1. For a Picture of St. Dorothea   
   
   
I BEAR a basket lined with grass;      
I am so light, I am so fair,      
That men must wonder as I pass      
And at the basket that I bear,      
Where in a newly-drawn green litter           5   
Sweet flowers I carry,—sweets for bitter.      
   
Lilies I shew you, lilies none,      
None in Caesar’s gardens blow,—      
And a quince in hand,—not one      
Is set upon your boughs below;           10   
Not set, because their buds not spring;      
Spring not, ’cause world is wintering.      
   
But these were found in the East and South      
Where Winter is the clime forgot.—      
The dewdrop on the larkspur’s mouth           15   
O should it then be quench`d not?      
In starry water-meads they drew      
These drops: which be they? stars or dew?      
   
Had she a quince in hand? Yet gaze:      
Rather it is the sizing moon.           20   
Lo, linkèd heavens with milky ways!      
That was her larkspur row.—So soon?      
Sphered so fast, sweet soul?—We see      
Nor fruit, nor flowers, nor Dorothy.

2. Heaven—Haven   
   
   
A nun takes the veil   
   
   
    I HAVE desired to go      
      Where springs not fail,      
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail      
    And a few lilies blow.      
   
    And I have asked to be           5   
      Where no storms come,      
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,      
    And out of the swing of the sea.

3. The Habit of Perfection   
   
   
ELECTED Silence, sing to me      
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,      
Pipe me to pastures still and be      
The music that I care to hear.      
   
Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:           5   
It is the shut, the curfew sent      
From there where all surrenders come      
Which only makes you eloquent.      
   
Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark      
And find the uncreated light:           10   
This ruck and reel which you remark      
Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.      
   
Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,      
Desire not to be rinsed with wine:      
The can must be so sweet, the crust           15   
So fresh that come in fasts divine!      
   
Nostrils, your careless breath that spend      
Upon the stir and keep of pride,      
What relish shall the censers send      
Along the sanctuary side!           20   
   
O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet      
That want the yield of plushy sward,      
But you shall walk the golden street      
And you unhouse and house the Lord.      
   
And, Poverty, be thou the bride           25   
And now the marriage feast begun,      
And lily-coloured clothes provide      
Your spouse not laboured-at nor spun.      

4. The Wreck of the Deutschland   
   
   
To the happy memory of five Franciscan Nuns exiles by the Falk Laws drowned between midnight and morning of Dec. 7th. 1875   
   
   
PART THE FIRST

1

                THOU mastering me      
            God! giver of breath and bread;      
        World’s strand, sway of the sea;      
            Lord of living and dead;      
    Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh,           5   
    And after it almost unmade, what with dread,      
        Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh?      
Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.      
   
2

                I did say yes      
            O at lightning and lashed rod;           10   
        Thou heardst me truer than tongue confess      
            Thy terror, O Christ, O God;      
    Thou knowest the walls, altar and hour and night:      
    The swoon of a heart that the sweep and the hurl of thee trod      
        Hard down with a horror of height:           15   
And the midriff astrain with leaning of, laced with fire of stress.      
   
3

                The frown of his face      
            Before me, the hurtle of hell      
        Behind, where, where was a, where was a place?      
            I whirled out wings that spell           20   
    And fled with a fling of the heart to the heart of the Host.      
    My heart, but you were dovewinged, I can tell,      
        Carrier-witted, I am bold to boast,      
To flash from the flame to the flame then, tower from the grace to the grace.      
   
4

                I am soft sift           25   
            In an hourglass—at the wall      
        Fast, but mined with a motion, a drift,      
            And it crowds and it combs to the fall;      
    I steady as a water in a well, to a poise, to a pane,      
    But roped with, always, all the way down from the tall           30   
        Fells or flanks of the voel, a vein      
Of the gospel proffer, a pressure, a principle, Christ’s gift.      
   
