Sonnet


  Though Night hath climbed her peak of highest noon,
  And bitter blasts the screaming autumn whirl,
  All night through archways of the bridged pearl
  And portals of pure silver walks the moon.
  Wake on, my soul, nor crouch to agony,
  Turn cloud to light, and bitterness to joy,
  And dross to gold with glorious alchemy,
  Basing thy throne above the world's annoy.
  Reign thou above the storms of sorrow and ruth
  That roar beneath; unshaken peace hath won thee:
  So shalt thou pierce the woven glooms of truth;
  So shall the blessing of the meek be on thee;
  So in thine hour of dawn, the body's youth,
  An honourable old shall come upon thee.

Sonnet


  Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good,
  Or propagate again her loathed kind,
  Thronging the cells of the diseased mind,
  Hateful with hanging cheeks, a withered brood,
  Though hourly pastured on the salient blood?
  Oh! that the wind which bloweth cold or heat
  Would shatter and o'erbear the brazen beat
  Of their broad vans, and in the solitude
  Of middle space confound them, and blow back
  Their wild cries down their cavernthroats, and slake
  With points of blastborne hail their heated eyne!
  So their wan limbs no more might come between
  The moon and the moon's reflex in the night;
  Nor blot with floating shades the solar light.

Sonnet


  The pallid thunderstricken sigh for gain,
  Down an ideal stream they ever float,
  And sailing on Pactolus in a boat,
  Drown soul and sense, while wistfully they strain
  Weak eyes upon the glistering sands that robe
  The understream. The wise could he behold
  Cathedralled caverns of thick-ribbed gold
  And branching silvers of the central globe,
  Would marvel from so beautiful a sight
  How scorn and ruin, pain and hate could flow:
  But Hatred in a gold cave sits below,
  Pleached with her hair, in mail of argent light
  Shot into gold, a snake her forehead clips
  And skins the colour from her trembling lips.

Love


  I

  Thou, from the first, unborn, undying love,
  Albeit we gaze not on thy glories near,
  Before the face of God didst breathe and move,
  Though night and pain and ruin and death reign here.
  Thou foldest, like a golden atmosphere,
  The very throne of the eternal God:
  Passing through thee the edicts of his fear
  Are mellowed into music, borne abroad
  By the loud winds, though they uprend the sea,
  Even from his central deeps: thine empery
  Is over all: thou wilt not brook eclipse;
  Thou goest and returnest to His Lips
  Like lightning: thou dost ever brood above
  The silence of all hearts, unutterable Love.


  II

  To know thee is all wisdom, and old age
  Is but to know thee: dimly we behold thee
  Athwart the veils of evil which enfold thee.
  We beat upon our aching hearts with rage;
  We cry for thee: we deem the world thy tomb.
  As dwellers in lone planets look upon
  The mighty disk of their majestic sun,
  Hollowed in awful chasms of wheeling gloom,
  Making their day dim, so we gaze on thee.
  Come, thou of many crowns, white-robed love,
  Oh! rend the veil in twain: all men adore thee;
  Heaven crieth after thee; earth waileth for thee:
  Breathe on thy winged throne, and it shall move
  In music and in light o'er land and sea.


  III

  And now--methinks I gaze upon thee now,
  As on a serpent in his agonies
  Awestricken Indians; what time laid low
  And crushing the thick fragrant reeds he lies,
  When the new year warm breathed on the earth,
  Waiting to light him with his purple skies,
  Calls to him by the fountain to uprise.
  Already with the pangs of a new birth
  Strain the hot spheres of his convulsed eyes,
  And in his writhings awful hues begin
  To wander down his sable sheeny sides,
  Like light on troubled waters: from within
  Anon he rusheth forth with merry din,
  And in him light and joy and strength abides;
  And from his brows a crown of living light
  Looks through the thickstemmed woods by day and night.

The Kraken


  Below the thunders of the upper deep;
  Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
  His antient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
  The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
  About his shadowy sides: above him swell
  Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
  And far away into the sickly light,
  From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
  Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
  Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
  There hath he lain for ages and will lie
  Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
  Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
  Then once by man and angels to be seen,
  In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

English War Song


  Who fears to die? Who fears to die?
  Is there any here who fears to die
  He shall find what he fears, and none shall grieve
  For the man who fears to die;
  But the withering scorn of the many shall cleave
  To the man who fears to die.

  Chorus.--
           Shout for England!
           Ho! for England!
           George for England!
           Merry England!
           England for aye!

