Between the fountain and the rill I passed, and saw the mighty will To leap at sky; the careless run, As earth would lead her little son. Beneath them throbs an urgent well, That here is play, and there is war. I know not which had most to tell Of whence we spring and what […]

[Written for the Charing Cross Album] I Seen, too clear and historic within us, our sins of omission Frown when the Autumn days strike us all ruthlessly bare. They of our mortal diseases find never healing physician; Errors they of the soul, past the one hope to repair. II Sunshine might we have been unto […]

I Beneath the vans of doom did men pass in. Heroic who came out; for round them hung A wavering phantom’s red volcano tongue, With league-long lizard tail and fishy fin: II Old Earth’s original Dragon; there retired To his last fastness; overthrown by few. Him a laborious thrust of roadway slew. Then man to […]

Like as a terrible fire feeds fast on a forest enormous, Up on a mountain height, and the blaze of it radiates round far, So on the bright blest arms of the host in their march did the splendour Gleam wide round through the circle of air right up to the sky-vault. They, now, as […]

“Bibber besotted, with scowl of a cur, having heart of a deer, thou! Never to join to thy warriors armed for the press of the conflict, Never for ambush forth with the princeliest sons of Achaia Dared thy soul, for to thee that thing would have looked as a death-stroke. Sooth, more easy it seems, […]

“Heigh me! brazen of front, thou glutton for plunder, how can one, Servant here to thy mandates, heed thee among our Achaians, Either the mission hie on or stoutly do fight with the foemen? I, not hither I fared on account of the spear-armed Trojans, Pledged to the combat; they unto me have in nowise […]

They then to fountain-abundant Ida, mother of wild beasts, Came, and they first left ocean to fare over mainland at Lektos, Where underneath of their feet waved loftiest growths of the woodland. There hung Hypnos fast, ere the vision of Zeus was observant, Mounted upon a tall pine-tree, tallest of pines that on Ida Lustily […]

So he, with a clear shout of laughter, Forth of his ambush leapt, and he vaunted him, uttering thiswise: “Hit thou art! not in vain flew the shaft; how by rights it had pierced thee Into the undermost gut, therewith to have rived thee of life-breath! Following that had the Trojans plucked a new breath […]

These, then, he left, and away where ranks were now clashing the thickest, Onward rushed, and with him rushed all of the bright-greaved Achaians. Foot then footmen slew, that were flying from direful compulsion, Horse at the horsemen (up from off under them mounted the dust-cloud, Up off the plain, raised up cloud-thick by the […]

So now the horses of Aiakides, off wide of the war-ground, Wept, since first they were ware of their charioteer overthrown there, Cast down low in the whirl of the dust under man-slaying Hector. Sooth, meanwhile, then did Automedon, brave son of Diores, Oft, on the one hand, urge them with flicks of the swift […]

Not the sea-wave so bellows abroad when it bursts upon shingle, Whipped from the sea’s deeps up by the terrible blast of the Northwind; Nay, nor is ever the roar of the fierce fire’s rush so arousing, Down along mountain-glades, when it surges to kindle a woodland; Nay, nor so tonant thunders the stress of […]

A hundred mares, all white! their manes Like mace-reed of the marshy plains Thick-tufted, wavy, free o’ the shears: And when the fiery squadron rears Bursting at speed, each mane appears Even as the white scarf of a fay Floating upon their necks along the heavens away. O race of humankind, take shame! For never […]

Men of our race, we send you one Round whom Victoria’s holy name Is halo from the sunken sun Of her grand Summer’s day aflame. The heart of your loved Motherland, To them she loves as her own blood, This Flower of Ocean bears in hand, Assured of gift as good. Forth for our Southern […]

Yonder’s the man with his life in his hand, Legs on the march for whatever the land, Or to the slaughter, or to the maiming, Getting the dole of a dog for pay. Laurels he clasps in the words ‘duty done,’ England his heart under every sun:- Exquisite humour! that gives him a naming Base […]

We who have seen Italia in the throes, Half risen but to be hurled to ground, and now Like a ripe field of wheat where once drove plough All bounteous as she is fair, we think of those Who blew the breath of life into her frame: Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi: Three: Her Brain, her Soul, […]

The hundred years have passed, and he Whose name appeased a nation’s fears, As with a hand laid over sea; To thunder through the foeman’s ears Defeat before his blast of fire; Lives in the immortality That poets dream and noblest souls desire. Never did nation’s need evoke Hero like him for aid, the while […]

Under what spell are we debased By fears for our inviolate Isle, Whose record is of dangers faced And flung to heel with even smile? Is it a vaster force, a subtler guile? They say Exercitus designs To match the famed Salsipotent Where on her sceptre she reclines; Awake: but were a slumber sent By […]

High climbs June’s wild rose, Her bush all blooms in a swarm; And swift from the bud she blows, In a day when the wooer is warm; Frank to receive and give, Her bosom is open to bee and sun: Pride she has none, Nor shame she knows; Happy to live. Unlike those of the […]

What splendour of imperial station man, The Tree of Life, may reach when, rooted fast, His branching stem points way to upper air And skyward still aspires, we see in him Who sang for us the Archangelical host, Made Morning, by old Darkness urged to the abyss; A voice that down three centuries onward rolls; […]

A rainless darkness drew o’er the lake As we lay in our boat with oars unshipped. It seemed neither cloud nor water awake, And forth of the low black curtain slipped Thunderless lightning. Scoff no more At angels imagined in downward flight For the daughters of earth as fabled of yore: Here was beauty might […]