5

                I kiss my hand      
            To the stars, lovely-asunder      
        Starlight, wafting him out of it; and           35   
            Glow, glory in thunder;      
    Kiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west:      
    Since, tho’ he is under the world’s splendour and wonder,      
        His mystery must be instressed, stressed;      
For I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand.           40   
   
6

                Not out of his bliss      
            Springs the stress felt      
        Nor first from heaven (and few know this)      
            Swings the stroke dealt—      
    Stroke and a stress that stars and storms deliver,           45   
    That guilt is hushed by, hearts are flushed by and melt—      
        But it rides time like riding a river      
(And here the faithful waver, the faithless fable and miss).      
   
7

                It dates from day      
            Of his going in Galilee;           50   
        Warm-laid grave of a womb-life grey;      
            Manger, maiden’s knee;      
    The dense and the driven Passion, and frightful sweat;      
    Thence the discharge of it, there its swelling to be,      
        Though felt before, though in high flood yet—           55   
What none would have known of it, only the heart, being hard at bay,      
   
8

                Is out with it! Oh,      
            We lash with the best or worst      
        Word last! How a lush-kept plush-capped sloe      
            Will, mouthed to flesh-burst,           60   
    Gush!—flush the man, the being with it, sour or sweet,      
    Brim, in a flash, full!—Hither then, last or first,      
        To hero of Calvary, Christ, ’s feet—      
Never ask if meaning it, wanting it, warned of it—men go.      
   
9

                Be adored among men,           65   
            God, three-numberèd form;      
        Wring thy rebel, dogged in den,      
            Man’s malice, with wrecking and storm.      
    Beyond saying sweet, past telling of tongue,      
    Thou art lightning and love, I found it, a winter and warm;           70   
        Father and fondler of heart thou hast wrung:      
Hast thy dark descending and most art merciful then.      
   
10

                With an anvil-ding      
            And with fire in him forge thy will      
        Or rather, rather then, stealing as Spring           75   
            Through him, melt him but master him still:      
    Whether at once, as once at a crash Paul,      
    Or as Austin, a lingering-out sweet skill,      
        Make mercy in all of us, out of us all      
Mastery, but be adored, but be adored King.           80   
   
PART THE SECOND

11

            ‘Some find me a sword; some      
            The flange and the rail; flame,      
        Fang, or flood’ goes Death on drum,      
            And storms bugle his fame.      
    But wé dream we are rooted in earth—Dust!           85   
    Flesh falls within sight of us, we, though our flower the same,      
        Wave with the meadow, forget that there must      
The sour scythe cringe, and the blear share come.      
   
12

            On Saturday sailed from Bremen,      
            American-outward-bound,           90   
        Take settler and seamen, tell men with women,      
            Two hundred souls in the round—      
    O Father, not under thy feathers nor ever as guessing      
    The goal was a shoal, of a fourth the doom to be drowned;      
        Yet did the dark side of the bay of thy blessing           95   
Not vault them, the million of rounds of thy mercy not reeve even them in?      
   
13

            Into the snows she sweeps,      
            Hurling the haven behind,      
        The Deutschland, on Sunday; and so the sky keeps,      
            For the infinite air is unkind,           100   
    And the sea flint-flake, black-backed in the regular blow,      
    Sitting Eastnortheast, in cursed quarter, the wind;      
        Wiry and white-fiery and whirlwind-swivellèd snow      
Spins to the widow-making unchilding unfathering deeps.      
   
14

            She drove in the dark to leeward,           105   
            She struck—not a reef or a rock      
        But the combs of a smother of sand: night drew her      
            Dead to the Kentish Knock;      
    And she beat the bank down with her bows and the ride of her keel:      
    The breakers rolled on her beam with ruinous shock;           110   
        And canvas and compass, the whorl and the wheel      
Idle for ever to waft her or wind her with, these she endured.      
   
15

            Hope had grown grey hairs,      
            Hope had mourning on,      
        Trenched with tears, carved with cares,           115   
            Hope was twelve hours gone;      
    And frightful a nightfall folded rueful a day      
    Nor rescue, only rocket and lightship, shone,      
        And lives at last were washing away:      
To the shrouds they took,—they shook in the hurling and horrible airs.           120   
   
16

            One stirred from the rigging to save      
            The wild woman-kind below,      
        With a rope’s end round the man, handy and brave—      
            He was pitched to his death at a blow,      
    For all his dreadnought breast and braids of thew:           125   
    They could tell him for hours, dandled the to and fro      
        Through the cobbled foam-fleece, what could he do      
With the burl of the fountains of air, buck and the flood of the wave?      
   
