It is something to have wept as we have wept,It is something to have done as we have done,It is something to have watched when all men slept,And seen the stars which never see the sun. It is something to have smelt the mystic rose,Although it break and leave the thorny rods,It is something to […]

Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack,But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon his back,Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret,Still, my hope is all before me: for I cannot play it yet. In your strings is hid a music that […]

There is heard a hymn when the panes dimAnd never before or again,When the nights are strong with a darkness long,And the dark is alive with rain. Never we know but in sleet and in snow,The place where the great fires are,That the midst of the earth is a raging mirthAnd the heart of the […]

The thatch on the roof was as golden,Though dusty the straw was and old,The wind had a peal as of trumpets,Though blowing and barren and cold,The mother’s hair was a gloryThough loosened and torn,For under the eaves in the gloamingA child was born. Have a myriad children been quickened.Have a myriad children grown old,Grown gross […]

TO BE SUNG A LONG TIME AGO–OR HENCE THE CARPENTERS St. Joseph to the Carpenters said on a Christmas Day:“The master shall have patience and the prentice shall obey;And your word unto your women shall be nowise hard or wild:For the sake of me, your master, who have worshipped Wife and Child.But softly you shall […]

O God of earth and altar,Bow down and hear our cryOur earthly rulers falter,Our people drift and die;The walls of gold entomb us,The swords of scorn divide,Take not thy thunder from us,But take away our pride. From all that terror teaches,From lies of tongue and pen,From all the easy speechesThat comfort cruel men,From sale and […]

Passionate peace is in the sky–And in the snow in silver sealedThe beasts are perfect in the field,And men seem men so suddenly–(But take ten swords and ten times tenAnd blow the bugle in praising men;For we are for all men under the sun,And they are against us every one;And misers haggle and madmen clutch,And […]

Then Bernard smiled at me, that I should gazeBut I had gazed already; caught the view,Faced the unfathomable ray of raysWhich to itself and by itself is true. Then was my vision mightier than man’s speech;Speech snapt before it like a flying spell;And memory and all that time can teachBefore that splendid outrage failed and […]

Great God, that bowest sky and star,Bow down our towering thoughts to thee,And grant us in a faltering warThe firm feet of humility. Lord, we that snatch the swords of flame,Lord, we that cry about Thy car.We too are weak with pride and shame,We too are as our foemen are. Yea, we are mad as […]

Said the Lord God, “Build a house,Build it in the gorge of death,Found it in the throats of hell.Where the lost sea muttereth,Fires and whirlwinds, build it well.” Laboured sternly flame and wind,But a little, and they cry,“Lord, we doubt of this Thy will,We are blind and murmur why,”And the winds are murmuring still. Said […]

TO A POPULAR LEADER MUCH TO BE CONGRATULATEDON THE AVOIDANCE OF A STRIKE AT CHRISTMAS. I know you. You will hail the huge release,Saying the sheathing of a thousand swords,In silence and injustice, well accordsWith Christmas bells. And you will gild with greaseThe papers, the employers, the police,And vomit up the void your windy wordsTo […]

NICE, JANUARY 30, 1914. If any in an island cradle curledOf comfort, may make offerings to you,Who in the day of all denial blewA bugle through the blackness of the world, An English hand would touch your shroud, in trustThat truth again be told in English speech.And we too yet may practise what we preach,Though […]

John Grubby, who was short and stoutAnd troubled with religious doubt,Refused about the age of threeTo sit upon the curate’s knee;(For so the eternal strife must rageBetween the spirit of the ageAnd Dogma, which, as is well known.Does simply hate to be outgrown).Grubby, the young idea that shoots,Outgrew the ages like old boots;While still, to […]

Jones had a dog; it had a chain;Not often worn, not causing pain;But, as the I.K.L. had passedTheir “Unleashed Cousins Act” at last,Inspectors took the chain away;Whereat the canine barked “hurray”!At which, of course, the S.P.U.(Whose Nervous Motorists’ Bill was through),Were forced to give the dog in chargeFor being Audibly at Large.None, you will say, […]

Lord Lilac thought it rather rottenThat Shakespeare should be quiteAnd therefore got on a CommitteeWith several chaps out of the city.And Shorter and Sir Herbert Tree,Lord Rothschild and Lord RoseberyAnd F.C.G. and Comyns Carr,Two dukes and a dramatic star,Also a clergyman now dead;And while the vain world careless spedUnheeding the heroic name–The souls most fed […]

“I WAS NEVER STANDING BY WHILE A REVOLUTION WAS GOING ON.”– Speech by the Rt. Hon. Walter Long. When Death was on thy drums, Democracy,And with one rush of slaves the world was free,In that high dawn that Kings shall not forget,A void there was and Walter was not yet.Through sacked Versailles, at Valmy in […]

RHYMES FOR THE TIMES “A BILL WHICH HAS SHOCKED THE CONSCIENCE OF EVERY CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY IN EUROPE.”– Mr. F.E. Smith, ON THE WELSH DISESTABLISHMENT BILL. Are they clinging to their crosses,F.E. Smith,Where the Breton boat-fleet tosses,Are they, Smith?Do they, fasting, tramping, bleeding,Wait the news from this our city?Groaning “That’s the Second Reading!”Hissing “There is still […]

Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget.For we are the people of England, that never has spoken yet.There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully,There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we.There are no folk in the whole world so helpless or […]

WRITTEN DURING A FRIDAY AND SATURDAY IN AUGUST 1911. King Dives he was waiting in his garden all alone,Where his flowers are made of iron and his trees are made of stone,And his hives are full of thunder and the lightning leaps and kills,For the mills of God grind slowly; and he works with other […]

This is their trumpet ripe and rounded,They have burnt the wheat and gathered the chaff,And we that have fought them, we that have watched them,Have we at least not cause to laugh? Never so low at least we stumbled–Dead we have been but not so deadAs these that live on the life they squandered,As these […]