


s: Would God to me too such a thing were done!


s: But if such sweet and bitter things be done,


s: Then, flying from life, I shall not fly from thee.


s: And meet and mock me, and mar my peace in death.


s: Yet if being wroth God had such pity on her,


s: Who was a sinner and foolish in her day,


s: That even in hell they twain should breathe one breath,


s: As he the sun, in some divine strange way.


s: O poor my heart, well knowest thou in what way


s: To see the knights tilt, and one said to me


s: "The king," and seeing him, somewhat stopped my breath,


s: And if the girl spake more, I heard not her,


s: For only I saw what I shall see when dead,


s: A kingly flower of knights, a sunflower,


s: That shone against the sunlight like the sun,


s: And like a fire, O heart, consuming thee,


s: The fire of love that lights the pyre of death.


s: Who have loved in such a sad and sinless way,


s: That this my love, lord, was no shame to thee.


s: So when mine eyes are shut against the sun,


s: O my soul's sun, O the world's sunflower,


s: Thou nor no man will quite despise me dead.


s: And dying I pray with all my low last breath


s: That thy whole life may be as was that day,


s: That feast-day that made trothplight death and me,


s: Giving the world light of thy great deeds done;


s: And that fair face brightening thy bridal bed,


s: That God be good as God hath been to her.


s: That all things goodly and glad remain with her,


s: All things that make glad life and goodly death;


s: Honey, when summer draws delighted breath,


s: Her soul may drink of thy soul in like way,


s: And love make life a fruitful marriage-bed


s: Where day may bring forth fruits of joy to day


s: And night to night till days and nights be dead.


s: And as she gives light of her love to thee,


s: Give thou to her the old glory of days long done;


s: And either give some heat of light to me,


s: To warm me where I sleep without the sun.


s: O knight whose lady's heart draws thine to her,


s: Great king, glad lover, I have a word to thee.


s: There is a weed lives out of the sun's way,


s: Hid from the heat deep in the meadow's bed,


s: That swoons and whitens at the wind's least breath,


s: A flower star-shaped, that all a summer day


s: For very love till twilight finds her dead.


s: But the great sunflower heeds not her poor death,


s: Knows not when all her loving life is done;


s: And so much knows my lord the king of me.


s: With golden eye following the golden sun


s: From rose-coloured to purple-pillowed bed,


s: From birthplace to the flame-lit place of death,


s: So the white star-flower turns and yearns to thee,


s: The sick weak weed, not well alive or dead,


s: Pale, without colour of summer or summer breath


s: In the shrunk shuddering petals, that have done


s: No work but love, and die before the day.


s: But thou, to-day, to-morrow, and every day,


s: Be glad and great, O love whose love slays me.


s: Thy fervent flower made fruitful from the sun


s: Shall drop its golden seed in the world's way,


s: That all men thereof nourished shall praise thee


s: For grain and flower and fruit of works well done;


s: Till thy shed seed, O shining sunflower,


s: Bring forth such growth of the world's garden-bed


s: As like the sun shall outlive age and death.


s: And yet I would thine heart had heed of her


s: Who loves thee alive; but not till she be dead.


s: Come, Love, then, quickly, and take her utmost breath.


s: From my sad bed of tears I send forth thee,


s: To fly all day from sun's birth to sun's death


s: Down the sun's way after the flying sun,


s: For love of her that gave thee wings and breath,


s: Son of the lightning and the light that glows


s: Beyond the lightning's or the morning's light,


s: Soul splendid with all-righteous love of right,


s: In whose keen fire all hopes and fears and woes


s: Were clean consumed, and from their ashes rose


s: Save of purged eyes whose lids had cast off night,


s: In love's and wisdom's likeness when they close,


s: Embracing, and between them truth stands fast,


s: Embraced of either; thou whose feet were set


s: On English earth while this was England yet,


s: Our friend that art, our Sidney's friend that wast,


s: Heart hardier found and higher than all men's past,


s: Shall we not praise thee though thine own forget?


s: Lift up thy light on us and on thine own,


s: O soul whose spirit on earth was as a rod


s: To scourge off priests, a sword to pierce their God,


s: A staff for man's free thought to walk alone,


s: A lamp to lead him far from shrine and throne


s: On ways untrodden where his fathers trod


s: Ere earth's heart withered at a high priest's nod


s: And all men's mouths that made not prayer made moan.


s: From bonds and torments and the ravening flame


s: Surely thy spirit of sense rose up to greet


s: Lucretius, where such only spirits meet,


s: And walk with him apart till Shelley came


s: To make the heaven of heavens more heavenly sweet


s: And mix with yours a third incorporate name.


s: Nous devrions pourtant lui porter quelques fleurs;


s: Les morts, les pauvres morts, ont de grandes douleurs,


s: Et quand Octobre souffle, émondeur des vieux arbres,


s: Son vent mélancolique à l'entour de leurs marbres,


s: Certe, ils doivent trouver les vivants bien ingrats.


s: Shall I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel,


s: Brother, on this that was the veil of thee?


s: Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel,


s: Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve?


s: Or wilt thou rather, as on earth before,


s: Half-faded fiery blossoms, pale with heat


s: And full of bitter summer, but more sweet


s: To thee than gleanings of a northern shore


s: For always thee the fervid languid glories


s: Allured of heavier suns in mightier skies;


s: Thine ears knew all the wandering watery sighs


s: Where the sea sobs round Lesbian promontories,


s: That knows not where is that Leucadian grave


s: Which hides too deep the supreme head of song.


s: Ah, salt and sterile as her kisses were,


s: The wild sea winds her and the green gulfs bear


s: Hither and thither, and vex and work her wrong,


s: Thou sawest, in thine old singing season, brother,


s: Fierce loves, and lovely leaf-buds poisonous,


s: Bare to thy subtler eye, but for none other


s: Blowing by night in some unbreathed-in clime;


s: Sin without shape, and pleasure without speech;


s: And where strange dreams in a tumultuous sleep


s: Make the shut eyes of stricken spirits weep;


s: And with each face thou sawest the shadow on each,


s: O sleepless heart and sombre soul unsleeping,


s: That were athirst for sleep and no more life


s: And no more love, for peace and no more strife!


s: Now the dim gods of death have in their keeping


s: Spirit and body and all the springs of song,


s: Is it well now where love can do no wrong,


s: Where stingless pleasure has no foam or fang


s: Behind the unopening closure of her lips?


s: Is it not well where soul from body slips


s: And flesh from bone divides without a pang


s: Are one thing to thee, who art past the end.


s: For thee no fruits to pluck, no palms for winning,


s: O quiet eyes wherein the light saith nought,


s: With obscure finger silences your sight,


s: Nor in your speech the sudden soul speaks thought,


s: Now all strange hours and all strange loves are over,


s: Dreams and desires and sombre songs and sweet,


s: Hast thou found place at the great knees and feet


s: The deep division of prodigious breasts,


s: The solemn slope of mighty limbs asleep,


s: The weight of awful tresses that still keep


s: The savour and shade of old-world pine-forests


s: Hast thou found any likeness for thy vision?


s: O gardener of strange flowers, what bud, what bloom,


s: Hast thou found sown, what gathered in the gloom?


s: What of despair, of rapture, of derision,


s: What of life is there, what of ill or good?


s: Are the fruits grey like dust or bright like blood?


s: Does the dim ground grow any seed of ours,


s: The faint fields quicken any terrene root,


s: In low lands where the sun and moon are mute


s: And all the stars keep silence? Are there flowers


s: Alas, but though my flying song flies after,


s: O sweet strange elder singer, thy more fleet


s: Singing, and footprints of thy fleeter feet,


s: Some dim derision of mysterious laughter


s: From the blind tongueless warders of the dead,


s: Some gainless glimpse of Proserpine's veiled head,


s: And from pale mouths some cadence of dead sighs--


s: These only, these the hearkening spirit hears,


s: Thou art far too far for wings of words to follow,


s: Far too far off for thought or any prayer.


s: What ails us with thee, who art wind and air?


s: What ails us gazing where all seen is hollow?


s: Yet with some fancy, yet with some desire,


s: Dreams pursue death as winds a flying fire,


s: Our dreams pursue our dead and do not find.


s: Still, and more swift than they, the thin flame flies,


s: The low light fails us in elusive skies,


s: Still the foiled earnest ear is deaf, and blind


s: Not thee, O never thee, in all time's changes,


s: Not thee, but this the sound of thy sad soul,


s: The shadow of thy swift spirit, this shut scroll


s: I lay my hand on, and not death estranges


s: These memories and these melodies that throng


s: These I salute, these touch, these clasp and fold


s: As though a hand were in my hand to hold,


s: As when the pyre was charred, and piled the sods,


s: And offering to the dead made, and their gods,


s: The old mourners had, standing to make libation,


s: I stand, and to the gods and to the dead


s: Do reverence without prayer or praise, and shed


s: Offering to these unknown, the gods of gloom,


s: And what of honey and spice my seedlands bear,


s: And what I may of fruits in this chilled air,


s: But by no hand nor any treason stricken,


s: Not like the low-lying head of Him, the King,


s: The flame that made of Troy a ruinous thing,


s: Thou liest, and on this dust no tears could quicken


s: There fall no tears like theirs that all men hear


s: Down the opening leaves of holy poets' pages.


