Poems by the Way | Page 4

once they bore,?And all be done without our will,?Now we return no more.?Look up! the arrows streak the sky,?The horns of battle roar;?The long spears lower and draw nigh,?And we return no more.?Remember how beside the wain,?We spoke the word of war,?And sowed this harvest of the plain,?And we return no more.?Lay spears about the Ruddy Fox!?The days of old are o'er;?Heave sword about the Running Ox!?For we return no more.
HOPE DIETH: LOVE LIVETH.
Strong are thine arms, O love, & strong?Thine heart to live, and love, and long;?But thou art wed to grief and wrong:?Live, then, and long, though hope be dead!?Live on, & labour thro' the years!?Make pictures through the mist of tears,?Of unforgotten happy fears,?That crossed the time ere hope was dead.?Draw near the place where once we stood?Amid delight's swift-rushing flood,?And we and all the world seemed good?Nor needed hope now cold and dead.?Dream in the dawn I come to thee?Weeping for things that may not be!?Dream that thou layest lips on me!?Wake, wake to clasp hope's body dead!?Count o'er and o'er, and one by one?The minutes of the happy sun?That while agone on kissed lips shone,?Count on, rest not, for hope is dead.?Weep, though no hair's breadth thou shalt move?The living Earth, the heaven above?By all the bitterness of love!?Weep and cease not, now hope is dead!?Sighs rest thee not, tears bring no ease,?Life hath no joy, and Death no peace:?The years change not, though they decrease,?For hope is dead, for hope is dead.?Speak, love, I listen: far away?I bless the tremulous lips, that say,?"Mock not the afternoon of day,?Mock not the tide when hope is dead!"?I bless thee, O my love, who say'st:?"Mock not the thistle-cumbered waste;?I hold Love's hand, and make no haste?Down the long way, now hope is dead.?With other names do we name pain,?The long years wear our hearts in vain.?Mock not our loss grown into gain,?Mock not our lost hope lying dead.?Our eyes gaze for no morning-star,?No glimmer of the dawn afar;?Full silent wayfarers we are?Since ere the noon-tide hope lay dead.?Behold with lack of happiness?The master, Love, our hearts did bless?Lest we should think of him the less:?Love dieth not, though hope is dead!"
ERROR AND LOSS.
Upon an eve I sat me down and wept,?Because the world to me seemed nowise good;?Still autumn was it, & the meadows slept,?The misty hills dreamed, and the silent wood?Seemed listening to the sorrow of my mood:?I knew not if the earth with me did grieve,?Or if it mocked my grief that bitter eve.
Then 'twixt my tears a maiden did I see,?Who drew anigh me on the leaf-strewn grass,?Then stood and gazed upon me pitifully?With grief-worn eyes, until my woe did pass?From me to her, and tearless now I was,?And she mid tears was asking me of one?She long had sought unaided and alone.
I knew not of him, and she turned away?Into the dark wood, and my own great pain?Still held me there, till dark had slain the day,?And perished at the grey dawn's hand again;?Then from the wood a voice cried: "Ah, in vain,?In vain I seek thee, O thou bitter-sweet!?In what lone land are set thy longed-for feet?"
Then I looked up, and lo, a man there came?From midst the trees, and stood regarding me?Until my tears were dried for very shame;?Then he cried out: "O mourner, where is she?Whom I have sought o'er every land and sea??I love her and she loveth me, and still?We meet no more than green hill meeteth hill."
With that he passed on sadly, and I knew?That these had met and missed in the dark night,?Blinded by blindness of the world untrue,?That hideth love and maketh wrong of right.?Then midst my pity for their lost delight,?Yet more with barren longing I grew weak,?Yet more I mourned that I had none to seek.
THE HALL AND THE WOOD.
'Twas in the water-dwindling tide?When July days were done,?Sir Rafe of Greenhowes, 'gan to ride?In the earliest of the sun.
He left the white-walled burg behind,?He rode amidst the wheat.?The westland-gotten wind blew kind?Across the acres sweet.
Then rose his heart and cleared his brow,?And slow he rode the way:?"As then it was, so is it now,?Not all hath worn away."
So came he to the long green lane?That leadeth to the ford,?And saw the sickle by the wain?Shine bright as any sword.
The brown carles stayed 'twixt draught and draught,?And murmuring, stood aloof,?But one spake out when he had laughed:?"God bless the Green-wood Roof!"
Then o'er the ford and up he fared:?And lo the happy hills!?And the mountain-dale by summer cleared,?That oft the winter fills.
Then forth he rode by Peter's gate,?And smiled and said aloud:?"No more a day doth the Prior wait,?White stands the tower and proud."
There leaned a knight on the gateway side?In armour white and wan,?And after the heels of the horse he cried,?"God keep the