17

            They fought with God’s cold—      
            And they could not and fell to the deck           130   
        (Crushed them) or water (and drowned them) or rolled      
            With the sea-romp over the wreck.      
    Night roared, with the heart-break hearing a heart-broke rabble,      
    The woman’s wailing, the crying of child without check—      
        Till a lioness arose breasting the babble,           135   
A prophetess towered in the tumult, a virginal tongue told.      
   
18

            Ah, touched in your bower of bone      
            Are you! turned for an exquisite smart,      
        Have you! make words break from me here all alone,      
            Do you!—mother of being in me, heart.           140   
    O unteachably after evil, but uttering truth,      
    Why, tears! is it? tears; such a melting, a madrigal start!      
        Never-eldering revel and river of youth,      
What can it be, this glee? the good you have there of your own?      
   
19

            Sister, a sister calling           145   
            A master, her master and mine!—      
        And the inboard seas run swirling and hawling;      
            The rash smart sloggering brine      
    Blinds her; but she that weather sees one thing, one;      
    Has one fetch in her: she rears herself to divine           150   
        Ears, and the call of the tall nun      
To the men in the tops and the tackle rode over the storm’s brawling.       
   
20

            She was first of a five and came      
            Of a coifèd sisterhood.      
        (O Deutschland, double a desperate name!           155   
            O world wide of its good!      
    But Gertrude, lily, and Luther, are two of a town,      
    Christ’s lily and beast of the waste wood:      
        From life’s dawn it is drawn down,      
Abel is Cain’s brother and breasts they have sucked the same.)           160   
   
21

            Loathed for a love men knew in them,      
            Banned by the land of their birth,      
        Rhine refused them. Thames would ruin them;      
            Surf, snow, river and earth      
    Gnashed: but thou art above, thou Orion of light;           165   
    Thy unchancelling poising palms were weighing the worth,      
        Thou martyr-master: in thy sight      
Storm flakes were scroll-leaved flowers, lily showers—sweet heaven was astrew in them.      
   
22

            Five! the finding and sake      
            And cipher of suffering Christ.           170   
        Mark, the mark is of man’s make      
            And the word of it Sacrificed.      
    But he scores it in scarlet himself on his own bespoken,      
    Before-time-taken, dearest prizèd and priced—      
        Stigma, signal, cinquefoil token           175   
For lettering of the lamb’s fleece, ruddying of the rose-flake.      
   
23

            Joy fall to thee, father Francis,      
            Drawn to the Life that died;      
        With the gnarls of the nails in thee, niche of the lance, his      
            Lovescape crucified           180   
    And seal of his seraph-arrival! and these thy daughters      
    And five-livèd and leavèd favour and pride,      
        Are sisterly sealed in wild waters,      
To bathe in his fall-gold mercies, to breathe in his all-fire glances.      
   
24

            Away in the loveable west,           185   
            On a pastoral forehead of Wales,      
        I was under a roof here, I was at rest,      
            And they the prey of the gales;      
    She to the black-about air, to the breaker, the thickly      
    Falling flakes, to the throng that catches and quails           190   
        Was calling ‘O Christ, Christ, come quickly’:      
The cross to her she calls Christ to her, christens her wild-worst Best.      
   
25

            The majesty! what did she mean?      
            Breathe, arch and original Breath.      
        Is it love in her of the being as her lover had been?           195   
            Breathe, body of lovely Death.      
    They were else-minded then, altogether, the men      
    Woke thee with a we are perishing in the weather of Gennesareth.      
        Or is it that she cried for the crown then,      
The keener to come at the comfort for feeling the combating keen?           200   
   
26

            For how to the heart’s cheering      
            The down-dugged ground-hugged grey      
        Hovers off, the jay-blue heavens appearing      
            Of pied and peeled May!      
    Blue-beating and hoary-glow height; or night, still higher,           205   
    With belled fire and the moth-soft Milky Way,      
        What by your measure is the heaven of desire,      
The treasure never eyesight got, nor was ever guessed what for the hearing?      
   
