A bird flew out at the break of dayFrom the nest where it had curled,And ere the eve the bird had setFear on the kings of the world. The first tree it lit uponWas green with leaves unshed;The second tree it lit uponWas red with apples red; The third tree it lit uponWas barren and […]

All round they murmur, ‘O profane,Keep thy heart’s secret hid as gold’;But I, by God, would sooner beSome knight in shattering wars of old, In brown outlandish arms to ride,And shout my love to every starWith lungs to make a poor maid’s nameDeafen the iron ears of war. Here, where these subtle cowards crowd,To stand […]

Five kings rule o’er the Amorite,Mighty as fear and old as night;Swathed with unguent and gold and jewel,Waxed they merry and fat and cruel.Zedek of Salem, a terror and glory,Whose face was hid while his robes were gory;And Hoham of Hebron, whose loathly face isHeavy and dark o’er the ruin of races;And Piram of Jarmuth, […]

‘What of vile dust?’ the preacher said.Methought the whole world woke,The dead stone lived beneath my foot,And my whole body spoke. ‘You, that play tyrant to the dust,And stamp its wrinkled face,This patient star that flings you notFar into homeless space. ‘Come down out of your dusty shrineThe living dust to see,The flowers that at […]

We will not let thee be, for thou art ours.We thank thee still, though thou forget these things,For that hour’s sake when thou didst wake all powersWith a great cry that God was sick of kings. Leave thee there grovelling at their rusted greaves,These hulking cowards on a painted stage,Who, with imperial pomp and laurel […]

The sun was black with judgment, and the moonBlood: but betweenI saw a man stand, saying, ‘To me at leastThe grass is green. ‘There was no star that I forgot to fearWith love and wonder.The birds have loved me’; but no answer came–Only the thunder. Once more the man stood, saying, ‘A cottage door,Wherethrough I […]

A dark manor-house shuttered and unlighted, outlined against a pale sunset: in front a large, but neglected, garden. To the right, in the foreground, the porch of a chapel, with coloured windows lighted. Hymns within. Above the porch a grotesque carved bracket, supporting a lantern. Astride of it sits CAPTAIN REDFEATHER, a flagon in his […]

The wasting thistle whitens on my crest,The barren grasses blow upon my spear,A green, pale pennon: blazon of wild faithAnd love of fruitless things: yea, of my love,Among the golden loves of all the knights,Alone: most hopeless, sweet, and blasphemous,The love of God:I hear the crumbling creedsLike cliffs washed down by water, change, and pass;I […]

Lo! very fair is she who knows the waysOf joy: in pleasure’s mocking wisdom old,The eyes that might be cold to flattery, kind;The hair that might be grey with knowledge, gold. But thou art more than these things, O my queen,For thou art clad in ancient wars and tears.And looking forth, framed in the crown […]

On must we go: we search dead leaves,We chase the sunset’s saddest flames,The nameless hues that o’er and o’erIn lawless wedding lost their names. God of the daybreak! Better beBlack savages; and grin to girdOur limbs in gaudy rags of red,The laughing-stock of brute and bird; And feel again the fierce old feast,Blue for seven […]

We came behind him by the wall,My brethren drew their brands,And they had strength to strike him down–And I to bind his hands. Only once, to a lantern gleam,He turned his face from the wall,And it was as the accusing angel’s faceOn the day when the stars shall fall. I grasped the axe with shaking […]

Between a meadow and a cloud that spedIn rain and twilight, in desire and fear.I heard a secret–hearken in your ear,‘Behold the daisy has a ring of red.’ That hour, with half of blessing, half of ban,A great voice went through heaven, and earth and hell,Crying, ‘We are tricked, my great ones, is it well?Now […]

This tale begins among a tangle of tales round a name that is at once recent and legendary. The name is that of Michael O’Neill, popularly called Prince Michael, partly because he claimed descent from ancient Fenian princes, and partly because he was credited with a plan to make himself prince president of Ireland, as […]

Harold March, the rising reviewer and social critic, was walking vigorously across a great tableland of moors and commons, the horizon of which was fringed with the far-off woods of the famous estate of Torwood Park. He was a good-looking young man in tweeds, with very pale curly hair and pale clear eyes. Walking in […]

Two men, the one an architect and the other an archaeologist, met on the steps of the great house at Prior’s Park; and their host, Lord Bulmer, in his breezy way, thought it natural to introduce them. It must be confessed that he was hazy as well as breezy, and had no very clear connection […]

A thing can sometimes be too extraordinary to be remembered. If it is clean out of the course of things, and has apparently no causes and no consequences, subsequent events do not recall it, and it remains only a subconscious thing, to be stirred by some accident long after. It drifts apart like a forgotten […]

In an oasis, or green island, in the red and yellow seas of sand that stretch beyond Europe toward the sunrise, there can be found a rather fantastic contrast, which is none the less typical of such a place, since international treaties have made it an outpost of the British occupation. The site is famous […]

A large map of London would be needed to display the wild and zigzag course of one day’s journey undertaken by an uncle and his nephew; or, to speak more truly, of a nephew and his uncle. For the nephew, a schoolboy on a holiday, was in theory the god in the car, or in […]

It was on the sunny veranda of a seaside hotel, overlooking a pattern of flower beds and a strip of blue sea, that Horne Fisher and Harold March had their final explanation, which might be called an explosion. Harold March had come to the little table and sat down at it with a subdued excitement […]

Harold March and the few who cultivated the friendship of Horne Fisher, especially if they saw something of him in his own social setting, were conscious of a certain solitude in his very sociability. They seemed to be always meeting his relations and never meeting his family. Perhaps it would be truer to say that […]