The Wild Knight and Other Poems | Page 5

trees.
In heaven I shall stand on gold and glass,
Still brooding earth's
arithmetic to spell;
Or see the fading of the fires of hell
Ere I have
thanked my God for all the grass.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O
weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)
The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast,
His hair was like a star.
(O
stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)
The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O
weary, weary is the world,
But here the world's desire.)
The Christ-child stood at Mary's knee,
His hair was like a crown,

And all the flowers looked up at him.
And all the stars looked down.
ALONE
Blessings there are of cradle and of clan,
Blessings that fall of priests'
and princes' hands;
But never blessing full of lives and lands,
Broad
as the blessing of a lonely man.

Though that old king fell from his primal throne,
And ate among the
cattle, yet this pride
Had found him in the deepest grass, and cried

An 'Ecce Homo' with the trumpets blown.
And no mad tyrant, with almighty ban,
Who in strong madness
dreams himself divine,
But hears through fumes of flattery and of
wine
The thunder of this blessing name him man.
Let all earth rot past saints' and seraphs' plea,
Yet shall a Voice cry
through its last lost war,
'This is the world, this red wreck of a star,

That a man blessed beneath an alder-tree.'
KING'S CROSS STATION
This circled cosmos whereof man is god
Has suns and stars of green
and gold and red,
And cloudlands of great smoke, that range o'er
range
Far floating, hide its iron heavens o'erhead.
God! shall we ever honour what we are,
And see one moment ere the age expire,
The vision of man shouting
and erect,
Whirled by the shrieking steeds of flood and fire?
Or must Fate act the same grey farce again,
And wait, till one, amid
Time's wrecks and scars,
Speaks to a ruin here, 'What poet-race

Shot such cyclopean arches at the stars?'
THE HUMAN TREE
Many have Earth's lovers been,
Tried in seas and wars, I ween;
Yet
the mightiest have I seen:
Yea, the best saw I.
One that in a field
alone
Stood up stiller than a stone
Lest a moth should fly.
Birds had nested in his hair,
On his shoon were mosses rare.
Insect

empires flourished there,
Worms in ancient wars;
But his eyes burn
like a glass,
Hearing a great sea of grass
Roar towards the stars.
From, them to the human tree
Rose a cry continually,
'Thou art still,
our Father, we
Fain would have thee nod.
Make the skies as blood
below thee,
Though thou slay us, we shall know thee.
Answer us, O
God!
'Show thine ancient flame and thunder,
Split the stillness once
asunder,
Lest we whisper, lest we wonder
Art thou there at all?'

But I saw him there alone,
Standing stiller than a stone
Lest a moth
should fall.
TO THEM THAT MOURN
(W.E.G., May 1898)
Lift up your heads: in life, in death,
God knoweth his head was high.

Quit we the coward's broken breath
Who watched a strong man
die.
If we must say, 'No more his peer
Cometh; the flag is furled.'
Stand
not too near him, lest he hear
That slander on the world.
The good green earth he loved and trod
Is still, with many a scar,

Writ in the chronicles of God,
A giant-bearing star.
He fell: but Britain's banner swings
Above his sunken crown.
Black
death shall have his toll of kings
Before that cross goes down.
Once more shall move with mighty things
His house of ancient tale,

Where kings whose hands were kissed of kings
Went in: and came
out pale.
O young ones of a darker day,
In art's wan colours clad,
Whose
very love and hate are grey--
Whose very sin is sad.

Pass on: one agony long-drawn
Was merrier than your mirth,
When
hand-in-hand came death and dawn,
And spring was on the earth.
THE OUTLAW
Priest, is any song-bird stricken?
Is one leaf less on the tree?
Is this
wine less red and royal
That the hangman waits for me?
He upon your cross that hangeth,
It is writ of priestly pen,
On the
night they built his gibbet,
Drank red wine among his men.
Quaff, like a brave man, as he did,
Wine and death as heaven pours--

This is my fate: O ye rulers,
O ye pontiffs, what is yours?
To wait trembling, lest yon loathly
Gallows-shape whereon I die,
In
strange temples yet unbuilded,
Blaze upon an altar high.
BEHIND
I saw an old man like a child,
His blue eyes bright, his white hair wild,

Who turned for ever, and might not stop,
Round and round like an
urchin's top.
'Fool,' I cried, 'while you spin round,
'Others grow wise, are praised,
are crowned.'
Ever the same round road he trod,
'This is better: I
seek for God.'
'We see the whole world, left and right,
Yet at the blind back hides
from sight
The unseen Master that drives us forth
To East and West,
to South and North.
'Over my shoulder for eighty years
I have looked for the