Wearily stretches the sand to the surge, and the surge to the cloudland; Wearily onward I ride, watching the water alone. Not as of old, like Homeric Achilles, ??de? ya???, Joyous knight-errant of God, thirsting for labour and strife; No more on magical steed borne free through the regions of ether, But, like the hack […]

I cannot tell what you say, green leaves, I cannot tell what you say: But I know that there is a spirit in you, And a word in you this day. I cannot tell what you say, rosy rocks, I cannot tell what you say: But I know that there is a spirit in you, […]

Forward! Hark forward’s the cry! One more fence and we’re out on the open, So to us at once, if you want to live near us! Hark to them, ride to them, beauties! as on they go, Leaping and sweeping away in the vale below! Cowards and bunglers, whose heart or whose eye is slow, […]

Weep, weep, weep and weep, For pauper, dolt, and slave! Hark! from wasted moor and fen, Feverous alley, stifling den, Swells the wail of Saxon men– Work! or the grave! Down, down, down and down, With idler, knave, and tyrant! Why for sluggards cark and moil? He that will not live by toil Has no […]

The Day of the Lord is at hand, at hand: Its storms roll up the sky: The nations sleep starving on heaps of gold; All dreamers toss and sigh; The night is darkest before the morn; When the pain is sorest the child is born, And the Day of the Lord at hand. Gather you, […]

the Oubit {a} It was an hairy oubit, sae proud he crept alang, A feckless hairy oubit, and merrily he sang– ‘My Minnie bad me bide at hame until I won my wings; I show her soon my soul’s aboon the warks o’ creeping things.’ This feckless hairy oubit cam’ hirpling by the linn, A […]

Three fishers went sailing away to the West, Away to the West as the sun went down; Each thought on the woman who loved him the best, And the children stood watching them out of the town; For men must work, and women must weep, And there’s little to earn, and many to keep, Though […]

Oh, thou hadst been a wife for Shakspeare’s self! No head, save some world-genius, ought to rest Above the treasures of that perfect breast, Or nightly draw fresh light from those keen stars Through which thy soul awes ours: yet thou art bound– O waste of nature!–to a craven hound; To shameless lust, and childish […]

Ask if I love thee? Oh, smiles cannot tell Plainer what tears are now showing too well. Had I not loved thee, my sky had been clear: Had I not loved thee, I had not been here, Weeping by thee. Ask if I love thee? How else could I borrow Pride from man’s slander, and […]

The world goes up and the world goes down, And the sunshine follows the rain; And yesterday’s sneer and yesterday’s frown Can never come over again, Sweet wife: No, never come over again. For woman is warm though man be cold, And the night will hallow the day; Till the heart which at even was […]

The baby sings not on its mother’s breast; Nor nightingales who nestle side by side; Nor I by thine: but let us only part, Then lips which should but kiss, and so be still, As having uttered all, must speak again– O stunted thoughts! O chill and fettered rhyme Yet my great bliss, though still […]

I heard an Eagle crying all alone Above the vineyards through the summer night, Among the skeletons of robber towers: Because the ancient eyrie of his race Was trenched and walled by busy-handed men; And all his forest-chace and woodland wild, Wherefrom he fed his young with hare and roe, Were trim with grapes which […]

My parents bow, and lead them forth, For all the crowd to see– Ah well! the people might not care To cheer a dwarf like me. They little know how I could love, How I could plan and toil, To swell those drudges’ scanty gains, Their mites of rye and oil. They little know what […]

Evil sped the battle play On the Pope Calixtus’ day; Mighty war-smiths, thanes and lords, In Senlac slept the sleep of swords. Harold Earl, shot over shield, Lay along the autumn weald; Slaughter such was never none Since the Ethelings England won. Thither Lady Githa came, Weeping sore for grief and shame; How may she […]

Thank God! Those gazers’ eyes are gone at last! The guards are crouching underneath the rock; The lights are fading in the town below, Around the cottage which this morn was ours. Kind sun, to set, and leave us here alone; Alone upon our crosses with our God; While all the angels watch us from […]

Over the camp-fires Drank I with heroes, Under the Donau bank, Warm in the snow trench: Sagamen heard I there, Men of the Longbeards, Cunning and ancient, Honey-sweet-voiced. Scaring the wolf cub, Scaring the horn-owl, Shaking the snow-wreaths Down from the pine-boughs, Up to the star roof Rang out their song. Singing how Winil men, […]

On the Death of a Certain Journal {A} So die, thou child of stormy dawn, Thou winter flower, forlorn of nurse; Chilled early by the bigot’s curse, The pedant’s frown, the worldling’s yawn. Fair death, to fall in teeming June, When every seed which drops to earth Takes root, and wins a second birth From […]

How will it dawn, the coming Christmas-day? A northern Christmas, such as painters love, And kinsfolk shaking hands but once a year, And dames who tell old legends by the fire? Red sun, blue sky, white snow, and pearled ice, Keen ringing air, which sets the blood on fire, And makes the old man merry […]