Betrayal

The wasting thistle whitens on my crest,
The barren grasses blow upon my spear,
A green, pale pennon: blazon of wild faith
And love of fruitless things: yea, of my love,
Among the golden loves of all the knights,
Alone: most hopeless, sweet, and blasphemous,
The love of God:
I hear the crumbling creeds
Like cliffs washed down by water, change, and pass;
I hear a noise of words, age after age,
A new cold wind that blows across the plains,
And all the shrines stand empty; and to me
All these are nothing: priests and schools may doubt
Who never have believed; but I have loved.
Ah friends, I know it passing well, the love
Wherewith I love; it shall not bring to me
Return or hire or any pleasant thing--
Ay, I have tried it: Ay, I know its roots.
Earthquak...

Awst be better when spring comes, aw think,
But aw feel varry sickly an waik,
Awve noa relish for mait nor for drink,
An awm ommost too weary to laik.

What's to come on us all aw can't tell,
For we havn't a shillin put by;
Ther's nowt left to pop nor to sell,
An aw cannot get trust if aw try.

My wife has to turn aght to wark,
An th' little uns all do a share;
An they're tewin throo dayleet to dark,
To keep me sittin here i' mi chair.

It doesn't luk long sin that day
When Bessy wor stood bi mi side;
An shoo promised to love an obey,
An me to protect an provide.

Shoo wor th' bonniest lass i' all th' taan,
An fowk sed as they saw us that day,
When we coom aght o' th' church, arm i' arm,
Shoo wor throwin' hersen reight away.<...

In the east the morning comes,
Hear the rollin' of the drums
On the hill.
But the heart that beat as they beat
In the battle's raging day heat
Lieth still.
Unto him the night has come,
Though they roll the morning drum.

What is in the bugle's blast?
It is: "Victory at last!
Now for rest."
But, my comrades, come behold him,
Where our colors now enfold him,
And his breast
Bares no more to meet the blade,
But lies covered in the shade.

What a stir there is to-day!
They are laying him away
Where he fell.
There the flag goes draped before him;
Now they pile the grave sod o'er him
With a knell.
And he answers to his name
In the higher ranks of fame.

There's a woman left to mourn
For the child that she ha...

    No creature stirs in the wide fields.
    The rifted western heaven yields
    The dying sun's illumination.
    This is the hour of tribulation
    When, with clear sight of eve engendered,
    Day's homage to delusion rendered,
    Mute at her window sits the soul.

    Clouds and skies and lakes and seas,
    Valleys and hills and grass and trees,
    Sun, moon, and stars, all stand to her
    Limbs of one lordless challenger,
    Who, without deigning taunt or frown.
    Throws a perennial gauntlet down:
    "Come conquer me and take thy toll."

    No cowardice or fear she knows,
    But, as once more she girds, there grows
    An unresignèd hopelessness
    From memory of former stress.
    Head bent, she muses whilst he waits:

The sun was black with judgment, and the moon
Blood: but between
I saw a man stand, saying, 'To me at least
The grass is green.

'There was no star that I forgot to fear
With love and wonder.
The birds have loved me'; but no answer came--
Only the thunder.

Once more the man stood, saying, 'A cottage door,
Wherethrough I gazed
That instant as I turned--yea, I am vile;
Yet my eyes blazed.

'For I had weighed the mountains in a balance,
And the skies in a scale,
I come to sell the stars--old lamps for new--
Old stars for sale.'

Then a calm voice fell all the thunder through,
A tone less rough:
'Thou hast begun to love one of my works
Almost enough.'

I.

My Sister! my sweet Sister! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine.
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:
Go where I will, to me thou art the same -
A loved regret which I would not resign.[z]
There yet are two things in my destiny, -
A world to roam through, and a home with thee.[84]

II.

The first were nothing - had I still the last,
It were the haven of my happiness;
But other claims and other ties thou hast,[aa]
And mine is not the wish to make them less.
A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past[ab]
Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;
Reversed for him our grandsire's[85] fate of yore, -
He had no rest at sea, nor...