s: The most high Muses that fulfil all ages


s: For, sparing of his sacred strength, not often


s: Among us darkling here the lord of light


s: In hearts that open and in lips that soften


s: With the soft flame and heat of songs that shine.


s: Thy lips indeed he touched with bitter wine,


s: And nourished them indeed with bitter bread;


s: Yet surely from his hand thy soul's food came,


s: The fire that scarred thy spirit at his flame


s: Was lighted, and thine hungering heart he fed


s: Therefore he too now at thy soul's sunsetting,


s: God of all suns and songs, he too bends down


s: To mix his laurel with thy cypress crown,


s: And save thy dust from blame and from forgetting.


s: Therefore he too, seeing all thou wert and art,


s: Compassionate, with sad and sacred heart,


s: Mourns thee of many his children the last dead,


s: And hallows with strange tears and alien sighs


s: Thine unmelodious mouth and sunless eyes,


s: And one weeps with him in the ways Lethean,


s: And stains with tears her changing bosom chill:


s: That thing transformed which was the Cytherean,


s: With lips that lost their Grecian laugh divine


s: Long since, and face no more called Erycine;


s: Thee also with fair flesh and singing spell


s: Into the footless places once more trod,


s: And now no sacred staff shall break in blossom,


s: A spirit sick with perfume and sweet night


s: And love's tired eyes and hands and barren bosom.


s: There is no help for these things; none to mend


s: And none to mar; not all our songs, O friend,


s: Will make death clear or make life durable.


s: And with wild notes about this dust of thine


s: At least I fill the place where white dreams dwell


s: Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon,


s: If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live;


s: And to give thanks is good, and to forgive.


s: Out of the mystic and the mournful garden


s: Where all day through thine hands in barren braid


s: Wove the sick flowers of secrecy and shade,


s: Green buds of sorrow and sin, and remnants grey,


s: Sweet-smelling, pale with poison, sanguine-hearted,


s: Passions that sprang from sleep and thoughts that started,


s: Shall death not bring us all as thee one day


s: For thee, O now a silent soul, my brother,


s: Take at my hands this garland, and farewell.


s: Thin is the leaf, and chill the wintry smell,


s: And chill the solemn earth, a fatal mother,


s: And in the hollow of her breasts a tomb.


s: Content thee, howsoe'er, whose days are done;


s: There lies not any troublous thing before,


s: Nor sight nor sound to war against thee more,


s: For whom all winds are quiet as the sun,


s: Death, what hast thou to do with me? So saith


s: Love, with eyes set against the face of Death;


s: What have I done, O thou strong Death, to thee,


s: That mine own lips should wither from thy breath?


s: Though thou be blind as fire or as the sea,


s: Why should thy waves and storms make war on me?


s: Is it for hate thou hast to find me fair,


s: My very mouth of song, and kill me there?


s: So with keen rains vexing his crownless hair.


s: With bright feet bruised from no delightful way,


s: Through darkness and the disenchanted air,


s: Lost Love went weeping half a winter's day.


s: And the armèd wind that smote him seemed to say,


s: How shall the dew live when the dawn is fled,


s: Or wherefore should the Mayflower outlast May?


s: Then Death took Love by the right hand and said,


s: Smiling: Come now and look upon thy dead.


s: But Love cast down the glories of his eyes,


s: And bowed down like a flower his flowerless head.


s: And Death spake, saying: What ails thee in such wise,


s: Being god, to shut thy sight up from the skies?


s: If thou canst see not, hast thou ears to hear?


s: Even as he spake with fleshless lips of fear,


s: But soft as sleep sings in a tired man's ear,


s: Behold, the winter was not, and its might


s: Fell, and fruits broke forth of the barren year.


s: And upon earth was largess of great light,


s: And moving music winged for worldwide flight,


s: And shapes and sounds of gods beheld and heard,


s: And day's foot set upon the neck of night.


s: And with such song the hollow ways were stirred


s: Or as the whole soul of the sun in spring


s: Should find full utterance in one flower-soft word,


s: And all the season should break forth and sing


s: From one flower's lips, in one rose triumphing;


s: Such breath and light of song as of a flame


s: Made ears and spirits of them that heard it ring.


s: And Love beholding knew not for the same


s: The shape that led him, nor in face nor name,


s: For he was bright and great of thews and fair,


s: And in Love's eyes he was not Death, but Fame.


s: Not that grey ghost whose life is empty and bare


s: And his limbs moulded out of mortal air,


s: A cloud of change that shifts into a shower


s: And dies and leaves no light for time to wear:


s: But a god clothed with his own joy and power,


s: Immortal, king and lord of time and space,


s: With eyes that look on them as from a tower.


s: And where he stood the pale sepulchral place


s: Bloomed, as new life might in a bloodless face,


s: And where men sorrowing came to seek a tomb


s: With funeral flowers and tears for grief and grace,


s: They saw with light as of a world in bloom


s: The ways of life wherein we toiling tread,


s: And watched the darkness as a brand consume.


s: And through the gates where rule the deathless dead


s: The sound of a new singer's soul was shed


s: That sang among his kinsfolk, and a beam


s: Shot from the star on a new ruler's head.


s: Made of all souls of singers and their might,


s: That makes of life and time and death a dream.


s: Thy star, thy song, O soul that in our sight


s: Wast as a sun that made for man's delight


s: Flowers and all fruits in season, being so near


s: The sun-god's face, our god that gives us light.


s: Thou amongst all men by thy name wast dear,


s: Dear to the god that gives us spirit of song


s: To bind and burn all hearts of men that hear.


s: The god that makes men's words too sweet and strong


s: For life or time or death to do them wrong,


s: Who sealed with his thy spirit for a sign


s: And filled it with his breath thy whole life long.


s: Who made thy moist lips fiery with new wine


s: Pressed from the grapes of song, the sovereign vine,


s: And with all love of all things loveliest


s: Gave thy soul power to make them more divine.


s: That thou might'st breathe upon the breathless rest


s: Of marble, till the brows and lips and breast


s: Felt fall from off them as a cancelled curse


s: That speechless sleep wherewith they lived opprest.


s: Who gave thee strength and heat of spirit to pierce


s: All clouds of form and colour that disperse,


s: And leave the spirit of beauty to remould


s: In types of clean chryselephantine verse.


s: Who gave thee words more golden than fine gold


s: To carve in shapes more glorious than of old,


s: And build thy songs up in the sight of time


s: In sight and scorn of temporal change and clime


s: That meet the sun re-risen with refluent rhyme


s: --As god to god might answer face to face--


s: From lips whereon the morning strikes sublime.


s: Dear to the god, our god who gave thee place


s: Among the chosen of days, the royal race,


s: The lords of light, whose eyes of old and ears


s: Saw even on earth and heard him for a space.


s: There are the souls of those once mortal years


s: That wrought with fire of joy and light of tears


s: In words divine as deeds that grew thereof


s: Such music as he swoons with love who hears.


s: There are the lives that lighten from above


s: Our under lives, the spheral souls that move


s: Through the ancient heaven of song-illumined air


s: Whence we that hear them singing die with love.


s: There all the crowned Hellenic heads, and there


s: The old gods who made men godlike as they were,


s: The lyric lips wherefrom all songs take fire,


s: Live eyes, and light of Apollonian hair.


s: There, round the sovereign passion of that lyre


s: Which the stars hear and tremble with desire,


s: Seeing, after this or that crown to be won;


s: But where they hear the singing of the sun,


s: All form, all sound, all colour, and all thought


s: There the song sung shines as a picture wrought,


s: The painted mouths sing that on earth say nought,


s: The carven limbs have sense of blood and growth


s: And large-eyed life that seeks nor lacks not aught.


s: Lives, and all loves wrought of thine hand in youth


s: And bound about the breasts and brows with gold


s: And coloured pale or dusk from north or south.


s: Fair living things made to thy will of old,


s: Born of thy lips, no births of mortal mould,


s: That in the world of song about thee wait


s: Where thought and truth are one and manifold.


s: That here divides our vision and our fate,


s: The dreams we walk in and the truths of sleep,


s: All sense and spirit have life inseparate.


s: There what one thinks, is his to grasp and keep;


s: There are no dreams, but very joys to reap,


s: No foiled desires that die before delight,


s: No fears to see across our joys and weep.


s: There hast thou all thy will of thought and sight,


s: All hope for harvest, and all heaven for flight;


s: The sunrise of whose golden-mouthed glad head


s: To paler songless ghosts was heat and light.


s: Here where the sunset of our year is red


s: Men think of thee as of the summer dead,


s: Gone forth before the snows, before thy day,


s: With unshod feet, with brows unchapleted.