  The hollow at heart shall crouch forlorn,
  He shall eat the bread of common scorn;
  It shall be steeped in the salt, salt tear,
  Shall be steeped in his own salt tear:
  Far better, far better he never were born
  Than to shame merry England here.

  Chorus.--Shout for England! etc.

  There standeth our ancient enemy;
  Hark! he shouteth--the ancient enemy!
  On the ridge of the hill his banners rise;
  They stream like fire in the skies;
  Hold up the Lion of England on high
  Till it dazzle and blind his eyes.

  Chorus.--Shout for England! etc.

  Come along! we alone of the earth are free;
  The child in our cradles is bolder than he;
  For where is the heart and strength of slaves?
  Oh! where is the strength of slaves?
  He is weak! we are strong; he a slave, we are free;
  Come along! we will dig their graves.

  Chorus.--Shout for England! etc.

  There standeth our ancient enemy;
  Will he dare to battle with the free?
  Spur along! spur amain! charge to the fight:
  Charge! charge to the fight!
  Hold up the Lion of England on high!
  Shout for God and our right!

  Chorus.-Shout for England! etc.

National Song


  There is no land like England
  Where'er the light of day be;
  There are no hearts like English hearts,
  Such hearts of oak as they be.
  There is no land like England
  Where'er the light of day be;
  There are no men like Englishmen,
  So tall and bold as they be.

  Chorus. For the French the Pope may shrive 'em,
          For the devil a whit we heed 'em,
          As for the French, God speed 'em
          Unto their hearts' desire,
          And the merry devil drive 'em
          Through the water and the fire.

          Our glory is our freedom,
          We lord it o'er the sea;
          We are the sons of freedom,
          We are free.

  There is no land like England,
  Where'er the light of day be;
  There are no wives like English wives,
  So fair and chaste as they be.
  There is no land like England,
  Where'er the light of day be;
  There are no maids like English maids,
  So beautiful as they be.

  Chorus.--For the French, etc.

Dualisms


  Two bees within a chrystal flowerbell rocked
  Hum a lovelay to the westwind at noontide.
  Both alike, they buzz together,
  Both alike, they hum together
  Through and through the flowered heather.

  Where in a creeping cove the wave unshocked
  Lays itself calm and wide,
  Over a stream two birds of glancing feather
  Do woo each other, carolling together.
  Both alike, they glide together
  Side by side;
  Both alike, they sing together,
  Arching blue-glossed necks beneath the purple weather.

  Two children lovelier than Love, adown the lea are singing,
  As they gambol, lilygarlands ever stringing:
  Both in blosmwhite silk are frockèd:
  Like, unlike, they roam together
  Under a summervault of golden weather;
  Like, unlike, they sing together
  Side by side,
  Mid May's darling goldenlockèd,
  Summer's tanling diamondeyed.

We Are Free


  The winds, as at their hour of birth,
  Leaning upon the ridged sea,
  Breathed low around the rolling earth
  With mellow preludes, "We are Free";
  The streams through many a lilied row,
  Down-carolling to the crispèd sea,
  Low-tinkled with a bell-like flow
  Atween the blossoms, "We are free".



[Greek: Oi Rheontes]

  I

  All thoughts, all creeds, all dreams are true,
  All visions wild and strange;
  Man is the measure of all truth
  Unto himself. All truth is change:
  All men do walk in sleep, and all
  Have faith in that they dream:
  For all things are as they seem to all,
  And all things flow like a stream.


  II

  There is no rest, no calm, no pause,
  Nor good nor ill, nor light nor shade,
  Nor essence nor eternal laws:
  For nothing is, but all is made.
  But if I dream that all these are,
  They are to me for that I dream;
  For all things are as they seem to all,
  And all things flow like a stream.

Poems Of MDCCCXXXIII



"Mine Be the Strength of Spirit..."


  Mine be the strength of spirit, full and free,
  Like some broad river rushing down alone,
  With the selfsame impulse wherewith he was thrown
  From his loud fount upon the echoing lea:--
  Which with increasing might doth forward flee
  By town, and tower, and hill, and cape, and isle,
  And in the middle of the green salt sea
  Keeps his blue waters fresh for many a mile.
  Mine be the Power which ever to its sway
  Will win the wise at once, and by degrees
  May into uncongenial spirits flow;
  Even as the great gulfstream of Florida
  Floats far away into the Northern Seas
  The lavish growths of Southern Mexico.