“ Bring me my shield and sword!
(Is there no unstained grass will clean this stain?)
This day is won;—but now the great reward
Cometh! O Love, thy prayers were not in vain!
I am well rested now.—Nay, I can rise
Without your help! Why do ye look at me
With so much pain and pity in your eyes,
Who gained with me to-day this victory?
I think we should be glad we are not dead,
—Only, perchance, no Lady waiteth you,
No Lady who is all uncomforted,
And who hath watched and prayed these long hours through. ”

“ As at the first dawn of a summer day
Or in late autumn wildly passionate,
Or when all things are all disconsolate
Because that Winter has been long their king,
Or in the Spring.
—Therefore let now your joyful thanksgiving
Be heard on Earth because the Rain hath come!
While land and sea give praise, shall ye be dumb?
Shall ye alone await the sun-shining?
Your days, perchance, have many joys to bring ”

“ Far off, to eastward, I see the wide hill sloping
Up to the place where the pines and sky are one;
All the hill is gray with its young budding birches
And red with its maple-tips and yellow with the sun.
Sometimes, over it rolls a purple shadow
Of a ragged cloud that wanders in the large, open sky,
Born where the ploughed fields border on the river
And melting into space where the pines are black and high.
There all is quiet; but here where I am waiting,
Among the firs behind me the wind is ill at ease ”

“ And on the roof the rain's unending harmonies?
For when could death be more desired by us
(Oh, follow, Death, I pray thee, with the Fall!)
Than when the night
Is heavy with the wet wind born of rain? ”

“ The joy the old brown earth has, when the rain
Comes, and the earth is glad that it has come:
That ecstasy
The buds have, when the worn snow sets them free,
The sea's delight when storm-time has returned. ”

“ Of that soft peace which cometh with the Rain?
Behold! the wisest of you knows no thing
That hath such title to man's worshipping
As the first sudden day
The slumbrous Earth is wakened into Spring;
When heavy clouds and gray
Come up the southern way,
And their bold challenge throw
In the face of the frightened snow
That covereth the ground. ”

“ Thou'lt make to-day even as my yesterdays!"
(At the edge of the yellow dawn I saw them stand,
Body and Soul; and they were hand-in-hand:
The Soul looked backward where the last night's blindness
Lay still upon the unawakened land;
But the Body, in the sun's light well arrayed,
Fronted the east, grandly and unafraid:
I knew that it was one might never falter
Although the Soul seemed shaken as it prayed.)
"O Lord" (the Soul said) , "I would ask one thing:
Send out Thy rapid messengers to bring
Me to the shadows which about Thine altar
Are ever born and always gathering. ”

“ The last, dark night—falls swift across your path,
And on Life's altar your last day lies slain,
Will ye not cry aloud with that new might
One dying with great things unfinished hath,
"O God! if Thou wouldst only send Thy Rain!"
A MEMORY
You are not with me though the Spring is here! ”

“ Then, maidens, come, with song and lute-playing,
And all your wild flowers bring
And strew them on His altar; while the sun—
Seeing what hath been done—
Shines strong once more,
Knowing that Death hath Christ for conqueror.
THE RAIN
O ye who so unceasing praise the Sun ”

“ And while the rain is unabated,
Well-heads are born and streams created
On the hillsides, and set a-flowing
Across the fields. The river, knowing
That there hath surely come at last
Its freedom, and that frost is past,
Gathereth force to break its chains ”

“ When his Lady needed him:
(Now that both his eyes are dim
Both his sword and shield are bright!)
Come, and share these things with me,
Men have died to leave to us!
We shall find life glorious
In this splendid house of love ”

“ As if death could wish anything of one
Who hath to-day brought many men to death!
Why should it not grow dark?—Surely the sun
Hath seen since morning much that wearieth.
Dead bodies; red, red blood upon the land ”

“ THE RELIEF OF WET WILLOWS
Now this is the ballad of seven men
Who rode to Wet Willows and back again.
It was only an hour before the dawn
When they deemed it best to awaken Sir John.
For they knew his sword long years had hung
On the wall, unhandled. (Once he was young,—
They did not remember; the tale had been told
To them by their fathers, ere they grew old—
And then his sword was a dreaded thing
When the men from the North came a-warfaring!) ”

“ No buds are on the trees; in every land
Year asketh year some tidings of some Spring.
Yea, it is time,—high time we were awake!
Simple indeed shall life be unto us.
What part is ours?—To take what all things give;
To feel the whole world growing for our sake ”

“ And slain at Wet Willows. (Sir John was not young
They knew well; but the might of his sword as it swung,
In the old fighting days, was a thing they well knew,—
A shield was but glass as it clove its way through!) ”

“ Were best made known to their master, too:
How, down at Wet Willows, there lay on the ground
Some men who were dead and some who were bound
And unable to succor the women who wept
That the North-King had come while their warriors slept.
* * * * *
So it came to pass, with the wind of the dawn,
Six men with their armor girded on
Had ridden around to the Eastern gate ”