s: Couldst thou not wait till age had wound, they say,


s: Round those wreathed brows his soft white blossoms? Nay,


s: Why shouldst thou vex thy soul with this harsh air,


s: Thy bright-winged soul, once free to take its way?


s: Nor for men's reverence hadst thou need to wear


s: The holy flower of grey time-hallowed hair;


s: Nor were it fit that aught of thee grew old,


s: Fair lover all thy days of all things fair.


s: And hear we not thy words of molten gold


s: Singing? or is their light and heat acold


s: Whereat men warmed their spirits? Nay, for all


s: These yet are with us, ours to hear and hold.


s: The lovely laughter, the clear tears, the call


s: Of love to love on ways where shadows fall,


s: Through doors of dim division and disguise,


s: The love that caught strange light from death's own eyes,


s: And filled death's lips with fiery words and sighs,


s: And half asleep let feed from veins of his


s: And that great night of love more strange than this,


s: When she that made the whole world's bale and bliss


s: Made king of all the world's desire a slave,


s: And killed him in mid kingdom with a kiss;


s: Veiled loves that shifted shapes and shafts, and gave,


s: Laughing, strange gifts to hands that durst not crave,


s: Flowers double-blossomed, fruits of scent and hue


s: Sweet as the bride-bed, stranger than the grave;


s: All joys and wonders of old lives and new


s: That ever in love's shine or shadow grew,


s: And all the grief whereof he dreams and grieves,


s: And all sweet roots fed on his light and dew;


s: All these through thee our spirit of sense perceives,


s: As threads in the unseen woof thy music weaves,


s: Birds caught and snared that fill our ears with thee,


s: Bay-blossoms in thy wreath of brow-bound leaves.


s: Mixed with the masque of death's old comedy


s: Though thou too pass, have here our flowers, that we


s: For all the flowers thou gav'st upon thee shed,


s: Blue lotus-blooms and white and rosy-red


s: We wind with poppies for thy silent head,


s: Leave thy sweet light to rise upon the dead.


s: (WITH A COPY OF _Mademoiselle de Maupin_)


s: This is the golden book of spirit and sense,


s: The holy writ of beauty; he that wrought


s: Made it with dreams and faultless words and thought


s: That seeks and finds and loses in the dense


s: Dim air of life that beauty's excellence


s: Wherewith love makes one hour of life distraught


s: And all hours after follow and find not aught.


s: Here is that height of all love's eminence


s: Where man may breathe but for a breathing-space


s: To the unknown God of unachieved desire,


s: And from the middle mystery of the place


s: Watch lights that break, hear sounds as of a quire,


s: But see not twice unveiled the veiled God's face.


s: That with the old year the old year's life closes.


s: The old dew still falls on the old sweet flowers,


s: The old sun revives the new-fledged hours,


s: The old summer rears the new-born roses.


s: Raiment and wreath and flower of honour,


s: Gathered long since and long since woven,


s: Such loves, such memories, and such praises,


s: Old thanks, old thoughts, old aspirations,


s: Outlive men's lives and lives of nations,


s: Dead, but for one thing which survives--


s: The old joy of power, the old pride of pleasure,


s: Where the dead sweet roses fade not of lips long breathless,


s: And the fair eyes shine that shall weep not or change again,


s: Who comes now crowned with the blossom of snow-white years?


s: What music is this that the world of the dead men hears?


s: Beloved of men, whose words on our lips were honey,


s: Whose name in our ears and our fathers' ears was sweet,


s: Like summer gone forth of the land his songs made sunny,


s: To the beautiful veiled bright world where the glad ghosts meet,


s: Child, father, bridegroom and bride, and anguish and rest,


s: No soul shall pass of a singer than this more blest.


s: Blest for the years' sweet sake that were filled and brightened,


s: By the living and dead lips blest that have loved his name,


s: Ah, fair and fragrant his fame as flowers that close not,


s: That shrink not by day for heat or for cold by night,


s: Shall wax with the years that wane and the seasons' chime,


s: As a white rose thornless that grows in the garden of time.


s: The same year calls, and one goes hence with another,


s: And men sit sad that were glad for their sweet songs' sake;


s: The same year beckons, and elder with younger brother


s: Takes mutely the cup from his hand that we all shall take.


s: They pass ere the leaves be past or the snows be come;


s: Time takes them home that we loved, fair names and famous,


s: To the soft long sleep, to the broad sweet bosom of death;


s: But the flower of their souls he shall take not away to shame us,


s: For with us shall the music and perfume that die not dwell,


s: Though the dead to our dead bid welcome, and we farewell.


s: (James Lorimer Graham died at Florence, April 30, 1876)


s: He had no children, who for love of men,


s: Being God, endured of Gods such things as thou,


s: Fell such a woe as bows thine head again,


s: Twice bowed before, though godlike, in man's ken,


s: Save this of some strange God's that bends it now


s: The third time with such weight as bruised it then.


s: Fain would grief speak, fain utter for love's sake


s: Some word; but comfort who might bid thee take?


s: What God in your own tongue shall talk with thee,


s: Showing how all souls that look upon the sun


s: Shall be for thee one spirit and thy son,


s: And thy soul's child the soul of man to be?


s: Spring, and the light and sound of things on earth


s: Requickening, all within our green sea's girth;


s: Fourscore years since as this year, first and last.


s: The breath and strength of very spring; and we


s: Live, love, and feed on our own hearts; but he


s: Whose heart fed mine has passed into the past.


s: Past, all things born with sense and blood and breath;


s: The flesh hears nought that now the spirit saith.


s: If death be like as birth and birth as death,


s: The first was fair--more fair should be the last.


s: Fourscore years since, and come but one month more


s: The count were perfect of his mortal score


s: Whose sail went seaward yesterday from shore


s: To cross the last of many an unsailed sea.


s: Light, love and labour up to life's last height,


s: These three were stars unsetting in his sight;


s: Even as the sun is life and heat and light


s: And sets not nor is dark when dark are we.


s: The life, the spirit, and the work were one


s: That here--ah, who shall say, that here are done?


s: Not I, that know not; father, not thy son,


s: For all the darkness of the night and sea.


s: (For Olivia Frances Madox Rossetti, born September 20, 1875)


s: White rose of spirit and flesh, red lily of love,


s: Fair nestling couched beneath the mother-dove?


s: If thy sweet sense might mix itself with ours,


s: Ere thine become the tongue of mortal hours:


s: Ere thought lift up their flower-soft lids to see


s: But none so good as thine who hast given us thee:


s: Too high a message now for man's to reach.


s: High hopes and hearts requickening in thy dawn,


s: But then wept blood for half their own withdrawn.


s: Crossed by the crossing sails of death and birth,


s: Some word of love, some afterthought of earth.


s: His whom we see not, thine whom scarce we see:


s: If lights that change their sphere in changing meet,


s: And make thy present with his past life sweet?


s: More than all hope can forge or memory feign


s: And flower-like fed with love for sun and rain.


s: Guard and be gracious to the fair-named flower.


s: In a softer bed than the soft white snow's is,


s: Why would it sleep not? why should it start,


s: When never a leaf of the rose-tree stirred?


s: What made sleep flutter his wings and part?


s: Lie still, I said, for the wind's wing closes,


s: And mild leaves muffle the keen sun's dart;


s: Lie still, for the wind on the warm sea dozes,


s: And the wind is unquieter yet than thou art.


s: Does a thought in thee still as a thorn's wound smart?


s: Does the fang still fret thee of hope deferred?


s: What bids the lids of thy sleep dispart?


s: The green land's name that a charm encloses,


s: It never was writ in the traveller's chart,


s: And sweet on its trees as the fruit that grows is,


s: It never was sold in the merchant's mart.


s: The swallows of dreams through its dim fields dart,


s: And sleep's are the tunes in its tree-tops heard;


s: No hound's note wakens the wildwood hart,


s: In the world of dreams I have chosen my part,


s: Of true love's truth or of light love's art,


s: A sea that heaves with horror of the night,


s: As maddened by the moon that hangs aghast


s: With strain and torment of the ravening blast,


s: Haggard as hell, a bleak blind bloody light;


s: No shore but one red reef of rock in sight,


s: Whereon the waifs of many a wreck were cast


s: And shattered in the fierce nights overpast


s: Wherein more souls toward hell than heaven took flight;


s: And 'twixt the shark-toothed rocks and swallowing shoals


s: A cry as out of hell from all these souls


s: Sent through the sheer gorge of the slaughtering sea,


s: Whose thousand throats, full-fed with life by death,


s: Fill the black air with foam and furious breath;


s: Bird of the bitter bright grey golden morn


s: Scarce risen upon the dusk of dolorous years,


s: First of us all and sweetest singer born


s: Whose far shrill note the world of new men hears


s: Cleave the cold shuddering shade as twilight clears;


s: When song new-born put off the old world's attire


s: And felt its tune on her changed lips expire,


s: Writ foremost on the roll of them that came


s: Fresh girt for service of the latter lyre,


s: Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name!


