Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong; Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; Till they perish and they suffer-some, 'tis whisper'd— down in hell Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. I READ, before my eyelids dropt their shade, Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth. With sounds that echo still. And, for a while, the knowledge of his art Held me above the subject, as strong gales Hold swollen clouds from raining, tho' my heart, Brimful of those wild tales, Charged both mine eyes with tears. In every land I saw, wherever light illumineth, Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand. The downward slope to death. Those far-renowned brides of ancient song Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars, And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong, And trumpets blown for wars; And clattering flints batter'd with clanging hoofs: Corpses across the threshold; heroes tall And high shrine-doors burst thro' with heated blasts Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates, So shape chased shape as swift as, when to land Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way, Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand, I started once, or seem'd to start in pain, Resolved on noble things, and strove to speak, As when a great thought strikes along the brain, And flushes all the cheek. And once my arm was lifted to hew down All those sharp fancies, by down-lapsing thought Stream'd onward, lost their edges, and did creep Roll'd on each other, rounded, smooth'd, and brought Into the gulfs of sleep. At last methought that I had wander'd far In an old wood: fresh-wash'd in coolest dew, The maiden splendours of the morning star Shook in the stedfast blue. Enormous elmtree-boles did stoop and lean The dim red morn had died, her journey done, And with dead lips smiled at the twilight plain, Half-fall'n across the threshold of the sun, Never to rise again. There was no motion in the dumb dead air, As that wide forest. Growths of jasmine turn'd I knew the flowers, I knew the leaves, I knew The smell of violets, hidden in the green, Pour'd back into my empty soul and frame The times when I remember to have been Joyful and free from blame. And from within me a clear under-tone Thrill'd thro' mine ears in that unblissful clime "Pass freely thro' the wood is all thine own, Until the end of time." At length I saw a lady within call, Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing there; A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair. |