Works

Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound,
We stumbled on a stationary voice,
And 'Stand, who goes?' 'Two from the palace' I.
'The second two: they wait,' he said, 'pass on;...

My dream had never died or lived again.
As in some mystic middle state I lay;
Seeing I saw not, hearing not I heard:
Though, if I saw not, yet they told me all
So often that I speak as having seen.
...

So was their sanctuary violated,
So their fair college turned to hospital;
At first with all confusion: by and by
Sweet order lived again with other laws:
A kindlier influence reigned; and everywhere...

Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun
Up to the people: thither flocked at noon
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half...

All through the Castle of High-bred Ease,
Where the chief employment was do-as-you-please,
Spread consternation and wild despair.
The queen was wringing her hands and hair;...

So closed our tale, of which I give you all
The random scheme as wildly as it rose:
The words are mostly mine; for when we ceased
There came a minute's pause, and Walter said,...

In a notable college the story is told
'Twill bear repetition, although somewhat old
That, at some unauthenticate date in the past
(I think 'twas the month or the year before last),...

FROM CHAUCER

"Call up him who left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold."

I

"O Lord, our Lord! how wondrously," (quoth she)
"Thy name in this large world is spread abroad!...

I.

A pool of broken sunbeams lay
Upon the passage-floor,
Radiant and rich, profound and gay
As ever diamond bore.

Small, flitting hands a handkerchief
Spread like a cunning trap:...

Fetters with fingers bare
From your small cell down tear,
Else will death you not spare,
Stalking here everywhere.
You in a sack they’ve bound,
To their vile jestings’ sound....

I count the dismal time by months and years
Since last I felt the green sward under foot,
And the great breath of all things summer
Met mine upon my lips. Now earth appears...

From pacing, pacing without hope or quest
He leaned against his window-bars to rest
And smelt the breeze that crept up from the west.

It came with sundown noises from the moors,...

All right,
Go ahead!
What's in a name?
I guess I'll be locked into
As much as I'm locked out of!

A Fragment.

In the dungeon-crypts idly did I stray,
Reckless of the lives wasting there away;
"Draw the ponderous bars! open, Warder stern!"
He dared not say me nay, the hinges harshly turn.
...

Look on him! through his dungeon grate,
Feebly and cold, the morning light
Comes stealing round him, dim and late,
As if it loathed the sight.
Reclining on his strawy bed,...

I.

My hair is grey, but not with years,
Nor grew it white
In a single night,[3]
As men's have grown from sudden fears:
My limbs are bowed, though not with toil,...

I have been thinking of the victims bound
In Naples, dying for the lack of air
And sunshine, in their close, damp cells of pain,
Where hope is not, and innocence in vain...

"I am a boxer, who does not inflict blows on the air, but I hit hard and straight at my own body." -- 1 Cor. ix. 26 (WEYMOUTH'S Translation).

'T'was breakfast time, and outside in the street...

Shall we conceal the Case, or tell it -
We who believe the evidence?
Here and there the watch-towers knell it
With a sullen significance,...

I like a church; I like a cowl;
I love a prophet of the soul;
And on my heart monastic aisles
Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles
Yet not for all his faith can see...