But now the Summer hastens to its close,
And soon will Song a different aspect wear,
Sweeping terrific, clad in ghostly snows,
And lit by the flash of the Boreal glare,
Or, but a poet in his easy chair;
And her most pleasing aspect now beguiles
What time is hers with deft, endearing air:
With gorgeous gold she decks her garments, whiles
Her melancholy face with Indian Summer smiles.

Thy very smile sends sadness to my heart.
Farewell! sweet love, the happy hour is o'er:
Too well I knew that we again must part.
Her garments trail the fond, reluctant floor.
But I shall ne'er forget the dress she wore,
Her looks, her words, the pleasing song she sung -
'Tis melody will charm me more and more,
'Tis music that will keep my spirit young,
'Tis joyance in my...

These, to you now, O, more than ever now -
Now that the Ancient Enemy
Has passed, and we, we two that are one, have seen
A piece of perfect Life
Turn to so ravishing a shape of Death
The Arch-Discomforter might well have smiled
In pity and pride,
Even as he bore his lovely and innocent spoil
From those home-kingdoms he left desolate!

Poor windlestraws
On the great, sullen, roaring pool of Time
And Chance and Change, I know!
But they are yours, as I am, till we attain
That end for which me make, we two that are one:
A little, exquisite Ghost
Between us, smiling with the serenest eyes
Seen in this world, and calling, calling still
In that clear voice whose infinite subtleties
Of sweetness, thrilling back across the grave,
Break the poor hear...

I know not why my soul is rack'd
Why I ne'er smile as was my wont:
I only know that, as a fact,
I don't.
I used to roam o'er glen and glade
Buoyant and blithe as other folk:
And not unfrequently I made
A joke.

A minstrel's fire within me burn'd,
I'd sing, as one whose heart must break,
Lay upon lay: I nearly learn'd
To shake.
All day I sang; of love, of fame,
Of fights our fathers fought of yore,
Until the thing almost became
A bore.

I cannot sing the old songs now!
It is not that I deem them low;
'Tis that I can't remember how
They go.
I could not range the hills till high
Above me stood the summer moon:
And as to dancing, I could fly
As soon.

The sports, to which with boyish glee
I sprang erewhil...

The seasons send their ruin as they go,
For in the spring the narciss shows its head
Nor withers till the rose has flamed to red,
And in the autumn purple violets blow,
And the slim crocus stirs the winter snow;
Wherefore yon leafless trees will bloom again
And this grey land grow green with summer rain
And send up cowslips for some boy to mow.

But what of life whose bitter hungry sea
Flows at our heels, and gloom of sunless night
Covers the days which never more return?
Ambition, love and all the thoughts that burn
We lose too soon, and only find delight
In withered husks of some dead memory.

'Croak, croak, croak,'
Thus the Raven spoke,
Perched on his crooked tree
As hoarse as hoarse could be.
Shun him and fear him,
Lest the Bridegroom hear him;
Scout him and rout him
With his ominous eye about him.

Yet, 'Croak, croak, croak,'
Still tolled from the oak;
From that fatal black bird,
Whether heard or unheard:
'O ship upon the high seas,
Freighted with lives and spices,
Sink, O ship,' croaked the Raven:
'Let the Bride mount to heaven.'

In a far foreign land,
Upon the wave-edged sand,
Some friends gaze wistfully
Across the glittering sea.
'If we could clasp our sister,'
Three say, 'now we have missed her!'
'If we could kiss our daughter!'
Two sigh across the water.

Oh, the ship sails fast
Wi...

I have been dreaming all a summer day
Of rare and dainty poems I would write;
Love-lyrics delicate as lilac-scent,
Soft idylls woven of wind, and flower, and stream,
And songs and sonnets carven in fine gold.

The day is fading and the dusk is cold;
Out of the skies has gone the opal gleam,
Out of my heart has passed the high intent
Into the shadow of the falling night,
Must all my dreams in darkness pass away?

I have been dreaming all a summer day:
Shall I go dreaming so until Life’s light
Fades in Death’s dusk, and all my days are spent?
Ah, what am I the dreamer but a dream!
The day is fading and the dusk is cold.

My songs and sonnets carven in fine gold
Have faded from me with the last day -beam
That purple lustre to the sea-line lent...