s: Alas the joy, the sorrow, and the scorn,


s: That clothed thy life with hopes and sins and fears,


s: And gave thee stones for bread and tares for corn


s: And plume-plucked gaol-birds for thy starveling peers


s: Till death clipt close their flight with shameful shears;


s: Till shifts came short and loves were hard to hire,


s: When lilt of song nor twitch of twangling wire


s: Could buy thee bread or kisses; when light fame


s: Spurned like a ball and haled through brake and briar,


s: Poor splendid wings so frayed and soiled and torn!


s: Poor kind wild eyes so dashed with light quick tears!


s: Poor perfect voice, most blithe when most forlorn,


s: That rings athwart the sea whence no man steers


s: Like joy-bells crossed with death-bells in our ears!


s: What far delight has cooled the fierce desire


s: That like some ravenous bird was strong to tire


s: On that frail flesh and soul consumed with flame,


s: But left more sweet than roses to respire,


s: Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name?


s: Prince of sweet songs made out of tears and fire,


s: Shame soiled thy song, and song assoiled thy shame.


s: But from thy feet now death has washed the mire,


s: Love reads out first at head of all our quire,


s: Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name.


s: O tender time that love thinks long to see,


s: Sweet foot of spring that with her footfall sows


s: Late snowlike flowery leavings of the snows,


s: O mother-month, where have they hidden thee?


s: Out of the pale time of the flowerless rose


s: I reach my heart out toward the springtime lands,


s: I stretch my spirit forth to the fair hours,


s: I lean my soul down over them, with hands


s: Made wide to take the ghostly growths of flowers;


s: Where has the greenwood hid thy gracious head?


s: Veiled with what visions while the grey world grieves,


s: Or muffled with what shadows of green leaves,


s: What warm intangible green shadows spread


s: To sweeten the sweet twilight for thy bed?


s: What sleep enchants thee? what delight deceives?


s: Where the deep dreamlike dew before the dawn


s: Feels not the fingers of the sunlight yet


s: Thy footless ghost on some unfooted lawn


s: Whose air the unrisen sunbeams fear to fret


s: Lives a ghost's life of daylong dawn and eve.


s: Sunrise it sees not, neither set of star,


s: Large nightfall, nor imperial plenilune,


s: Nor strong sweet shape of the full-breasted noon;


s: But where the silver-sandalled shadows are,


s: Moves with the mild gait of an ungrown moon:


s: Hard overhead the half-lit crescent swims,


s: The tender-coloured night draws hardly breath,


s: They watch the dawn of slender-shapen limbs,


s: Chill foster-father of the weanling spring.


s: As dreams of love before the true love born,


s: Takes through dim air her unawakened way,


s: The gracious ghost of morning risen ere morn.


s: With little unblown breasts and child-eyed looks


s: Following, the very maid, the girl-child spring,


s: Dips her light feet in warm and moving brooks,


s: And kindles with her own mouth's colouring


s: The fearful firstlings of the plumeless boughs.


s: Fair face that art not, how thy maiden breath


s: Shall put at last the deadly days to death


s: And fill the fields and fire the woods with thee


s: And seaward hollows where my feet would be


s: When heaven shall hear the word that April saith


s: To change the cold heart of the weary time,


s: To stir and soften all the time to tears,


s: As even to May's clear height the young days climb


s: With feet not swifter than those fair first years


s: Whose flowers revive not with thy flowers on earth.


s: I would not bid thee, though I might, give back


s: One good thing youth has given and borne away;


s: That is not, nor on time's retrodden track


s: Would turn to meet the white-robed hours or black


s: That long since left me on their mortal way;


s: Nor light nor love that has been, nor the breath


s: That comes with morning from the sun to be


s: No fruit, no flower thought once too fair for death,


s: No flower nor hour once fallen from life's green tree,


s: No leaf once plucked or once fulfilled desire.


s: The morning song beneath the stars that fled


s: With twilight through the moonless mountain air,


s: While youth with burning lips and wreathless hair


s: Sang toward the sun that was to crown his head,


s: Rising; the hopes that triumphed and fell dead,


s: The sweet swift eyes and songs of hours that were;


s: These may'st thou not give back for ever; these,


s: As at the sea's heart all her wrecks lie waste,


s: But flowers thou may'st, and winds, and hours of ease,


s: And all its April to the world thou may'st


s: Give back, and half my April back to me.


s: Love, what ailed thee to leave life that was made


s: What sweet visions of sleep lured thee away, down


s: What strange faces of dreams, voices that called,


s: Lured or led thee, alas, out of the sun, down to the


s: Ah, thy luminous eyes! once was their light fed with


s: Now their shadowy lids cover them close, hush them


s: Ah, thy snow-coloured hands! once were they chains,


s: Now no blood in them burns, mindless of love, senseless


s: Ah, thy beautiful hair! so was it once braided for


s: Now for death is it crowned, only for death, lover


s: Sweet, the kisses of death set on thy lips, colder are


s: Colder surely than past kisses that love poured for


s: Lov'st thou death? is his face fairer than love's,


s: Seest thou light in his eyes, light by which love's


s: Lo the roses of death, grey as the dust, chiller of leaf


s: Why let fall from thy hand love's that were thine,


s: Large red lilies of love, sceptral and tall, lovely for


s: Thornless blossom of love, full of the sun, fruits that


s: Now death's poppies alone circle thy hair, girdle thy


s: Bloodless blossoms of death, leaves that have sprung


s: Nay then, sleep if thou wilt; love is content; what


s: Sweet was love to thee once; now in thine eyes


s: For a day and a night Love sang to us, played with us,


s: Folded us round from the dark and the light;


s: And our hearts were fulfilled of the music he made with us,


s: Made with our hearts and our lips while he stayed with us,


s: Stayed in mid passage his pinions from flight


s: From his foes that kept watch with his wings had he hidden us,


s: Covered us close from the eyes that would smite,


s: Spirit and flesh growing one with delight


s: But his wings will not rest and his feet will not stay for us:


s: Morning is here in the joy of its might;


s: With his breath has he sweetened a night and a day for us;


s: Now let him pass, and the myrtles make way for us;


s: Love can but last in us here at his height


s: Gift that love for love might give thee;


s: Song blows off with breath that brightens;


s: Full of songs loud mirth takes pride in;


s: Nuktos paides apaides, hup euphroni pompa.]


s: O great and wise, clear-souled and high of heart,


s: One the last flower of Catholic love, that grows


s: Amid bare thorns their only thornless rose,


s: From the fierce juggling of the priests' loud mart


s: From the blind hard foul rout whose shameless shows


s: Mock the sweet heaven whose secret no man knows


s: With prayers and curses and the soothsayer's art;


s: One like a storm-god of the northern foam


s: Strong, wrought of rock that breasts and breaks the sea


s: And thunders back its thunder, rhyme for rhyme


s: Answering, as though to outroar the tides of time


s: And bid the world's wave back--what song should be


s: Theirs that with praise would bring and sing you home?


s: With all our hearts we praise you whom ye hate,


s: High souls that hate us; for our hopes are higher,


s: And higher than yours the goal of our desire,


s: Though high your ends be as your hearts are great.


s: Your world of Gods and kings, of shrine and state,


s: Was of the night when hope and fear stood nigher,


s: Wherein men walked by light of stars and fire


s: Till man by day stood equal with his fate.


s: Honour not hate we give you, love not fear,


s: Last prophets of past kind, who fill the dome


s: Of great dead Gods with wrath and wail, nor hear


s: Time's word and man's: "Go honoured hence, go home,


s: Night's childless children; here your hour is done;


s: Pass with the stars, and leave us with the sun."


s: "Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?"


s: Above the spring-tide sundawn of the year,


s: A sunlike star, not born of day or night,


s: Filled the fair heaven of spring with heavenlier light,


s: Made of all ages orbed in one sole sphere


s: Whose light was as a Titan's smile or tear;


s: Then rose a ray more flowerlike, starry white,


s: Like a child's eye grown lovelier with delight,


s: Sweet as a child's heart-lightening laugh to hear;


s: And last a fire from heaven, a fiery rain


s: As of God's wrath on the unclean cities, fell


s: And lit the shuddering shades of half-seen hell


s: That shrank before it and were cloven in twain;


s: A beacon fired by lightning, whence all time


s: Sees red the bare black ruins of a crime.


s: The dead green floor of the sea with foam.


s: Stories and songs and good news of the spring.


s: Well, is it well with you, rose?" they sang.


s: Had she but wings, and she would not die.


s: Blown in a mist from the stalk in the spring.


s: Steers in with a roar in the race of his wings.


s: Wind, in the manifold gulfs of the deep.


s: Praise him whose hand is the strength of the sea.


s: Rose-red lilies that bloom on the banner;


s: Rose-cheeked gardens that revel in spring;


s: Rose-mouthed acacias that laugh as they climb,


s: Like plumes for a queen's hand fashioned to fan her


s: With wind more soft than a wild dove's wing,


s: What do they sing in the spring of their time?