27

            No, but it was not these.      
            The jading and jar of the cart,           210   
        Time’s tasking, it is fathers that asking for ease      
            Of the sodden-with-its-sorrowing heart,      
    Not danger, electrical horror; then further it finds      
    The appealing of the Passion is tenderer in prayer apart:      
        Other, I gather, in measure her mind’s           215   
Burden, in wind’s burly and beat of endragonèd seas.      
   
28

            But how shall I … make me room there:      
            Reach me a … Fancy, come faster—      
        Strike you the sight of it? look at it loom there,      
            Thing that she … there then! the Master,           220   
    Ipse, the only one, Christ, King, Head:      
    He was to cure the extremity where he had cast her;      
        Do, deal, lord it with living and dead;      
Let him ride, her pride, in his triumph, despatch and have done with his doom there.      
   
29

            Ah! there was a heart right!           225   
            There was single eye!      
        Read the unshapeable shock night      
            And knew the who and the why;      
    Wording it how but by him that present and past,      
    Heaven and earth are word of, worded by?—           230   
        The Simon Peter of a soul! to the blast      
Tarpeian-fast, but a blown beacon of light.      
   
30

            Jesu, heart’s light,      
            Jesu, maid’s son,      
        What was the feast followed the night           235   
            Thou hadst glory of this nun?—      
    Feast of the one woman without stain.      
    For so conceivèd, so to conceive thee is done;      
        But here was heart-throe, birth of a brain,      
Word, that heard and kept thee and uttered thee outright.           240   
   
31

            Well, she has thee for the pain, for the      
            Patience; but pity of the rest of them!      
        Heart, go and bleed at a bitterer vein for the      
            Comfortless unconfessed of them—      
    No not uncomforted: lovely-felicitous Providence           245   
    Finger of a tender of; O of a feathery delicacy, the breast of the      
        Maiden could obey so, be a bell to, ring of it, and      
Startle the poor sheep back! is the shipwrack then a harvest, does tempest carry the grain for thee?      
   
32

            I admire thee, master of the tides,      
            Of the Yore-flood, of the year’s fall;           250   
        The recurb and the recovery of the gulf’s sides,      
            The girth of it and the wharf of it and the wall;      
    Stanching, quenching ocean of a motionable mind;      
    Ground of being, and granite of it: past all      
        Grasp God, throned behind           255   
Death with a sovereignty that heeds but hides, bodes but abides;      
   
33

            With a mercy that outrides      
            The all of water, an ark      
        For the listener; for the lingerer with a love glides      
            Lower than death and the dark;           260   
    A vein for the visiting of the past-prayer, pent in prison,      
    The-last-breath penitent spirits—the uttermost mark      
        Our passion-plungèd giant risen,      
The Christ of the Father compassionate, fetched in the storm of his strides.      
   
34

            Now burn, new born to the world,           265   
            Doubled-naturèd name,      
        The heaven-flung, heart-fleshed, maiden-furled      
            Miracle-in-Mary-of-flame,      
    Mid-numbered He in three of the thunder-throne!      
    Not a dooms-day dazzle in his coming nor dark as he came;           270   
        Kind, but royally reclaiming his own;      
A released shower, let flash to the shire, not a lightning of fire hard-hurled.      
   
35

            Dame, at our door      
            Drowned, and among our shoals,      
        Remember us in the roads, the heaven-haven of the Reward:           275   
            Our King back, oh, upon English souls!      
    Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east,      
    More brightening her, rare-dear Britain, as his reign rolls,      
        Pride, rose, prince, hero of us, high-priest,      
Our hearts’ charity’s hearth’s fire, our thoughts’ chivalry’s throng’s Lord.

   
5. Penmaen Pool   
   
   
For the Visitors’ Book at the Inn   
   
   
WHO long for rest, who look for pleasure      
Away from counter, court, or school      
O where live well your lease of leisure      
But here at, here at Penmaen Pool?      
   
You’ll dare the Alp? you’ll dart the skiff?—           5   
Each sport has here its tackle and tool:      
Come, plant the staff by Cadair cliff;      
Come, swing the sculls on Penmaen Pool.      
   
