Works

Before an Altar



I wish I were the little key
That locks Love's Captive in,
And lets Him out to go and free
A sinful heart from sin.

I wish I were the little bell...

The Child-World - long and long since lost to view -
A Fairy Paradise! -
How always fair it was and fresh and new -
How every affluent hour heaped heart and eyes
With treasures of surprise!
...

What can lambkins do
All the keen night through?
Nestle by their woolly mother
The careful ewe.

What can nestlings do
In the nightly dew?
Sleep beneath their mother's wing...

ILIAD, XVIII. 2O2.


So saying, light-foot Iris pass'd away.
Then rose Achilles dear to Zeus; and round
The warrior's puissant shoulders Pallas flung
Her fringed 'gis, and around his head...

Achilles awoke in his ancient tomb
Hard by the coast of Troy;
He rattled his armor now full of dust
And rubbed his eyes like a boy,
As he gazed on the ships of the allied fleet,...

Faith is the spirit that makes man's body and blood
Sacred, to crown when life and death have ceased
His heavenward head for high fame's holy feast;
But as one swordstroke swift as wizard's rod...

They please me not--these solemn songs
That hint of sermons covered up.
'Tis true the world should heed its wrongs,
But in a poem let me sup,
Not simples brewed to cure or ease...

I.

O sunlike Liberty, with eyes of flame,
Mother and maid, immortal, man's delight!
Fairest and first art thou in name and fame
And none shall rob thee of thy vested right....

My Lady clad herself in grey,
That caught and clung about her throat;
Then all the long grey winter day
On me a living splendour smote;
And why grey palmers holy are,...

Over the surging tides and the mountain kingdoms,
Over the pastoral valleys and the meadows,
Over the cities with their factory darkness,
Over the lands where peace is still a power,...

I.
Sound over all waters, reach out from all lands,
The chorus of voices, the clasping of hands;
Sing hymns that were sung by the stars of the morn,
Sing songs of the angels when Jesus was born!...

It chanced upon the merry merry Christmas eve,
I went sighing past the church across the moorland dreary -
'Oh! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave,...

Babe Jesus lay in Mary's lap,
The sun shone in his hair;
And this was how she saw, mayhap,
The crown already there.

For she sang: "Sleep on, my little king;
Bad Herod dares not come;...

The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast,
His hair was like a star....

So now is come our joyful feast,
Let every man be jolly;
Each room with ivy leaves is drest,
And every post with holly.
Though some churls at our mirth repine,
Round your foreheads garlands twine,...

Three damsels in the queen's chamber,
The queen's mouth was most fair;
She spake a word of God's mother
As the combs went in her hair.
Mary that is of might,
Bring us to thy Son's sight.
...

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.
...

The brazen bells of laughing lands
In swelling echoes wildly ring,
And over seas and hoary strands
This Christmas carol sing.


"Awaken, O, heart of the race,...

THE YEAR OF THE TROUBLE IN LANCASHIRE.

The skies are pale, the trees are stiff,
The earth is dull and old;
The frost is glittering as if
The very sun were cold....

Chorus.

What sweeter music can we bring,
Than a Carol, for to sing
The Birth of this our heavenly King?
Awake the Voice! Awake the String!
Heart, Ear, and Eye, and every thing...