When I see you, who were so wise and cool,
Gazing with silly sickness on that fool
You've given your love to, your adoring hands
Touch his so intimately that each understands,
I know, most hidden things; and when I know
Your holiest dreams yield to the stupid bow
Of his red lips, and that the empty grace
Of those strong legs and arms, that rosy face,
Has beaten your heart to such a flame of love,
That you have given him every touch and move,
Wrinkle and secret of you, all your life,
Oh! then I know I'm waiting, lover-wife,
For the great time when love is at a close,
And all its fruit's to watch the thickening nose
And sweaty neck and dulling face and eye,
That are yours, and you, most surely, till you die!
Day after day you'll sit with him and note
The gr...

The winding way the serpent takes
The mystic water took,
From where, to count its beaded lakes,
The forest sped its brook.

A narrow space 'twixt shore and shore,
For sun or stars to fall,
While evermore, behind, before,
Closed in the forest wall.

The dim wood hiding underneath
Wan flowers without a name;
Life tangled with decay and death,
League after league the same.

Unbroken over swamp and hill
The rounding shadow lay,
Save where the river cut at will
A pathway to the day.

Beside that track of air and light,
Weak as a child unweaned,
At shut of day a Christian knight
Upon his henchman leaned.

The embers of the sunset's fires
Along the clouds burned down;
"I see," he said, "the domes and spires
...

There's a place in the North where the bonnie broom grows,
Where winding through green meadows the silver Maine flows,
Every lark as it soars and sings that sweet spot knows;
                For the mate for whom it sings,
                Till the clear blue heaven rings,
Is brooding on its nest mid the daisies in the grass;
                And that psalmist sweet, the thrush,
                And the linnet in the bush,
Tell the children all their secrets in song as they pass.

Oh brightly shines the sun there where wee birdies sing,
A glamour's o'er the buds in the green lap of spring,
In happy, happy laughter children's voices ring!
                Like some fair enchanted ground,
                In memory it is found,
Where my childhood's golden hours of happine...

The passion you forbade my lips to utter
    Will not be silenced.    You must hear it in
The sullen thunders when they roll and mutter:
    And when the tempest nears, with wail and din,
I know your calm forgetfulness is broken,
And to your heart you whisper, "He has spoken."

All nature understands and sympathises
    With human passion.    When the restless sea
Turns in its futile search for peace, and rises
    To plead and to pursue, it pleads for me.
And with each desperate billow's anguished fretting.
Your heart must tell you, "He is not forgetting."

When unseen hands in lightning strokes are writing
    Mysterious words upon a cloudy scroll,
Know that my pent-up passion is inditing
    A cypher message for your woman's soul;
And when the law...

On southern winds shot through with amber light,
Breeding soft balm, and clothed in cloudy white,
The lily-fingered Spring came o'er the hills
Waking the crocus and the daffodils.
O'er the cold earth she breathed a tender sigh, -
The maples sang and flung their banners high,
Their crimson-tasseled pennons, and the elm
Bound his dark brows with a green-crested helm.
Beneath the musky rot of Autumn's leaves,
Under the forest's myriad naked eaves,
Life woke and rose in gold and green and blue,
Robed in the star-light of the twinkling dew.
With timid tread adown the barren wood
Spring held her way, when, lo! before her stood
White-mantled Winter wagging his white head,
Stormy his brow, and stormily he said: -
"Sole lord of terror, and the fiend of storm,
Crow...

My soul beheld a vision of the Master:
    Methought He stood with grieved and questioning eyes,
Where Freedom drove its chariot to disaster
    And toilers heard, unheeding, toilers' cries.
Where man withheld God's bounties from his neighbour,
    And fertile fields were sterilised by greed;
Where Labour's hand was lifted against labour,
    And suffering serfs to despots turned when freed.

Majestic rose tall steeple after steeple;
    Imperious bells called worshippers to prayer;
But as they passed, the faces of the people
    Were marred by envy, anger and despair.
'Christ the Redeemer of the world has risen,
    Peace and good will,' so rang the major strain;
But forth from sweat-shops, tenement and prison
    Wailed minor protests, redolent with pain.