What’s yonder?—Grizzled Dyphwys dim:      
The triple-hummocked Giant’s stool,           10   
Hoar messmate, hobs and nobs with him      
To halve the bowl of Penmaen Pool.      
   
And all the landscape under survey,      
At tranquil turns, by nature’s rule,      
Rides repeated topsyturvy           15   
In frank, in fairy Penmaen Pool.      
   
And Charles’s Wain, the wondrous seven,      
And sheep-flock clouds like worlds of wool,      
For all they shine so, high in heaven,      
Shew brighter shaken in Penmaen Pool.           20   
   
The Mawddach, how she trips! though throttled      
If floodtide teeming thrills her full,      
And mazy sands all water-wattled      
Waylay her at ebb, past Penmaen Pool.      
   
But what’s to see in stormy weather,           25   
When grey showers gather and gusts are cool?—      
Why, raindrop-roundels looped together      
That lace the face of Penmaen Pool.      
   
Then even in weariest wintry hour      
Of New Year’s month or surly Yule           30   
Furred snows, charged tuft above tuft, tower      
From darksome darksome Penmaen Pool.      
   
And ever, if bound here hardest home,      
You’ve parlour-pastime left and (who’ll      
Not honour it?) ale like goldy foam           35   
That frocks an oar in Penmaen Pool.      
   
Then come who pine for peace or pleasure      
Away from counter, court, or school,      
Spend here your measure of time and treasure      
And taste the treats of Penmaen Pool.           40   

6. The Silver Jubilee   
   
   
To James First Bishop of Shrewsbury on the 25th Year of his Episcopate July 28. 1876   
   
   
1

THOUGH no high-hung bells or din      
Of braggart bugles cry it in—      
  What is sound? Nature’s round      
Makes the Silver Jubilee.      
   
2

Five and twenty years have run           5   
Since sacred fountains to the sun      
  Sprang, that but now were shut,      
Showering Silver Jubilee.      
   
3

Feasts, when we shall fall asleep,      
Shrewsbury may see others keep;           10   
  None but you this her true,      
This her Silver Jubilee.      
   
4

Not today we need lament      
Your wealth of life is some way spent:      
  Toil has shed round your head           15   
Silver but for Jubilee.      
   
5

Then for her whose velvet vales      
Should have pealed with welcome, Wales,      
  Let the chime of a rhyme      
Utter Silver Jubilee.           20   

7. God’s Grandeur   
   
   
THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.      
  It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;      
  It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil      
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?      
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;           5   
  And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;      
  And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil      
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.      
   
And for all this, nature is never spent;      
  There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;           10   
And though the last lights off the black West went      
  Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—      
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent      
  World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.      

   
8. The Starlight Night   
   
   
LOOK at the stars! look, look up at the skies!      
  O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!      
  The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!      
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves’-eyes!      
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!           5   
  Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!      
  Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare!—      
Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.      
Buy then! bid then!—What?—Prayer, patience, aims, vows.      
Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!           10   
  Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!      
These are indeed the barn; withindoors house      
The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse      
  Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.      

   
9. Spring   
   
   
NOTHING is so beautiful as spring—      
  When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;      
  Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush      
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring      
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;           5   
  The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush      
  The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush      
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.      
   
What is all this juice and all this joy?      
  A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning           10   
In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,      
  Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,      
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,      
  Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.      

10. The Lantern out of Doors   
   
   
SOMETIMES a lantern moves along the night,      
  That interests our eyes. And who goes there?      
  I think; where from and bound, I wonder, where,      
With, all down darkness wide, his wading light?      
   
Men go by me whom either beauty bright           5   
  In mould or mind or what not else makes rare:      
  They rain against our much-thick and marsh air      
Rich beams, till death or distance buys them quite.      
   
Death or distance soon consumes them: wind      
  What most I may eye after, be in at the end           10   
I cannot, and out of sight is out of mind.      
   
Christ minds: Christ’s interest, what to avow or amend      
  There, éyes them, heart wánts, care haúnts, foot fóllows kínd,      
Their ránsom, théir rescue, ánd first, fást, last friénd.