What are the mortal facts
    With which we deal? The man is thirty years,
    Most vital, in a richness physical,
    Of musical heart and feeling; and the woman
    Is twenty-eight, a cradle warm and rich
    For life to grow in.

    And the time is this:
    This Henry Murray has a mood of peace,
    A splendor as of June, has for the time
    Quelled anarchy within him, come to law,
    Sees life a thing of beauty, happiness,
    And fortune glow before him. And the mother,
    Sunning her feathers in his genial light,
    Takes longing and has hope. For body's season
    The blood of youth leaps in them like a fountain,
    And splashes musically in the crystal pool
    Of quiet days and hours. They rise refreshed,
    Feel all the sun'...

The fair Pomona flourish'd in his reign;
Of all the Virgins of the sylvan train,
None taught the trees a nobler race to bear,
Or more improv'd the vegetable care.
To her the shady grove, the flow'ry field,
The streams and fountains, no delights could yield;
'Twas all her joy the ripening fruits to tend,
And see the boughs with happy burthens bend.
The hook she bore instead of Cynthia's spear,
To lop the growth of the luxuriant year,
To decent form the lawless shoots to bring,
And teach th' obedient branches where to spring.
Now the cleft rind inserted graffs receives,
And yields an offspring more than nature gives;
Now sliding streams the thirsty plants renew,
And feed their fibres with reviving dew.
These cares alone her virgin breast employ,
Averse from...

Love is a breach in the walls, a broken gate,
Where that comes in that shall not go again;
Love sells the proud heart's citadel to Fate.
They have known shame, who love unloved. Even then,
When two mouths, thirsty each for each, find slaking,
And agony's forgot, and hushed the crying
Of credulous hearts, in heaven, such are but taking
Their own poor dreams within their arms, and lying
Each in his lonely night, each with a ghost.
Some share that night. But they know love grows colder,
Grows false and dull, that was sweet lies at most.
Astonishment is no more in hand or shoulder,
But darkens, and dies out from kiss to kiss.
All this is love; and all love is but this.

When thou, poor excommunicate
From all the joys of love, shalt see
The full reward and glorious fate
Which my strong faith shall purchase me,
Then curse thine own inconstancy.

A fairer hand than thine shall cure
That heart, which thy false oaths did wound;
And to my soul, a soul more pure
Than thine shall by Love's hand be bound,
And both with equal glory crown'd.

Then shalt thou weep, entreat, complain
To Love, as I did once to thee;
When all thy tears shall be as vain
As mine were then, for thou shalt be
Damn'd for thy false apostasy.

Veggo in candida robba.


Clothed in white robes I see the Holy Sire
        Descend to hold his court amid the band
        Of shining saints and elders: at his hand
        The white immortal Lamb commands their choir.
John ends his long lament for torments dire,
        Now Judah's lion rises to expand
        The fatal book, and the first broken band
        Sends the white courier forth to work God's ire.
The first fair spirits raimented in white
        Go out to meet him who on his white cloud
        Comes heralded by horsemen white as snow.
Ye black-stoled folk, be dumb, who hate the loud
        Blare of God's lifted angel-trumpets! Lo,
        The pure white dove puts the black crows to flight!

The Cities are full of pride,
Challenging each to each,
This from her mountain-side,
That from her burdened beach.
They count their ships full tale,
Their corn and oil and wine,
Derrick and loom and bale,
And ramparts' gun-flecked line;
City by City they hail:
"Hast aught to match with mine?"
And the men that breed from them
They traffic up and down,
But cling to their cities' hem
As a child to the mother's gown;
When they talk with the stranger bands,
Dazed and newly alone;
When they walk in the stranger lands,
By roaring streets unknown;
Blessing her where she stands
For strength above their own.
(On high to hold her fame
That stands all fame beyond,
By oath to back the same,
Most faithful-foolish-fond;
Making her mere...

Our game was his but yesteryear;
    We wished him back; we could not know
The self-same hour we missed him here
    He led the line that broke the foe.

Blood-red behind our guarded posts
    Sank as of old and dying day;
The battle ceased; the mingled hosts
    Weary and cheery went their way:

"To-morrow well may bring," we said,
    "As fair a fight, as clear a sun."
Dear lad, before the world was sped,
    For evermore thy goal was won.

The clouds no more are flocking
After the flushing sun;
Bees end their long droning,
The bat's hunt is begun;
And the tired wind that went flittering
Up and down the hill
Lies like a shadow still,
Like a shadow still.

Who is it that's calling
Out of the deepening dark,
Calling, calling, calling?--
No!--yet hark!
The sleepy wind wakes, carrying
Up and down the hill
A voice how small and still,
How sweet and still!

Who is it that answers
Out of a quiet cloud--
"Stay, oh stay! I come, I come!"
Cried at last aloud?
My voice, my heart went answering
Up and down the hill--
Mine so strange and still,
Mine grave and still.

I.

Friend of the Slave, and yet the friend of all;
Lover of peace, yet ever foremost when
The need of battling Freedom called for men
To plant the banner on the outer wall;
Gentle and kindly, ever at distress
Melted to more than woman's tenderness,
Yet firm and steadfast, at his duty's post
Fronting the violence of a maddened host,
Like some-gray rock from which the waves are tossed!
Knowing his deeds of love, men questioned not
The faith of one whose walk and word were right;
Who tranquilly in Life's great task-field wrought,
And, side by side with evil, scarcely caught
A stain upon his pilgrim garb of white:
Prompt to redress another's wrong, his own
Leaving to Time and Truth and Penitence alone.

