Works

"While the trees grow,
While the streams flow,
While the winds blow,
We will be free:
Free as trees growing,
Free as streams flowing,
Free as winds blowing,
Evermore free."

What would you have? said I;1
'Tis so easy to go and die,
'Tis so hard to stay and live,
In this alien peace and this comfort callous,
Where only the murderers get the gallows,...

The church stands there beyond the orchard-blooms:
How yearningly I gaze upon its spire!
Lifted mysterious through the twilight glooms,
Dissolving in the sunset's golden fire,...

I.

What precious thing are you making fast
In all these silken lines?
And where and to whom will it go at last?
Such subtle knots and twines!

I am tying up all my love in this,...

Would some little joy to-day
Visit us, heart!
Could it but a moment stay,
Then depart,
With the flutter of its wings
Stirring sense of brighter things.
Like a butterfly astray
In a dark room;...

My thoughts go back to last July,
Sweet happy thoughts and tender;
'The bridal of the earth and sky,'
A day of noble splendour;
A day to make the saddest heart
In joy a true believer;...

The Pilgrimage To Kevlaar.

I.

At the window stood the mother,
In bed the sick son lay;
'Will you not get up, William,
And see them marching away?'

'I am so ill, O mother,...

I.

The white-rose garland at her feet,
The crown of laurel at her head,
Her noble life on earth complete,
Lay her in the last low bed
For the slumber calm and deep:...

For I must sing of all I feel and know,
Waiting with Memnon passive near the palms,
Until the heavenly light doth dawn and grow
And thrill my silence into mystic psalms;...

I

LOVE'S DAWN


Still thine eyes haunt me; in the darkness now,
The dreamtime, the hushed stillness of the night,
I see them shining pure and earnest light;...

From the midst of the fire I fling
These arrows of fire to you:
If they sing, and burn, and sting,
You feel how I burn too;
But if they reach you there
Speed-spent, charred black and cold,...

We were now in the midmost Maytime, in the full green flood of the Spring,
When the air is sweet all the daytime with the blossoms and birds that sing;...

This field of stones, he said,
May well call forth a sigh;
Beneath them lie the dead,
On them the living lie.

Sleepless himself to give to others sleep.
He giveth His beloved sleep.


I heard the sounding of the midnight hour;
The others one by one had left the room,...

' Ceste insigne fable et tragicque comedie.'
- RABELAIS.

I.

The sun was down, and twilight grey
Filled half the air; but in the room,
Whose curtain had been drawn all day,...

As we rush, as we rush in the Train,
The trees and the houses go wheeling back,
But the starry heavens above the plain
Come flying on our track.

All the beautiful stars of the sky,...

Who has a thing to bring
For a gift to our lord the king,
Our king all kings above?
A young girl brought him love;
And he dowered her with shame,
With a sort of infamous fame,...

In the early morning-shine
Of a certain day divine,
I beheld a Maiden stand
With a pitcher in her hand;
Whence she poured into a cup
Until it was half filled up
Nectar that was golden light...

To Alice and Hypatia Bradlaugh

Who was Lilah? I am sure
She was young and sweet and pure;
With the forehead wise men love,
Here a lucid dawn above
Broad curved brows, and twilight there,...

Last evening's huge lax clouds of turbid white
Grew dark and louring, burthened with the rain
Which that long wind monotonous all night
Swept clashing loud through Dreamland's still domain,
...