William Morris

“ O son, when wilt thou learn
of those that are born of despair,
As the fabled mud of the Nile
that quickens under the sun
With a growth of creeping things,
half dead when just begun?
E’en such is the care of Nature
that man should never die,
Though she breed of the fools of the earth,
and the dregs of the city sty.
But thou, O son, O son,
of very love wert born,
When our hope fulfilled bred hope,
and fear was a folly outworn.
On the eve of the toil and the battle
all sorrow and grief we weighed,
We hoped and we were not ashamed,
we knew and we were not afraid. ”

“ Love unlocks the lips that else were ever dumb:
“Love locks up the lips whence all things good might come.”
Love makes clear the eyes that else would never see:
“Love makes blind the eyes to all but me and thee.”
Love turns life to joy till nought is left to gain:
“Love turns life to woe till hope is nought and vain.”
Love, who changest all, change me nevermore!
“Love, who changest all, change my sorrow sore!”
Love burns up the world to changeless heaven and blest,
“Love burns up the world to a void of all unrest.” ”

“ Night hath no fear for me, and day no wrongs.
What brazen city gates can keep us, lone?
The Youths.
O long, long road, how bare thou art, and grey!
Hill after hill thou climbest, and the day
Is ended now, O moonlit endless way!
And she is standing where the rushes grow,
And still with white hand shades her anxious brow,
Though ’neath the world the sun is fallen now,
O dreary road, when will thy leagues be done?
The Maidens.
O tremblest thou, grey road, or do my feet
Tremble with joy, thy flinty face to meet?
Because my love’s eyes soon mine eyes shall greet? ”

“ What healing in summer if winter be vain?
Now winter cometh and weareth away,
So many times over comes summer again,
And glad is Hallbiorn many a day.
What healing in summer if winter be vain?
Full soft he lay his love beside;
But dark are the days of wintertide.
Dark are the days, and the nights are long,
And sweet and fair was Snæbiorn’s song.
Many a time he talked with her,
Till they deemed the summer-tide was there.
And they forgat the wind-swept ways
And angry fords of the flitting-days.
While the north wind swept the hillside there
They forgat the other Whitewater. ”

“ More joy than the gladness of laughter
thy voice hath amidst of its wail:
More hope than of pleasure fulfilled
amidst of thy blindness is set;
More glorious than gaining of all
thine unfaltering hand that shall fail:
For what is the mark on thy brow
but the brand that thy Brynhild doth bear?
Lone once, and loved and undone
by a love that no ages outwear.
Ah! when thy Balder comes back,
and bears from the heart of the Sun
Peace and the healing of pain,
and the wisdom that waiteth no more;
And the lilies are laid on thy brow
’mid the crown of the deeds thou hast done ”

“ Perchance love is not wholly cast away.
Let me depart, since ye are happy here.
Puellæ.
Pluck love away as thou wouldst pluck a thorn
From out thy flesh; for why shouldst thou be born
To bear a life so wasted and forlorn?
Abide! abide! for we are happy here.
Amans.
Yea, why then was I born, since hope is pain,
And life a lingering death, and faith but vain,
And love the loss of all I seemed to gain?
Let me depart, since ye are happy here.
Puellæ.
Dost thou believe that this shall ever be,
That in our land no face thou e’er shalt see,
No voice thou e’er shalt hear to gladden thee? ”

“ Fair with spring-flowers cast adown
From thy bosom and thy brow.
There the south-west wind shall blow
Through thine hair to reach my cheek,
As thou sittest, nor mayst speak,
Nor mayst move the hand I kiss
For the very depth of bliss;
Nay, nor turn thine eyes to me.
Then desire of the great sea
Nigh enow, but all unheard,
In the hearts of us is stirred,
And we rise, we twain at last,
And the daffodils downcast,
Feel thy feet and we are gone
From the lonely Sun-Crowned one.
Then the meads fade at our back,
And the spring day ’gins to lack
That fresh hope that once it had ”

“ This eve art thou given to gladness and me.
Shall we be glad always? Come closer and hearken:
Three fields further on, as they told me down there,
When the young moon has set, if the March sky should darken
We might see from the hill-top the great city’s glare.
Hark, the wind in the elm-boughs! from London it bloweth,
And telleth of gold, and of hope and unrest;
Of power that helps not; of wisdom that knoweth,
But teacheth not aught of the worst and the best.
Of the rich men it telleth, and strange is the story
How they have, and they hanker, and grip far and wide ”

“ THE RAVEN AND THE KING’S DAUGHTER.
King’s daughter sitting in tower so high,
Fair summer is on many a shield.
Why weepest thou as the clouds go by?
Fair sing the swans ’twixt firth and field.
Why weepest thou in the window-seat
Till the tears run through thy fingers sweet?
The King’s Daughter.
I weep because I sit alone
Betwixt these walls of lime and stone.
Fair folk are in my father’s hall,
But for me he built this guarded wall.
And here the gold on the green I sew
Nor tidings of my true-love know. ”

“ And we live on in the land we love,
And grudge no hallow Heaven above.
THE VOICE OF TOIL.
I heard men saying, Leave hope and praying,
All days shall be as all have been;
To-day and to-morrow bring fear and sorrow,
The never-ending toil between.
When Earth was younger mid toil and hunger,
In hope we strove, and our hands were strong;
Then great men led us, with words they fed us,
And bade us right the earthly wrong. ”

