John Drinkwater

“ In speaking of so noble a poet, and one so rich in pleasure-giving, one would say [171] nothing that should savour at any distance of disparagement. Nor is Morris to be belittled because Chaucer was his master, not only by example, but by achievement. At the same time, in Morris’s narrative poetry, however splendidly it may compel every other honour, there is to those who love it a perplexing something which leaves it short of the very highest. In a strange and impalpable way it seems as though he had withheld some last heart-beat from its creation. ”

“ We love the hearth, the quiet hills, the song,
The friendly gossip come from every land;
And very peace were now a nameless wrong,—
You thrust this bitter quarrel to our hand.
For this your pride the tragic armies go,
And the grim navies watch along the seas;
You trade in death, you mock at life, you throw
To God the tumult of your blasphemies.
You rob us of our love-right. It is said.
In treason to the world you are enthroned.
We rise, and, by the yet ungathered dead,
Not lightly shall the treason be atoned. ”

“ You, who have sacrificed nothing, babble about destroying the South while other people conquer it. I accepted this war with a sick heart, and I've a heart that's near to breaking every day. I accepted it in the name of humanity, and just and merciful dealing, and the hope of love and charity on earth. And you come to me, talking of revenge and destruction, and malice, and enduring hate. These gentle people are mistaken, but they are mistaken cleanly, and in a great name. It is you that dishonour the cause for which we stand—it is you who would make it a mean and little thing. ”

“ The journals of the travel in Iceland, written as they were without any definite purpose of publication, show how intensely he was moved by the spirit of the Sagas, how close his own being was to it. Every stone was quick with a tradition that meant for him the very breath of splendid and heroic life. His feeling for the earth was at all times, as we have seen, one of an almost indefinable tenderness and yearning, but once he had seen Iceland it was the earth that nourished Sigurd and Brynhild and Gunnar and Gudrun that was thenceforth most deeply rooted in his love. ”

“ We, the army, demand liberty of opinion. We respect law, we stand, above all, for order and right behaviour, for an observance of the rights of others. But we demand that a man's thought shall be his own, that his faith shall be directed by none. We stand for Bible freedom. And we, sir, are strong enough to make Parliament accept that, but Parliament can never make us accept the tyranny of the Presbyters. We are the new Independents, sir, the Independents of the spirit. We are determined that henceforth in England no man shall suffer for his faith. ”

“ When the dusk came, and the city fell to silence,
And out of his poor banishment he would walk,
She followed him, knowing the very hour,
And all her heart was flooded through with pity,
Because she knew the leprosy left still
A Naaman untainted and lovely.
Then in her mind was the proud woman a loathing,
Who dared to waste a marvel such as this,
The right in the world's knowledge so to love.
O pitiful evil blasting so great a flesh,
Walling a spirit so governing itself
In spite of desolation. A maid's thought thus
Knew how the frames of mastery can suffer. ”