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I climbed a hill as light fell short,And rooks came home in scramble sort,And filled the trees and flapped and foughtAnd sang themselves to sleep;An owl from nowhere with no soundSwung by and soon was nowhere found,I heard him calling half-way round,Holloing loud and deep;A pair of stars, faint pins of light,Then many a star, sailed into sight,And all the stars, the flower of night,Were round me at a leap;To tell how still the valleys layI heard a watchdog miles away ...And bells of distant sheep.I heard no more of bird or bell,The mastiff in a slumber fell,I stared into the sky,As wondering men have always doneSince beauty and the stars were one,Though none so hard as I.It seemed, so still the valleys were,As if the whole world knelt at prayer,Save me and me alone;So pure and wide that silence wasI feared to bend a blade of grass,And there I stood like stone.There, sharp and sudden, there I heard —Ah! some wild lovesick singing birdWoke singing in the trees?The nightingale and babble-wrenWere in the English greenwood then,And you heard one of these?The babble-wren and nightingaleSang in the Abyssinian valeThat season of the year!Yet, true enough, I heard them plain,I heard them both again, again,As sharp and sweet and clearAs if the Abyssinian treeHad thrust a bough across the sea,Had thrust a bough across to meWith music for my ear!I heard them both, and oh! I heardThe song of every singing birdThat sings beneath the sky,And with the song of lark and wrenThe song of mountains, moths and menAnd seas and rainbows vie!I heard the universal choirThe Sons of Light exalt their SireWith universal song,Earth's lowliest and loudest notes,Her million times ten million throatsExalt Him loud and long,And lips and lungs and tongues of GraceFrom every part and every placeWithin the shining of His face,The universal throng.I heard the hymn of being soundFrom every well of honour foundIn human sense and soul:The song of poets when they writeThe testament of BeautyspriteUpon a flying scroll,The song of painters when they takeA burning brush for Beauty's sakeAnd limn her features whole —The song of men divinely wiseWho look and see in starry skiesNot stars so much as robins' eyes,And when these pale awayHear flocks of shiny pleiadesAmong the plums and apple treesSing in the summer day —The song of all both high and lowTo some blest vision true,The song of beggars when they throwThe crust of pity all men oweTo hungry sparrows in the snow,Old beggars hungry too —The song of kings of kingdoms whenThey rise above their fortune men,And crown themselves anew, —The song of courage, heart and willAnd gladness in a fight,Of men who face a hopeless hillWith sparking and delight,The bells and bells of song that ringRound banners of a cause or kingFrom armies bleeding white —The song of sailors every oneWhen monstrous tide and tempest runAt ships like bulls at red,When stately ships are twirled and spunLike whipping tops and help there's noneAnd mighty ships ten thousand tonGo down like lumps of lead —And song of fighters stern as theyAt odds with fortune night and day,Crammed up in cities grim and greyAs thick as bees in hives,Hosannas of a lowly throngWho sing unconscious of their song,Whose lips are in their lives —And song of some at holy warWith spells and ghouls more dread by farThan deadly seas and cities are,Or hordes of quarrelling kings — -The song of fighters great and small,The song of pretty fighters all,And high heroic things —The song of lovers — who knows howTwitched up from place and timeUpon a sigh, a blush, a vow,A curve or hue of cheek or brow,Borne up and off from here and nowInto the void sublime!And crying loves and passions stillIn every key from soft to shrillAnd numbers never done,Dog-loyalties to faith and friend,And loves like Ruth's of old no end,And intermission none —And burst on burst for beauty andFor numbers not behind,From men whose love of motherlandIs like a dog's for one dear hand,Sole, selfless, boundless, blind —And song of some with hearts besideFor men and sorrows far and wide,Who watch the world with pity and prideAnd warm to all mankind —And endless joyous music riseFrom children at their play,And endless soaring lullabiesFrom happy, happy mothers' eyes,And answering crows and baby cries,How many who shall say!And many a song as wondrous wellWith pangs and sweets intolerableFrom lonely hearths too gray to tell,God knows how utter gray!And song from many a house of careWhen pain has forced a footing thereAnd there's a Darkness on the stairWill not be turned away —And song — that song whose singers comeWith old