Poems by the Way Love Is Enough | Page 9

know.
_Not one,

not one, nor thousands must they slay,
But one and all if they would
dusk the day._
We asked them for a life of toilsome earning,
They bade us bide their
leisure for our bread;
We craved to speak to tell our woeful learning:

We come back speechless, bearing back our dead.
_Not one, not
one, nor thousands must they slay,
But one and all if they would dusk
the day._
They will not learn; they have no ears to hearken.
They turn their
faces from the eyes of fate;
Their gay-lit halls shut out the skies that
darken.
But, lo! this dead man knocking at the gate.
_Not one, not
one, nor thousands must they slay,
But one and all if they would dusk
the day._
Here lies the sign that we shall break our prison;
Amidst the storm he
won a prisoner's rest;
But in the cloudy dawn the sun arisen
Brings
us our day of work to win the best.
_Not one, not one, nor thousands
must they slay,
But one and all if they would dusk the day._
ICELAND FIRST SEEN
Lo from our loitering ship
a new land at last to be seen;
Toothed
rocks down the side of the firth
on the east guard a weary wide lea,

And black slope the hillsides above,
striped adown with their desolate
green:
And a peak rises up on the west
from the meeting of cloud
and of sea,
Foursquare from base unto point
like the building of
Gods that have been,
The last of that waste of the mountains
all
cloud-wreathed and snow-flecked and grey,
And bright with the dawn
that began
just now at the ending of day.
Ah! what came we forth for to see
that our hearts are so hot with
desire?
Is it enough for our rest,
the sight of this desolate strand,

And the mountain-waste voiceless as death
but for winds that may
sleep not nor tire?
Why do we long to wend forth
through the

length and breadth of a land,
Dreadful with grinding of ice,
and
record of scarce hidden fire,
But that there 'mid the grey grassy dales

sore scarred by the ruining streams
Lives the tale of the Northland
of old
and the undying glory of dreams?
O land, as some cave by the sea
where the treasures of old have been
laid,
The sword it may be of a king
whose name was the turning of
fight:
Or the staff of some wise of the world
that many things made
and unmade.
Or the ring of a woman maybe
whose woe is grown
wealth and delight.
No wheat and no wine grows above it,
no
orchard for blossom and shade;
The few ships that sail by its
blackness
but deem it the mouth of a grave;
Yet sure when the
world shall awaken,
this too shall be mighty to save.
Or rather, O land, if a marvel
it seemeth that men ever sought
Thy
wastes for a field and a garden
fulfilled of all wonder and doubt,

And feasted amidst of the winter
when the fight of the year had been
fought,
Whose plunder all gathered together
was little to babble
about;
Cry aloud from thy wastes, O thou land,
"Not for this nor for
that was I wrought
Amid waning of realms and of riches
and death
of things worshipped and sure,
I abide here the spouse of a God,

and I made and I make and endure."
O Queen of the grief without knowledge,
of the courage that may not
avail,
Of the longing that may not attain,
of the love that shall never
forget,
More joy than the gladness of laughter
thy voice hath amidst
of its wail:
More hope than of pleasure fulfilled
amidst of thy
blindness is set;

More glorious than gaining of all
thine unfaltering
hand that shall fail:
For what is the mark on thy brow
but the brand
that thy Brynhild doth bear?
Lone once, and loved and undone
by a
love that no ages outwear.
Ah! when thy Balder comes back,
and bears from the heart of the Sun

Peace and the healing of pain,
and the wisdom that waiteth no

more;
And the lilies are laid on thy brow
'mid the crown of the
deeds thou hast done;
And the roses spring up by thy feet
that the
rocks of the wilderness wore.
Ah! when thy Balder comes back
and
we gather the gains he hath won,
Shall we not linger a little
to talk
of thy sweetness of old,
Yea, turn back awhile to thy travail
whence
the Gods stood aloof to behold?
THE RAVEN AND THE KING'S DAUGHTER
THE RAVEN
King's daughter sitting in tower so high,
Fair summer is on many a
shield.
Why weepest thou as the clouds go by?
Fair sing the swans
'twixt firth and field.
Why weepest thou in the window-seat
Till the
tears run through thy fingers sweet?
THE KING'S DAUGHTER
I weep because I sit alone
Betwixt these walls of lime and stone.

Fair folk are in my father's hall,
But for me he built this guarded wall.

And here the gold on the green I sew
Nor tidings of my true-love
know.
THE RAVEN
King's daughter, sitting above the sea,
I shall tell thee a tale shall
gladden thee.
Yestreen I saw a ship go forth
When the wind blew
merry from the north.
And