FullReads

Natheless we sang in sweet accord,
Each bending o’er her brede–
“O there be flowers in Oxenford,
And flowers be north of Tweed,
And flowers there be on earthly sward
That owe no mortal seed!”

And these, the brightest that we wove,
Were Innocence and Truth,
And holy Peace and angel Love,
Glad Hope and gentle Ruth.
Ah, bind them fast with triple twine
Of Memory, the wild woodbine
That still, being human, stays divine,
And alone is age’s youth!…

But hark! but look! the warning rook
Wings home in level flight;
The children tired with play and book
Have kiss’d and call’d Good-night!

Ah, sisters, look! What fields be these
That lie so sad and shorn?
What hand has cut our coppices,
And thro’ the trimm’d, the ruin’d, trees
Lets wail a wind forlorn?

‘Tis Time, ’tis Time has done this crime
And laid our meadows waste–
The bent unwearied tyrant Time,
That knows nor rest nor haste.

Yet courage, children; homeward bring
Your hearts, your garlands high;
For we have dared to do a thing
That shall his worst defy.

We cannot nail the dial’s hand;
We cannot bind the sun
By Gibeon to stay and stand,
Or the moon o’er Ajalon;

We cannot blunt th’ abhorred shears,
Nor shift the skeins of Fate,
Nor say unto the posting years
“Ye shall not desolate.”

We cannot cage the lion’s rage,
Nor teach the turtle-dove
Beside what well his moan to tell
Or to haunt one only grove;
But the lion’s brood will range for food
As the fledged bird will rove.

And east and west we three may wend–
Yet we a wreath have wound
For us shall wind withouten end
The wide, wide world around:

Be it east or west, and ne’er so far,
In east or west shall peep no star,
No blossom break from ground,
But minds us of the wreath we wove
Of innocence and holy love
That in the meads we found,
And handsell’d from the Mower’s scythe,
And bound with memory’s living withe–
You and I and Burd so blithe–
Three maidens on a mound:
And all of happiness was ours
Shall find remembrance ‘mid the flowers,
Shall take revival from the flowers
And by the flowers be crown’d.