s: If this be the rose that the world hears singing,


s: Soft in the soft night, loud in the day,


s: Songs for the fire-flies to dance as they hear;


s: If that be the song of the nightingale, springing


s: What do they say of the way of the year?


s: What of the way of the world gone Maying,


s: What of the work of the buds in the bowers,


s: What of the will of the wind on the wall,


s: Fluttering the wall-flowers, sighing and playing,


s: Thinking of hours when the flowers have to fall?


s: Out of the throats of the loud birds showering,


s: Out of the folds where the flag-lilies leap,


s: Out of the herbs on the walls reflowering,


s: Out of the heights where the sheer snows sleep,


s: Out of the deep and the steep, one word.


s: One from the lips of the lily-flames leaping,


s: The glad red lilies that burn in our sight,


s: The great live lilies for standard and crown;


s: One from the steeps where the pines stand sleeping,


s: One from the deep land, one from the height,


s: One from the light and the might of the town.


s: The lowlands laugh with delight of the highlands,


s: Whence May winds feed them with balm and breath


s: From hills that beheld in the years behind


s: A shape as of one from the blest souls' islands,


s: With eyes on the light that should smite them blind.


s: Perchance, what still to us seems so near


s: That time not darkens it, change not mars,


s: The foot that she knew when her leaves were September's,


s: The face lift up to the star-blind seer,


s: That saw from his prison arisen his stars.


s: And Pisa broods on her dead, not mourning,


s: For love of her loveliness given them in fee;


s: And Prato gleams with the glad monk's gift


s: Whose hand was there as the hand of morning;


s: Lifts loftier her head than the red sand's drift.


s: And far to the fair south-westward lightens,


s: Girdled and sandalled and plumed with flowers,


s: The hill-side's crown where the wild hill brightens,


s: Saint Fina's town of the Beautiful Towers,


s: Land of us all that have loved thee dearliest,


s: Whose name in the world's heart works as a spell,


s: My last song's light, and the star of mine earliest,


s: As we turn from thee, sweet, who wast ours for a span,


s: And Pilate by the hue that sears thine hand


s: Whence all earth's waters cannot wash the brand


s: That signs thy soul a manslayer's though thou speak


s: All Christ, with lips most murderous and most meek--


s: Thou set thy foot where England's used to stand!


s: Thou reach thy rod forth over Indian land!


s: Slave of the slaves that call thee lord, and weak


s: As their foul tongues who praise thee! son of them


s: Whose presence put the snows and stars to shame


s: In centuries dead and damned that reek below


s: Curse-consecrated, crowned with crime and flame,


s: To them that bare thee like them shalt thou go


s: Forth of man's life--a leper white as snow.


s: Call for clear water, wash thine hands, be clean,


s: Cry, _What is truth?_ O Pilate; thou shalt know


s: Haply too soon, and gnash thy teeth for woe


s: Ere the outer darkness take thee round unseen


s: That hides the red ghosts of thy race obscene


s: Bound nine times round with hell's most dolorous flow,


s: And in its pools thy crownless head lie low


s: By his of Spain who dared an English queen


s: With half a world to hearten him for fight,


s: Till the wind gave his warriors and their might


s: To shipwreck and the corpse-encumbered sea.


s: But thou, take heed, ere yet thy lips wax white,


s: O white of name and red of hand, with thee.


s: For how long years hast thou bewept, and known


s: Nor end of torment nor surcease of moan,


s: Crowned with the crowning sign of desolations,


s: And couldst not even scare off with hand or groan


s: Those carrion birds devouring bone by bone


s: The children of thy thousand tribulations?


s: Thou wast our warrior once; thy sons long dead


s: Against a foe less foul than this made head,


s: Poland, in years that sound and shine afar;


s: Ere the east beheld in thy bright sword-blade's stead


s: The rotten corpse-light of the Russian star


s: That lights towards hell his bondslaves and their Czar.


s: Light of our fathers' eyes, and in our own


s: Star of the unsetting sunset! for thy name,


s: That on the front of noon was as a flame


s: In the great year nigh thirty years agone


s: When all the heavens of Europe shook and shone


s: With stormy wind and lightning, keeps its fame


s: And bears its witness all day through the same;


s: Not for past days and great deeds past alone,


s: Kossuth, we praise thee as our Landor praised,


s: But that now too we know thy voice upraised,


s: Thy voice, the trumpet of the truth of God,


s: Thine hand, the thunder-bearer's, raised to smite


s: As with heaven's lightning for a sword and rod


s: Men's heads abased before the Muscovite.


s: To spoil fair things thou art over fain;


s: Who holdeth me? who? would God I were dead!


s: All priests and clerks and merchant-folk;


s: When that foul thief's mouth, found so sweet,


s: "Where is my faultless forehead's white,


s: The straight nose, great nor small, but fair,


s: The small carved ears of shapeliest growth,


s: Long arms, hands wrought in glorious wise,


s: Fallen eyebrows, eyes gone blind and red,


s: Yea, all that smote men's hearts are fled;


s: Peaked chin, and cheeks all waste and dead,


s: The arms made short, the hands made lean,


s: The flanks too, like the breasts, grown thin;


s: For the lank thighs, no thighs but skin,


s: They are specked with spots like sausage-meat.


s: "So we make moan for the old sweet days,


s: Round fires soon lit, soon quenched and done;


s: Light loves make beasts of men that sigh;


s: Like broom-horsed witches though he fry,


s: He that lacks breath and wind for sighing,


s: He sweats, God knows what sweat!--again,


s: Death makes him shudder, swoon, wax pale,


s: Nose bend, veins stretch, and breath surrender,


s: Neck swell, flesh soften, joints that fail


s: Crack their strained nerves and arteries slender.


s: Smooth, sweet, so precious in men's eyes,


s: Must thou too bear such count to render?


s: And Charles the Seventh, that worthy one?


s: From brow to chin that blazed and shone;


s: Where's he whose grandson called him son?


s: Search Rome, where God's grace mainly tarries,


s: There's no good girl's lip out of Paris.


s: Spain or Greece, for the matter of love,


s: Breton and Swiss know nought of the matter,


s: Two fishwives here with a half-hour's chatter


s: England and Picardy, search them and choose,


s: Prince, give praise to our French ladies


s: For the sweet sound their speaking carries;


s: At daybreak, when the falcon claps his wings,


s: No whit for grief, but noble heart and high,


s: With loud glad noise he stirs himself and springs,


s: And takes his meat and toward his lure draws nigh;


s: I am fired with hope of true love's meed to get;


s: Know that Love writes it in his book; for why,


s: This is the end for which we twain are met.


s: Mine own heart's lady with no gainsayings


s: And in my right against all bitter things


s: Sweet laurel with fresh rose its force shall try;


s: Seeing reason wills not that I cast love by


s: (Nor here with reason shall I chide or fret)


s: Nor cease to serve, but serve more constantly;


s: And, which is more, when grief about me clings


s: Through Fortune's fit or fume of jealousy,


s: Your sweet kind eye beats down her threatenings


s: As wind doth smoke; such power sits in your eye.


s: Thrives, for the fruit is like me that I set;


s: God bids me tend it with good husbandry;


s: That heart of mine your heart's love should forget


s: Shall never be: like trust in you put I:


s: May he fall in with beasts that scatter fire,


s: Like Jason, when he sought the fleece of gold,


s: Or change from man to beast three years entire,


s: Or else have times as shameful and as bad


s: Let hell's deep fen devour him dolorous,


s: With worse to bear than Job's worst sufferance,


s: Who could wish evil to the state of France!


s: May he four months, like bitterns in the mire,


s: Howl with head downmost in the lake-springs cold,


s: Or to bear harness like strong bulls for hire


s: To the Great Turk for money down be sold;


s: With neither wool nor web of linen clad;


s: Drown like Narciss', or swing down pendulous


s: May the old times come of fierce Octavian's ire,


s: Crushed between moving millstones on him rolled,


s: Or in deep sea drenched breathless, more adrad


s: Than in the whale's bulk Jonas, when God bade:


s: From Phoebus' light, from Juno's treasure-house


s: And cursed of God most high to the utterance,


s: Prince, may the bright-winged brood of Æolus


s: To sea-king Glaucus' wild wood cavernous


s: Bear him bereft of peace and hope's least glance,


s: Who could wish evil to the state of France.


s: Who is this I hear?--Lo, this is I, thine heart,


s: That holds on merely now by a slender string.


s: Strength fails me, shape and sense are rent apart,


s: The blood in me is turned to a bitter thing,


s: Seeing thee skulk here like a dog shivering.--


s: Yea, and for what?--For that thy sense found sweet.--


s: What irks it thee?--I feel the sting of it.--


s: Leave me at peace.--Why?--Nay now, leave me at peace;


s: I will repent when I grow ripe in wit.--


s: I say no more.--I care not though thou cease.--


s: What art thou, trow?--A man worth praise, perfay.--


s: This is thy thirtieth year of wayfaring.--


s: 'Tis a mule's age.--Art thou a boy still?--Nay.--


s: Is it hot lust that spurs thee with its sting,


s: Grasping thy throat? Know'st thou not anything?--


s: Yea, black and white, when milk is specked with flies,


s: I can make out.--No more?--Nay, in no wise.


