A mountainous and mystic bruteNo rein can curb, no arrow shoot,Upon whose domed deformed backI sweep the planets scorching track. Old is the elf, and wise, men say,His hair grows green as ours grows grey;He mocks the stars with myriad hands.High as that swinging forest stands. But though in pigmy wanderings dullI scour the deserts […]

I plod and peer amid mean sounds and shapes,I hunt for dusty gain and dreary praise,And slowly pass the dismal grinning days,Monkeying each other like a line of apes. What care? There was one hour amid all theseWhen I had stripped off like a tawdry gloveMy starriest hopes and wants, for very loveOf time and […]

The violet scent is sacredLike dreams of angels bright;The hawthorn smells of passionTold in a moonless night. But the smell is in my nostrils,Through blossoms red or gold,Of my own green flower unfading,A bitter smell and bold. The lily smells of pardon,The rose of mirth; but mineSmells shrewd of death and honour,And the doom of […]

All day the nations climb and crawl and prayIn one long pilgrimage to one white shrine,Where sleeps a saint whose pardon, like his peace,Is wide as death, as common, as divine. His statue in an aureole fills the shrine,The reckless nightingale, the roaming fawn,Share the broad blessing of his lifted hands,Under the canopy, above the […]

(W.E.G., May 1898) Lift up your heads: in life, in death,God knoweth his head was high.Quit we the coward’s broken breathWho watched a strong man die. If we must say, ‘No more his peerCometh; the flag is furled.’Stand not too near him, lest he hearThat slander on the world. The good green earth he loved […]

Many have Earth’s lovers been,Tried in seas and wars, I ween;Yet the mightiest have I seen:Yea, the best saw I.One that in a field aloneStood up stiller than a stoneLest a moth should fly. Birds had nested in his hair,On his shoon were mosses rare.Insect empires flourished there,Worms in ancient wars;But his eyes burn like […]

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.(O stern and cunning are the kings,But here the true hearts are.) The Christ-child lay on Mary’s heart,His hair was like a fire.(O weary, weary […]

I cannot count the pebbles in the brook.Well hath He spoken: ‘Swear not by thy head,Thou knowest not the hairs,’ though He, we read,Writes that wild number in his own strange book. I cannot count the sands or search the seas,Death cometh, and I leave so much untrod.Grant my immortal aureole, O my God,And I […]

‘Elder father, though thine eyesShine with hoary mysteries,Canst thou tell what in the heartOf a cowslip blossom lies? ‘Smaller than all lives that be,Secret as the deepest sea,Stands a little house of seeds,Like an elfin’s granary, ‘Speller of the stones and weeds,Skilled in Nature’s crafts and creeds,Tell me what is in the heartOf the smallest […]

Though the whole heaven be one-eyed with the moon,Though the dead landscape seem a thing possessed,Yet I go singing through that land oppressedAs one that singeth through the flowers of June. No more, with forest-fingers crawling freeO’er dark flint wall that seems a wall of eyes,Shall evil break my soul with mysteriesOf some world-poison maddening […]

I saw an old man like a child,His blue eyes bright, his white hair wild,Who turned for ever, and might not stop,Round and round like an urchin’s top. ‘Fool,’ I cried, ‘while you spin round,‘Others grow wise, are praised, are crowned.’Ever the same round road he trod,‘This is better: I seek for God.’ ‘We see […]

A wan new garment of young greenTouched, as you turned your soft brown hairAnd in me surged the strangest prayerEver in lover’s heart hath been. That I who saw your youth’s bright page,A rainbow change from robe to robe,Might see you on this earthly globe,Crowned with the silver crown of age. Your dear hair powdered […]

A child sits in a sunny place,Too happy for a smile,And plays through one long holidayWith balls to roll and pile;A painted wind-mill by his sideRuns like a merry tune,But the sails are the four great winds of heaven,And the balls are the sun and moon. A staring doll’s-house shows to himGreen floors and starry […]

This is the weird of a world-old folk,That not till the last link breaks,Not till the night is blackest,The blood of Hengist wakes.When the sun is black in heaven,The moon as blood above,And the earth is full of hatred,This people tells its love. In change, eclipse, and peril,Under the whole world’s scorn,By blood and death […]

Witness all: that unrepenting,Feathers flying, music high,I go down to death unshakenBy your mean philosophy. For your wages, take my body,That at least to you I leave;Set the sulky plumes upon it,Bid the grinning mummers grieve. Stand in silence: steep your raimentIn the night that hath no star;Don the mortal dress of devils,Blacker than their […]

Before the grass grew over me,I knew one good man through and through,And knew a soul and body joinedAre stronger than the heavens are blue. A wisdom worthy of thy joy,O great heart, read I as I ran;Now, though men smite me on the face,I cannot curse the face of man. I loved the man […]

I dreamed a dream of heaven, white as frost,The splendid stillness of a living host;Vast choirs of upturned faces, line o’er line.Then my blood froze; for every face was mine. Spirits with sunset plumage throng and pass,Glassed darkly in the sea of gold and glass.But still on every side, in every spot,I saw a million […]

You that have snarled through the ages, take your answer and go–I know your hoary question, the riddle that all men know.You have weighed the stars in a balance, and grasped the skies in a span:Take, if you must have answer, the word of a common man. Deep in my life lies buried one love […]

Laugh your best, O blazoned forests,Me ye shall not shift or shameWith your beauty: here among youMan hath set his spear of flame. Lamp to lamp we send the signal,For our lord goes forth to war;Since a voice, ere stars were builded,Bade him colonise a star. Laugh ye, cruel as the morning,Deck your heads with […]

Name not his deed: in shuddering and in hasteWe dragged him darkly o’er the windy fell:That night there was a gibbet in the waste,And a new sin in hell. Be his deed hid from commonwealths and kings,By all men born be one true tale forgot;But three things, braver than all earthly things,Faced him and feared […]