“ Lo amidst London I lift thee,
and how little and light thou art,
And thou without hope or fear
thou fear and hope of my heart!
Lo here thy body beginning,
O son, and thy soul and thy life;
But how will it be if thou livest,
and enterest into the strife,
And in love we dwell together
when the man is grown in thee,
When thy sweet speech I shall hearken,
and yet ’twixt thee and me
Shall rise that wall of distance,
that round each one doth grow,
And maketh it hard and bitter
each other’s thought to know. ”

“ No heart thou hast to keep us long alone.
The Youths.
O wilt thou ne’er depart, thou heavy night?
When will thy slaying bring on the morning bright,
That leads my weary feet to my delight?
Why lingerest thou, filling with wandering fears
My lone love’s tired heart; her eyes with tears
For thoughts like sorrow for the vanished years?
Weaver of ill thoughts, when wilt thou be gone?
The Maidens.
Love, to the east are thine eyes turned as mine,
In patient watching for the night’s decline?
And hast thou noted this grey widening line?
Can any darkness keep us long alone?
The Youth. ”

“ Love went; and left no shame.
Shall both the twilights meeting
The summer sunlight blame?
What! cometh love and goeth
Like the dark night’s empty wind,
Because thy folly soweth
The harvest of the blind?
Hast thou slain love with sorrow?
Have thy tears quenched the sun?
Nay even yet to-morrow
Shall many a deed be done.
This twilight sea thou sailest,
Has it grown dim and black
For that wherein thou failest,
And the story of thy lack?
Peace then! for thine old grieving
Was born of Earth the kind,
And the sad tale thou art leaving
Earth shall not leave behind. ”

“ The lips that smile not though thy children win
The fated Love that draws the fated Death.
O, borne adown the fresh stream of thy breath,
Let some word reach my ears and touch my heart,
That, if it may be, I may have a part
In that great sorrow of thy children dead
That vexed the brow, and bowed adown the head,
Whitened the hair, made life a wondrous dream,
And death the murmur of a restful stream,
But left no stain upon those souls of thine
Whose greatness through the tangled world doth shine.
O Mother, and Love and Sister all in one,
Come thou ”

“ And Sir Rafe’s good men with bow and bill,
They go by two and three.
In the fair green-wood where lurks no fear,
Where the King’s writ runneth not,
There dwell they, friends and fellows dear,
While summer days are hot,
And when the leaf from the oak-tree falls,
And winds blow rough and strong,
With the carles of the woodland thorps and halls
They dwell, and fear no wrong.
And there the merry yule they make,
And see the winter wane,
And fain are they for true-love’s sake,
And the folk thereby are fain. ”

“ In vain I seek thee, O thou bitter-sweet!
In what lone land are set thy longed-for feet?”
Then I looked up, and lo, a man there came
From midst the trees, and stood regarding me
Until my tears were dried for very shame;
Then he cried out: “O mourner, where is she
Whom I have sought o’er every land and sea?
I love her and she loveth me, and still
We meet no more than green hill meeteth hill.”
With that he passed on sadly, and I knew
That these had met and missed in the dark night,
Blinded by blindness of the world untrue,
That hideth love and maketh wrong of right. ”

“ That thou so long unto thy life must cling,
Because I gave thee such a welcoming?
I called thee king of all felicity,
I praised thee that thou broughtest joy so nigh;
Thine hours are turned to years, thou wilt not die;
O day so longed for, would that thou wert gone!
The Maidens.
The light fails, love; the long day soon shall be
Nought but a pensive happy memory
Blessed for the tales it told to thee and me.
How hard it was, O love, to be alone.
LOVE FULFILLED.
Hast thou longed through weary days
For the sight of one loved face? ”

“ From Whitewater to Whitewater?”
The sunbeam lay upon the floor;
She combed her hair and spake no more.
He drew her by the lily hand:
“I love thee better than all the land.”
He drew her by the shoulders sweet:
“My threshold is but for thy feet.”
He drew her by the yellow hair:
“O why wert thou so deadly fair?
“O am I wedded to death?” he cried
“Is the Dead-strand come to Whitewater side?”
And the sun was fading from the room,
But her eyes were bright in the change and the gloom.
“Sharp sword,” she sang, “and death is sure,
But over all doth love endure.” ”

“ But he felt her lips in the mirky place.
“’Tis night,” she said, “and the false day’s gone,
And we twain in the wild-wood all alone.
Night o’er the earth; so rest we here
Until to-morrow’s sun is clear.
For overcome is every foe
And home to-morrow shall we go.”
So ’neath the trees they lay, those twain,
And to them the darksome night was gain.
But when the morrow’s dawn was grey
They woke and kissed whereas they lay.
And when on their feet they came to stand
Swain Goldilocks stretched out his hand.
And he spake: “O love, my love indeed,
Where now is gone thy goodly weed? ”

“ Count on, rest not, for hope is dead.
Weep, though no hair’s breadth thou shalt move
The living Earth, the heaven above
By all the bitterness of love!
Weep and cease not, now hope is dead!
Sighs rest thee not, tears bring no ease,
Life hath no joy, and Death no peace:
The years change not, though they decrease,
For hope is dead, for hope is dead. ”

“ Thou shalt wake and think it sweet
That thy love is near and kind.
Sweeter still for lips to meet;
Sweetest that thine heart doth hide
Longing all unsatisfied
With all longing’s answering
Howsoever close ye cling.
Thou rememberest how of old
E’en thy very pain grew cold,
How thou might’st not measure bliss
E’en when eyes and hands drew nigh.
Thou rememberest all regret
For the scarce remembered kiss,
The lost dream of how they met,
Mouths once parched with misery.
Then seemed Love born but to die,
Now unrest, pain, bliss are one,
Love, unhidden and alone. ”