II.

Such was our friend. Formed on...

At morn I prayed, "I fain would see
How Three are One, and One is Three;
Read the dark riddle unto me."

I wandered forth, the sun and air
I saw bestowed with equal care
On good and evil, foul and fair.

No partial favor dropped the rain;
Alike the righteous and profane
Rejoiced above their heading grain.

And my heart murmured, "Is it meet
That blindfold Nature thus should treat
With equal hand the tares and wheat?"

A presence melted through my mood,
A warmth, a light, a sense of good,
Like sunshine through a winter wood.

I saw that presence, mailed complete
In her white innocence, pause to greet
A fallen sister of the street.

Upon her bosom snowy pure
The lost one clung, as if secure
From inward guilt or o...

It was the pleasant season yet,
When the stones at cottage doors
Dry quickly, while the roads are wet,
After the silver showers.

The green leaves they looked greener still,
And the thrush, renewing his tune,
Shook a loud note from his gladsome bill
Into the bright blue noon.

Robin Hood's mother looked out, and said
"It were a shame and a sin
For fear of getting a wet head
To keep such a day within,
Nor welcome up from his sick bed
Your uncle Gamelyn."

And Robin leaped, and thought so too;
And so he has grasped her gown,
And now looking back, they have lost the view
Of merry sweet Locksley town.

Robin was a gentle boy,
And therewithal as bold;
To say he was his mother's joy,
It were a phrase too cold.

...

If you have revisited the town, thin Shade,
Whether to look upon your monument
(I wonder if the builder has been paid)
Or happier thoughted when the day is spent
To drink of that salt breath out of the sea
When grey gulls flit about instead of men,
And the gaunt houses put on majesty:
Let these content you and be gone again;
For they are at their old tricks yet.
A man
Of your own passionate serving kind who had brought
In his full hands what, had they only known,
Had given their children’s children loftier thought,
Sweeter emotion, working in their veins
Like gentle blood, has been driven from the place,
And insult heaped upon him for his pains
And for his open-handedness, disgrace;
An old foul mouth that slandered you had set
The pack upon him.

    "Quee, quee!
    Wait and see:
    You were good to me;
    So here I come,
    From my little home,
    To help you willingly,"

The moan of a wintry soul
Melted into a summer song,
And the words, like the wavelet's roll,
Moved murmuringly along.

And the song flowed far and away,
Like the voice of a half-sleeping rill --
Each wave of it lit by a ray --
But the sound was so soft and so still,

And the tone was so gentle and low,
None heard the song till it had passed;
Till the echo that followed its flow
Came dreamingly back from the past.

'Twas too late! -- a song never returns
That passes our pathway unheard;
As dust lying dreaming in urns
Is the song lying dead in a word.

For the birds of the skies have a nest,
And the winds have a home where they sleep,
And songs, like our souls, need a rest,
Where they murmur the while we may weep.

  ...

To-day the world is wide and fair
With sunny fields of lucid air,
And waters dancing everywhere;
The snow is almost gone;
The noon is builded high with light,
And over heaven's liquid height,
In steady fleets serene and white,
The happy clouds go on.

The channels run, the bare earth steams,
And every hollow rings and gleams
With jetting falls and dashing streams;
The rivers burst and fill;
The fields are full of little lakes,
And when the romping wind awakes
The water ruffles blue and shakes,
And the pines roar on the hill.

The crows go by, a noisy throng;
About the meadows all day long
The shore-lark drops his brittle song;
And up the leafless tree
The nut-hatch runs, and nods, and clings;
The bluebird dips with flashing w...

Is it because Spring now is come
That my heart leaps in its bed of dust?
Is it with sorrow or strange pleasure
To watch the green time's gathering treasure?

Or is there some too sharp distaste
In all this quivering green and gold?
Something that makes bare boughs yet barer,
And the eye's pure delight the rarer?

Not that the new found Spring is sour....
The blossom swings on the cherry branch,
From Wear to Thames I have seen this greenness
Cover the six-months-winter meanness.

And windflowers and yellow gillyflowers
Pierce the astonished earth with light:
And most-loved wallflower's bloody petal
Shakes over that long frosty battle.

But this leaping, sinking heart
Finds question in grass, bud and blossom--
Too deeply into the ea...

These are the days of elfs and fays:
Who says that with the dreams of myth,
These imps and elves disport themselves?
Ah no, along the paths of song
Do all the tiny folk belong.

Round all our homes,
Kobolds and gnomes do daily cling,
Then nightly fling their lanterns out.
And shout on shout, they join the rout,
And sing, and sing, within the sweet enchanted ring.

Where gleamed the guile of moonlight's smile,
Once paused I, listening for a while,
And heard the lay, unknown by day,--
The fairies' dancing roundelay.

Queen Mab was there, her shimmering hair
Each fairy prince's heart's despair.
She smiled to see their sparkling glee,
And once I ween, she smiled at me.

Since when, you may by night or day,
Dispute the sway of elf...

Spur jingles now, and swears by no mean oaths,
He's double honour'd, since he's got gay clothes:
Most like his suit, and all commend the trim;
And thus they praise the sumpter, but not him:
As to the goddess, people did confer
Worship, and not to th' ass that carried her.