s: Shall I begin again the count of these?--


s: Thou art undone.--I will make shift to rise.--


s: I have the sorrow of it, and thou the smart.


s: Wert thou a poor mad fool or weak of wit,


s: Then might'st thou plead this pretext with thine heart;


s: But if thou know not good from evil a whit,


s: Either thy head is hard as stone to hit,


s: Or shame, not honour, gives thee most content.


s: What canst thou answer to this argument?--


s: When I am dead I shall be well at ease.--


s: God! what good hope!--Thou art over eloquent.--


s: I say no more.--I care not though thou cease.--


s: Whence is this ill?--From sorrow and not from sin.


s: I well believe he put these ills therein.--


s: Fool, wilt thou make thy servant lord of thee?


s: Hear now the wise king's counsel; thus saith he:


s: All power upon the stars a wise man hath;


s: There is no planet that shall do him scathe.--


s: Nay, as they made me I grow and I decrease.--


s: What say'st thou?--Truly this is all my faith.--


s: Wouldst thou live still?--God help me that I may!--


s: Then thou must--What? turn penitent and pray?--


s: Read always--What?--Grave words and good to say;


s: Leave off the ways of fools, lest they displease.--


s: Good; I will do it.--Wilt thou remember?--Yea.--


s: I say no more.--I care not though thou cease.


s: Have pity, pity, friends, have pity on me,


s: Thus much at least, may it please you, of your grace!


s: Down in this dungeon ditch, mine exile's place


s: By leave of God and fortune's foul disgrace.


s: Girls, lovers, glad young folk and newly wed,


s: Jumpers and jugglers, tumbling heel o'er head,


s: Swift as a dart, and sharp as needle-ware,


s: Throats clear as bells that ring the kine to shed,


s: Your poor old friend, what, will you leave him there?


s: Singers that sing at pleasure, lawlessly,


s: Light, laughing, gay of word and deed, that race


s: And have in hand nor current coin nor base,


s: Ye wait too long, for now he's dying apace.


s: Rhymers of lays and roundels sung and read,


s: Ye'll brew him broth too late when he lies dead.


s: Nor wind nor lightning, sunbeam nor fresh air,


s: May pierce the thick wall's bound where lies his bed;


s: O noble folk from tithes and taxes free,


s: Come and behold him in this piteous case,


s: Ye that nor king nor emperor holds in fee,


s: Who needs must fast, Sundays and holidays,


s: Which makes his teeth like rakes; and when he hath fed


s: With never a cake for banquet but dry bread,


s: Must drench his bowels with much cold watery fare,


s: With board nor stool, but low on earth instead;


s: Your poor old friend, what, will you leave him there?


s: Princes afore-named, old and young foresaid,


s: Get me the king's seal and my pardon sped,


s: And hoist me in some basket up with care:


s: So swine will help each other ill bested,


s: For where one squeaks they run in heaps ahead.


s: Men, brother men, that after us yet live,


s: Let not your hearts too hard against us be;


s: For if some pity of us poor men ye give,


s: Here are we five or six strung up, you see,


s: And here the flesh that all too well we fed


s: Bit by bit eaten and rotten, rent and shred,


s: And we the bones grow dust and ash withal;


s: If we call on you, brothers, to forgive,


s: Ye should not hold our prayer in scorn, though we


s: Were slain by law; ye know that all alive


s: With him that of a virgin's womb was bred,


s: That his grace be not as a dry well-head


s: For us, nor let hell's thunder on us fall;


s: We are dead, let no man harry or vex us dead,


s: The rain has washed and laundered us all five,


s: And the sun dried and blackened; yea, perdie,


s: Ravens and pies with beaks that rend and rive


s: Have dug our eyes out, and plucked off for fee


s: Our beards and eyebrows; never are we free,


s: Not once, to rest; but here and there still sped,


s: Drive at its wild will by the wind's change led,


s: More pecked of birds than fruits on garden-wall;


s: Men, for God's love, let no gibe here be said,


s: Prince Jesus, that of all art lord and head,


s: Keep us, that hell be not our bitter bed;


s: We have nought to do in such a master's hall.


s: He is great: he hath in him God most high.


s: His speech is in their stammering tongue,


s: Weeps, and, if cold, Heaven thrills with pain.


s: Pour y cueillir rien qu'un souffle d'amour;


s: Verse-nous, verse enfin l'oubli du jour.


s: Chante; ton chant assoupit l'âme et l'onde:


s: Fais de ton sein pour mon âme un séjour,


s: Elle est bien lasse, ô mère, de ce monde,


s: Où l'âme aimée est moins que toi profonde.


s: Car toute chose aimée est moins profonde,


s: Toi dont l'attente est le répit du monde,


s: Toi dont le souffle est plein de mots d'amour,


s: Toi dont l'haleine enfle et réprime l'onde,


s: Toi dont l'ombre a tout le ciel pour séjour.


s: S'abrite et dort sous ton aile profonde;


s: Toutes les soifs viennent boire à ton onde,


s: Tout ce qui pleure et se dérobe au jour,


s: Toutes les faims et tous les maux du monde.


s: Moi seul je veille et ne vois dans ce monde


s: Que ma douleur qui n'ait point de séjour


s: Et s'endormir sous tes yeux loin du jour;


s: Je vais toujours cherchant au bord de l'onde


s: Pleine des pleurs et des sanglots du monde;


s: On ne voit plus le gouffre où naît le jour


s: Mais dans les coeurs d'homme où tu fais séjour


s: La douleur monte et baisse comme une onde.


s: Du haut séjour plein de ta paix profonde


s: Pour mettre une couronne au front d'une chanson,


s: Il semblait qu'en passant son pied semât des roses,


s: Et que sa main cueillît comme des fleurs écloses


s: Les étoiles au fond du ciel en floraison.


s: Sa parole de marbre et d'or avait le son


s: Des clairons de l'été chassant les jours moroses;


s: Comme en Thrace Apollon banni des grands cieux roses,


s: Il regardait du coeur l'Olympe, sa maison.


s: Le soleil fut pour lui le soleil du vieux monde,


s: Et son oeil recherchait dans les flots embrasés


s: Le sillon immortel d'où s'élança sur l'onde


s: Vénus, que la mer molle enivrait de baisers:


s: Enfin, dieu ressaisi de sa splendeur première,


s: Il trône, et son sépulcre est bâti de lumière.


s: Quelle fleur, ô Mort, quel joyau, quel chant,


s: Quel vent, quel rayon de soleil couchant,


s: Sur ton front penché, sur ta main avide,


s: Ton sein est sans lait, ton oreille est vide,


s: Ta bouche est sans souffle et ton front sans ride;


s: Mais l'éclair voilé d'une flamme humide,


s: Flamme éclose au coeur d'un ciel pluvieux,


s: Ta bouche est vermeille et ton front joyeux,


s: Comme aux jours divins la mère des dieux,


s: Tu nous apparais, ô Mort, vierge et mère,


s: Nous reconnaissons, courbés vers la terre,


s: Que c'est la splendeur de ta face austère


s: Refait par tes mains les prés et les fleurs,


s: Quelle flamme au fond de ta clarté molle


s: Quelle étoile, ouvrant ses ailes, s'envole


s: Pleurant ce rayon de jour qu'on lui vole,


s: L'homme exècre en vain la Mort triste et folle;


s: Mais l'astre qui fut à nos yeux si beau,


s: Là-haut, loin d'ici, dans un ciel nouveau


s: L'âme est dans le corps comme un jeune oiseau


s: Fait de l'homme infime et sombre un poëte,


s: O lux Pieridum et laurigeri deliciæ dei,


s: Vox leni Zephyro lenior, ut veris amans novi


s: Tollit floridulis implicitum primitiis caput,


s: Ten' ergo abripuit non rediturum, ut redeunt novo


s: Flores vere novi, te quoque mors irrevocabilem?


s: Cur vatem neque te Musa parens, te neque Gratiæ,


s: Nec servare sibi te potuit fidum animi Venus?


s: Quæ nunc ipsa magis vel puero te Cinyreïo,


s: Te desiderium et flebilibus lumen amoribus,


s: Amissum queritur, sanguineis fusa comam genis.


s: Tantis tu lacrymis digne, comes dulcis Apollini,


s: Carum nomen eris dîs superis atque sodalibus


s: Nobis, quîs eadem quæ tibi vivo patuit via


s: Non æquis patet, at te sequimur passibus haud tuis,


s: At mæsto cinerem carmine non illacrymabilem


s: Tristesque exuvias floribus ac fletibus integris


s: Unà contegimus, nec citharâ nec sine tibiâ,


s: Votoque unanimæ vocis Ave dicimus et Vale.


