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,...

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;...

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

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,...

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,...

Mr. MacCall at Cleveland Hall,
Sunday evening-date to fix
Fifteenth April, sixty-six,
Speech reported and redacted
By a fellow much distracted.

I

Who lectures? No mere scorner;...

Once in a saintly passion
I cried with desperate grief,
"O Lord, my heart is black with guile,
Of sinners I am chief."
Then stooped my guardian angel
And whispered from behind,...

I

That one long dirge-moan sad and deep,
Low, muffled by the solemn stress
Of such emotion as doth steep
The soul in brooding quietness,
Befits our anguished time too well,...

I.

This is the Heath of Hampstead,
There is the dome of Saint Paul's;
Beneath, on the serried house-tops,
A chequered lustre falls:

And the mighty city of London,...

Eastwards through busy streets I lingered on;
Jostled by anxious crowds, who, heart and brain,
Were so absorbed in dreams of Mammon-gain,
That they could spare no time to look upon...

From out the house I crept,
The house which long had caged my homeless life:
The mighty City in vast silence slept,
Dreaming away its tumult, toil, and strife:...

I saw thee once, I see thee now;
Thy pure young face, thy noble mien,
Thy truthful eyes, thy radiant brow;
All childlike, lovely, and serene;
Rapt in harmonious visions proud,...

She was so good, and he was so bad
A very pretty time they had!
A pretty time, and it lasted long:
Which of the two was more in the wrong?
He befouled in the slough of sin;...