A Cluster of Grapes | Page 8

I would ye should hold your peace.
I too have seen Love rise, like a star; I have marked his setting; I dreamed in my folly and pride that Life without Love were peace. But if Love should await me yet, in the land of sleep and forgetting-- Ah, bird, could you sing me this, I would not your song should cease!
ANNA BUNSTON (Mrs de BARY)
A MORTGAGED INHERITANCE
I knew a land whose streams did wind?More winningly than these,?Where finer shadows played behind?The clean-stemmed beechen trees.?The maidens there were deeper eyed,?The lads more swift and fair,?And angels walked at each one's side--?Would God that I were there!
Here daffodils are dressed in gold,?But there they wore the sun,?And here the blooms are bought and sold,?But there God gave each one.?There all roads led to fairyland?That here do lead to care,?And stars were lamps on Heaven's strand--?Would God, that I were there!
Here worship crawls upon her course?That there with larks would cope,?And here her voice with doubt is hoarse?That there was sweet with hope.?O land of Peace! my spirit dies?For thy once tasted air,?O earliest loss! O latest prize!?Would God that I were there!
THE WILDERNESS
From Life's enchantments,?Desire of place,?From lust of getting?Turn thou away, and set thy face?Toward the wilderness.
The tents of Jacob?As valleys spread,?As goodly cedars,?Or fair lign aloes, white and red,?Shall share thy wilderness.
With awful judgments,?The law, the rod,?With soft allurements?And comfortable words, will God?Pass o'er the wilderness.
The bitter waters?Are healed and sweet,?The ample heavens?Pour angel's bread about thy feet?Throughout the wilderness.
And Carmel's glory?Thou thoughtest gone,?And Sharon's roses,?The excellency of Lebanon?Delight thy wilderness.
Who passeth Jordan?Perfumed with myrrh,?With myrrh and incense??Lo! on his arm Love leadeth her?Who trod the wilderness.
UNDER A WILTSHIRE APPLE TREE
Some folks as can afford,?So I've heard say,?Sets up a sort of cross?Right in the garden way?To mind 'em of the Lord.
But I, when I do see?Thic apple tree?An' stoopin' limb?All spread wi' moss,?I think of Him?And how he talks wi' me.
I think of God?And how he trod?That garden long ago:?He walked, I reckon, to and fro?And then sat down?Upon the groun'?Or some low limb?What suited Him?Same as you see?On many a tree,?And on this very one?Where I at set o' sun?Do sit and talk wi' He.
An' mornings, too, I rise an' come?An' sit down where the branch be low;?A bird do sing, a bee do hum,?The flowers in the border blow,?An' all my heart's so glad an' clear?As pools be when the sun do peer:?As pools a laughin' in the light?When mornin' air is swep' an' bright,?As pools what got all Heaven in sight?So's my heart's cheer?When He be near.
He never pushed the garden door,?He left no footmark on the floor;?I never heard 'Un stir nor tread?An' yet His Hand do bless my head,?And when 'tis time for work to start?I takes Him with me in my heart.
And when I die, pray God I see?At very last thic apple tree?An' stoopin' limb,?An' think o' Him?And all He been to me.
G. K. CHESTERTON
SONNET WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON
(To a popular leader, to be congratulated on the avoidance of a strike at Christmas.)
I know you. You will hail the huge release,?Saying the sheathing of a thousand swords,?In silence and injustice, well accords?With Christmas bells. And you will gild with grease?The papers, the employers, the police,?And vomit up the void your windy words?To your new Christ; who bears no whip of cords?For them that traffic in the doves of peace.
The feast of friends, the candle-fruited tree,?I have not failed to honour. And I say?It would be better for such men as we?And we be nearer Bethlehem, if we lay?Shot dead on snows scarlet for Liberty,?Dead in the daylight; upon Christmas Day.
WHEN I CAME BACK TO FLEET STREET
When I came back to Fleet Street,?Through a sunset-nook at night,?And saw the old Green Dragon?With the windows all alight,?And hailed the old Green Dragon?And the Cock I used to know,?Where all the good fellows were my friends?A little while ago.
I had been long in meadows,?And the trees took hold of me,?And the still towns in the beech-woods,?Where men were meant to be;?But old things held; the laughter,?The long unnatural night,?And all the truth the talk in hell,?And all the lies they write.
For I came back to Fleet Street,?And not in peace I came;?A cloven pride was in my heart,?And half my love was shame.?I came to fight in fairy tale,?Whose end shall no man know--?To fight the old Green Dragon?Until the Cock shall crow!
Under the broad bright windows?Of men I serve no more,?The groaning of the old great wheels?Thickened to a throttled roar;?All buried things broke upwards;?And peered from its retreat,?Ugly and silent, like an elf,?The secret of the street.
They did not break the padlocks,?Or clear the wall away.?The men in debt that drank of old?Still drink in debt to-day;?Chained to the rich by