s: Some nine years gone, as we dwelt together


s: In the sweet hushed heat of the south French weather


s: Ere autumn fell on the vine-tressed hills


s: Or the season had shed one rose-red feather,


s: Friend, whose fame is a flame that fills


s: All eyes it lightens and hearts it thrills


s: With joy to be born of the blood which bred


s: From a land that the grey sea girds and chills


s: Whose might is as light on a dark day shed,


s: Where all the peers of your praise are dead,


s: I pledged you a health from a beaker of mine


s: But halfway filled to the lip's edge yet


s: Nine years have risen and eight years set


s: Since there by the wellspring our hands on it met:


s: And the pledge of my songs that were then to be,


s: I could wonder not, friend, though a friend should forget.


s: For life's helm rocks to the windward and lee,


s: And time is as wind, and as waves are we;


s: And song is as foam that the sea-winds fret,


s: Though the thought at its heart should be deep as the sea.


s: “Whet your spears, and sharp your swords,


s: Full seven mile broad and seven mile wide,


s: Black was his courser, his helm was lac’d,


s: Each time with the rowel he pricked his horse


s: Each time through them the breezes blew,


s: How quickly around the little wheels flew.


s: Far sharper than diamond was that lance,


s: Three maidens in proof of their love bestow’d,


s: An he were come down from the realms of light:


s: I’ll willingly bend before thee the knee?”


s: Sent forth by three maids of high degree.”


s: In the chamber high sit the maids and sigh,


s: There’s a dance in the hall of Sir Swerkel the Childe,


s: There dances fair Kirstine, her hair hanging wild.


s: There dance the good King and his nobles so gay,


s: Fair Kirstine before them she warbles a lay.


s: His hand to the maiden Sir Swerkel stretched free:


s: “Come hither and dance, little Kirstine, with me.”


s: Her finger he pressed, and moved up to her near:


s: “Sweet Kirstine, I pray thee become my heart’s dear.”


s: Her finger he pressed, on her sandal trod he:


s: “Fair Kirstine, with pity my agonies see!”


s: They danced to the left, and they danced to the right,


s: And her troth the fair damsel bestowed on the knight.


s: Upon him Sir Swerkel his red mantle throws,


s: And to the high hall to his mother he goes.


s: “Hail, hail as thou sittest here, dear mother mine!


s: I come from betrothing the little Kirstine.”


s: Relations like ye to betroth should pretend.


s: For brother and sister, believe me, are ye.”


s: “Now tell me, I pray thee, O dear mother mine!


s: What time thou didst bring forth the little Kirstine.”


s: “The time that thou wast on thy journey to Rome,


s: I bore the sweet flowret that’s now in full bloom.


s: “Whilst thou to the sepulchre holy wast gone,


s: I bore the fair mirror thy love that hast won.


s: “In the court of the Queen she was reared up with care,


s: And scarlet and sable accustomed to wear.”


s: “Now give me thy counsel, O dear mother mine,


s: How I may forget her, the little Kirstine?”


s: “Go chase thou the hart, and go chase thou the hind,


s: And thou wilt her image soon chase from thy mind.


s: “Go chase thou the hart, and go chase thou the roe,


s: And thou thy love-longing wilt quickly forego.”


s: He chased the proud hart, and he chased the swift hind,


s: But he never could chase the fair maid from his mind.


s: He chased the tall hart, and he chased the sleek roe,


s: But the longing of love from his mind would not go.


s: So the knight from the country was driven at last,


s: And into a cloister the maiden was cast.


s: No little bird shaped from the far land its flight


s: Than enquiry she made for her dear betrothed knight.


s: A bird ne’er so little across the sea stray’d


s: But he enquired after his dear betrothed maid.


s: “The face of a kind-hearted man,” she replied,


s: “When chance to his hut the stranger doth guide,


s: And unable he is for his guest to provide.”


s: “The vigour of woman,” the damsel replied.


s: “The words of affection,” the damsel replied.


s: “Death is yet blacker,” the damsel replied.


s: “More sharp than the sword?” Finn cried.


s: “Woman’s sense at a pinch,” the damsel replied.


s: “A knife or a dirk,” the damsel replied.


s: “Love’s palm on your cheek,” the damsel replied.


s: “The tongs of the smith,” the damsel replied.


s: “Truth is more white,” the damsel replied.


s: “The green and the sere make two,” she replied.


s: “The flush of the freeman when praised,” she replied.


s: “Or when praise to his merit is meanly denied.”


s: “Than the radish more brittle?” Finn cried.


s: “The nature of woman,” the damsel replied.


s: “The friendship of man,” the damsel replied.


s: “What does woman love best?” Finn cried.


s: “A fair or a dance,” the damsel replied.


s: “What’s best for your colour?” Finn cried.


s: “Cool air and good sleep,” the damsel replied.


s: “How many steeds are there?” Finn cried,


s: “But two, a horse and a mare,” she replied.


s: “Nought better than milk,” the damsel replied.


s: “High deeds, humble words,” the damsel replied.


s: “Strong drink, if it be too freely supplied,


s: Or the prate of a fool,” the damsel replied.


s: Would’st thou on good terms with friars live,


s: who had refused him admission to the cellar


s: Or the pine ’mongst the shrubs of the plain,


s: Printed for THOMAS J. WISE, Hampstead, N.W.


s: “That I’ve betrothed thee, little bride,


s: His breast with love and valour glowing.


s: They taught her writing, taught her reading;


s: And though full young she’s ranked among


s: The knight, with gold his spurs were glaring;


s: The lark’s sweet voice on high was ringing;


s: He saddled straight his good grey horse,


s: Within the wood he’ll take his pleasure;


s: His dreams from out his head he’ll force


s: By listening to the wild bird’s measure.


s: Where blushing roses thick were growing;


s: To Rome’s famed town I’ve vowed to stray,


s: There’s few than I should know her better;


s: The belle, the belle sweet Valborg beareth.


s: “With strings of pearls her hair is tied,


s: Around her wrist red gold there gloweth,


s: In whose good grace I’ve long been basking,


s: “The leave for which thy heart doth yearn


s: Most gladly I’ll Sir Knight receive thee.”


s: Him followed thrice ten swains so merry;


s: “Here standst thou, Helfred, sister dear,


s: That roselet ’mongst the flowers blooming?”


s: And clothe thee in thy garments fairest;


s: Must speak, for thou my message bearest.”


s: Extends, with voice of sweetness saying:


s: I’ll ne’er deceive thee, beauteous lady.”


s: They vowed an oath when they their troth


s: And sports and smiles with glee and pleasure.


s: For five months’ tide thus matters stood,


s: And Norway’s crown thy brows shall cover.”


s: “Now do thou hear, thou King’s son high,


s: There’s matter shall prevent their mating;


s: “Thou’st summoned us, our gracious Lord,


s: Of your high will we crave the hearing.”


s: Her uncles three, those counts of power;


s: Which thou to make hast had the daring.”


s: Bowed to the prince his reverend figure:


s: First rode the knight on steed of height,


s: His thoughts so wide and wild were flying;


s: Though smiles do oft a sad heart cover.”


s: And from their steeds they have descended,


s: Midst of the Church’s aisle they stay’d,


s: Their steps the advancing Chapter facing;


s: The Archbishop then, of reverend carriage;


s: Two cousins they from Gild’s root sprung,


s: And priests are bent their bands to sever.


s: They ’twixt the two the cloth cut through,


s: There’s none that o’er his fortune reigneth.


s: But whilst with life our breasts shall glow


s: And bracelet from her wrist they hastened;


s: “Since her from mind thou canst not fling


s: Outspoke of the clerks the wisest wight,


s: And slake the brand that’s fiercely glowing,


s: But though the flame with floods we drench


s: “The sun shines bright on hill and plain,


s: The prince advanced, inflamed with passion:


s: Whilst I this hand have power of moving.”


s: “What have I dream’d?” she, starting, said,


s: “Saint Bridget take me ’neath thy keeping.


s: They to their loins shall bind the sword


s: “And thou shalt saddle ten steeds so free


s: They all are counts so bold and sprightly;


s: They bear themselves so well and knightly.


s: The knights to swear the oath now muster.


s: “Ah where shall I with friends now meet?


s: That speech has broken all his patience:


s: But friends thou canst not one discover;


s: Would scarcely turn from me their faces.”


s: And all unto your speech shall hearken.”


s: ‘The cherished of the king’ they called her.


s: And on her brows the crown shall carry.”


s: May chase from us love’s anguish cruel?”


s: Her legs, with weariness which fraught are,


s: “Though in the green wood I should ride,


s: Your fathers won with toil and slaughter,


s: And with her live in pomp and splendour;


s: Since thee my own I’ve failed in making.”


s: “Now breathe good-bye, my children dear.


s: ’Tis time that your discourse were ended.”


s: Of this fond pair the ruthless splitter.


s: Now bids good-night with groans and sighing;


s: With more than furnace heat was blazing.


s: But still stood Valborg, still stood she,


s: Their sports and laughs have all suspended.


s: Then war, fierce war, drew near that clime,


s: Wide o’er the field shone Axel’s shield,


s: That shield which was of white and azure;


s: Two hearts there stood, both red with blood,


s: For fame he’ll risk his life with pleasure.


s: In glittering ranks outspread their foemen;


s: To fight with men was the question then,


s: The boors, the yard-long shafts are flying;


s: And when from steed the King’s son fell,


s: While life shall last I’ll faulter never.”


s: Like corn which hand of peasant reapeth;


s: That piecemeal lay his armour scattered;


s: And still fought hard that stalwart lord


s: With eighteen wounds, each dire to view,


s: To his tent bore him his friends so true,


s: To Christ’s high care I now bequeath her;


s: “In fight Sir Hogen the King’s son fell,


s: And all the best knights of our nation.”


s: From the high chamber where ’tis standing.


s: She stepped, her every joy was blighted.


s: From the bleak world myself I’ll sever.”


s: They brought, wherein her treasure’s warded;


s: The treasure ’mongst her friends she dol’d,


s: Amongst those friends she most regarded.


s: Till out a lifeless corse they take me.”


s: Whose hearts were all with sorrow laden,


s: Printed for THOMAS J. WISE, Hampstead, N.W.


s: Swayne Dyring o’er to the island strayed;


s: Together they lived seven years and more;


s: The Swayne he has crossed the salt sea way,


s: And he that may to his home has brought;


s: But peevish was she, and with malice fraught—


s: She spurned them away with her foot so rude—


s: Said “Hate ye shall have and the hunger throe”—


s: “Bare straw will serve for the like of you”—


s: Said she “Ye shall lie in the murky night”—


s: The woman heard that in the grave so deep—


s: To God’s high throne such haste she made;


s: She begged so loud, and she begged so long,


s: That at length consent from her God she wrung—


s: “But thou must return when the cock shall crow,


s: Then up she struck with her stark thigh bone,


s: And burst through wall and marble stone—


s: The hounds they yelled to the clouds so high—


s: “Hail daughter mine, what dost thou here?


s: How fare thy brothers and sisters dear?”—


s: And when she entered the high, high hall,


s: Drowned with tears stood the babies all—


s: The one she combed, the other she brushed,


s: The third she dandled, the fourth she hushed—


s: And allowed the babe of the breast to taste—


s: To her eldest daughter she turned her eye;


s: And when Swayne Dyring before her stood,


s: My children with hunger are nearly dead—


s: As soon as they heard of the hounds the cry,


s: They feared the woman had left her grave—


s: Then thou shouldst tread on silk outspread,


s: And the slightest care thou shalt not bear


s: Then beat her heart, and blood did start


s: With silk so white was the courser dight


s: Through the shallow streams they dashed their steeds,


s: Through the deep their steeds they swam;


s: And when they came to the house of the knight,


s: Spread out on the earth was silk of worth,


s: “There’s spread enough of the silken stuff,


s: Then they led her to the high, high hall,


s: But their joy was brief, soon came their grief,


s: He built her a grave in the church, and gave


s: Such handsome court clothes the proud Ingeborg buys,


s: Says she “I’ll myself as a courtier disguise.”


s: Proud Ingeborg hastens her steed to bestride,


s: Says she “I’ll away with the King to reside.”


s: “Thou gallant young King to my speech lend an ear,


s: Hast thou any need of my services here?”


s: “O yes, my sweet lad, of a horseboy I’ve need,


s: If there were but stable room here for his steed.


s: “But thy steed in the stall with my own can be tied,


s: And thou ’neath the linen shalt sleep by my side.”


s: Three years in the palace good service she wrought,


s: That she was a woman no one ever thought.


s: She filled for three years of a horse-boy the place,


s: And the steeds of the monarch she drove out to graze.


s: She led for three years the King’s steeds to the brook,


s: For else than a youth no one Ingeborg took.


s: Proud Ingeborg knows how to make the dames gay,


s: She also can sing in such ravishing way.


s: The hair on her head is like yellow spun gold,


s: To her beauty the heart of the prince was not cold.


s: But at length up and down in the palace she strayed,


s: Her colour and hair began swiftly to fade.


s: What eye has seen ever so wondrous a case?


s: The boy his own spurs to his heel cannot brace.


s: The horse-boy is brought to so wondrous a plight,


s: To draw his own weapon he has not the might.


s: The son of the King to five damsels now sends,


s: And Ingeborg fair to their care he commends.


s: Proud Ingeborg took they and wrapped in their weed,


s: And to the stone chamber with her they proceed.


s: Upon the blue cushions they Ingeborg laid,


s: Where light of two beautiful sons she is made.


s: Then in came the prince, smiled the babies to view:


s: “’Tis not every horse-boy can bear such a two.”


s: He patted her soft on her cheek sleek and fair:


s: “Forget my heart’s dearest all sorrow and care.”


s: He placed the gold crown on her temples I ween:


s: “With me shalt thou live as my wife and my Queen.”


s: Printed for THOMAS J. WISE, Hampstead, N.W.


s: “O, Mollie Charane, where got you your gold?”


s: “O not in the curragh, deep under the mould.”


s: “O, Mollie Charane, where got you your stock?”


s: “O not in the curragh from under a block.”


s: “O, Mollie Charane, where got you your goods?”


s: “O not in the curragh from under two sods.”


s: Two pair of stockings, and one pair of shoes—


s: For twenty-six years old Mollie did use.


s: His stockings were white, but his sandals, alack!—


s: Were not of one colour, one white, t’other black.


s: One sandal was white and t’other dark brown—


s: But he’d two of one colour for kirk and for town.


s: “O, father, I really can’t walk by your side”—


s: “If you go to the church in those sandals of hide.”


s: “O, daughter, my dear, if my brogues give you pain”—


s: “There’s that in the coffer will make you look fain.”


s: The first who gave tocher to daughter in Man.


s: Thinking how like a fast stream we range


s: When the body becomes so stark and cold,


s: Boast not, proud maid, for the grave doth gape,


s: And strangely altered reflects thy shape;


s: O, ye who are tripping the floor so light,


s: When the pallid corse is consigned to clay!


s: And the wealth ye win will brightly shine


s: You’ll nothing obtain but a little mould!


s: Though I should live for a hundred years


s: Saint Jacob he takes our blest Lord by the hand:


s: “I gladly would Christianize Garsia land.”


s: “O how wilt thou bring it within Christian pale?


s: No ship hast thou here o’er the salt sea to sail.”


s: “Thy power, O Lord, is so wondrously great,


s: Full quickly a ship Thou for me canst create.”


s: “Saint Jacob, hie down to the salt ocean strand,


s: There standeth so little a stone by the land.”


s: Saint Jacob he taketh a book in his hand,


s: And down he proceeds to the salt ocean strand.


s: Saint Jacob he made o’er the stone the cross-mark,


s: From the land straight it floated, as though ’twere a bark.


s: It rode o’er the billows so rapid and free,


s: Right, right towards Garsia promontoree.


s: So rapid the stone to glide thither began,


s: A hundred miles space in one short hour it ran.


s: In comes a foot-boy, to the King doffs his bonnet:


s: “Here cometh a stone, and a man sits upon it.”


s: A woman rushed in, in her eyes wonder shone:


s: “Here cometh a man, and he sits on a stone.”


s: “Now hear thou, Saint Jacob, I say unto thee,


s: What hast thou in this land, in this land here with me?”


s: “Unto thee I am come to this land ’cross the brine,


s: Because that my Maker is greater than thine.”


s: “O how can thy Maker be greater than mine?


s: Mine drinks every day the brown mead and the wine.”


s: “O then my Creator is greater than thine,


s: For mine can the water convert into wine.


s: “My Maker can turn the black mould into bread,


s: Can give life back to them who long, long have been dead.”


s: “If thou canst restore me my dearly loved son,


s: I’ll trust in thy Maker, and no other one.


s: “If I again view him, with flesh and hair dight,


s: As he fifteen years since disappeared from my sight;


s: “If I get him again both with hawk and with hound,


s: Just, just as he sank in the depths of the sound;


s: “With hair on his head, and with flesh on his bone,


s: As though he the pang of death never had known.”


s: Then the blessed Saint Jacob upon his book pored:


s: “’Twill be no easy matter to get him restored.”


s: When he had stood reading a wee little time,


s: He raised up the man from hell’s sorrowful clime.


s: “Now again thou hast got him with flesh and hair dight,


s: As he fifteen years since disappeared from thy sight.


s: “Thou hast got him again, both with hawk and with hound,


s: Just, just as he sank in the ocean profound.


s: “Now hear thou, my dear son, so fine and so fair,


s: What news from thy journey afar dost thou bear?”


s: “The news which I bring from the far distant place,


s: Is that one little knows of the other’s hard case.


s: “There the woman, who’s hated the child of her womb,


s: Out of the snake-tower can ne’er hope to come.


s: “There the cruel step-mother, her child who has slain,


s: Goes begirt with a sword fraught with festering bane.


s: “The merchants who here in heaps money up-rake,


s: There hiss in the likeness of serpent and snake.