kind tales of pity fromThe Great Compassion's lips,That makes the bells of Heaven to pealRound pillows frosty with the feelOf Death's cold finger tips —The song of men all sorts and kinds,As many tempers, moods and mindsAs leaves are on a tree,As many faiths and castes and creeds,As many human bloods and breedsAs in the world may be;The song of each and all who gazeOn Beauty in her naked blaze,Or see her dimly in a haze,Or get her light in fitful raysAnd tiniest needles even,The song of all not wholly dark,Not wholly sunk in stupor starkToo deep for groping Heaven —And alleluias sweet and clearAnd wild with beauty men mishear,From choirs of song as near and dearTo Paradise as they,The everlasting pipe and fluteOf wind and sea and bird and brute,And lips deaf men imagine muteIn wood and stone and clay;The music of a lion strongThat shakes a hill a whole night long,A hill as loud as he,The twitter of a mouse amongMelodious greenery,The ruby's and the rainbow's song,The nightingale's — all three,The song of life that wells and flowsFrom every leopard, lark and roseAnd everything that gleams or goesLack-lustre in the sea.I heard it all, each, every noteOf every lung and tongue and throat,Ay, every rhythm and rhymeOf everything that lives and lovesAnd upward, ever upward movesFrom lowly to sublime!Earth's multitudinous Sons of Light,I heard them lift their lyric mightWith each and every chanting spriteThat lit the sky that wondrous nightAs far as eye could climb!I heard it all, I heard the wholeHarmonious hymn of being rollUp through the chapel of my soulAnd at the altar die,And in the awful quiet thenMyself I heard, Amen, Amen,Amen I heard me cry!I heard it all, and then althoughI caught my flying senses, oh,A dizzy man was I!I stood and stared; the sky was lit,The sky was stars all over it,I stood, I knew not why,Without a wish, without a will,I stood upon that silent hillAnd stared into the sky untilMy eyes were blind with stars and stillI stared into the sky.
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Between the avenues of cypresses,All in their scarlet cloaks, and surplicesOf linen, go the chaunting choristers,The priests in gold and black, the villagers.And all along the path to the cemeteryThe round, dark heads of men crowd silently,And black-scarved faces of women-folk, wistfullyWatch at the banner of death, and the mystery.And at the foot of a grave a father standsWith sunken head, and forgotten, folded hands;And at the foot of a grave a woman kneelsWith pale shut face, and neither hears nor feelsThe coming of the chaunting choristersBetween the avenues of cypresses,The silence of the many villagers,The candle-flames beside the surplices.
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The little pansies by the road have turnedAway their purple faces and their gold,And evening has taken all the bees from the thyme,And all the scent is shed away by the cold.Against the hard and pale blue evening skyThe mountain's new-dropped summer snow is clearGlistening in steadfast stillness: like transcendentClean pain sending on us a chill down here.Christ on the Cross! — his beautiful young man's bodyHas fallen dead upon the nails, and hangsWhite and loose at last, with all the painDrawn on his mouth, eyes broken at last by his pangs.And slowly down the mountain road, belated,A bullock wagon comes; so I am ashamedTo gaze any more at the Christ, whom the mountain snowsWhitely confront; I wait on the grass, am lamed.The breath of the bullock stains the hard, chill air,The band is across its brow, and it scarcely seemsTo draw the load, so still and slow it moves,While the driver on the shaft sits crouched in dreams.Surely about his sunburnt face is somethingThat vexes me with wonder. He sits so stillHere among all this silence, crouching forward,Dreaming and letting the bullock take its will.I stand aside on the grass to let them go;— And Christ, I have met his accusing eyes again,The brown eyes black with misery and hate, that lookFull in my own, and the torment starts again.One moment the hate leaps at me standing there,One moment I see the stillness of agony,Something frozen in the silence that dare not beLoosed, one moment the darkness frightens me.Then among the averted pansies, beneath the highWhite peaks of snow, at the foot of the sunken ChristI stand in a chill of anguish, trying to sayThe joy I bought was not too highly priced.But he has gone, motionless, hating me,Living as the mountains do, because they are strong,With a pale, dead Christ on the crucifix of his heart,And breathing the frozen memory of his wrong.Still in his nostrils the frozen breath of despair,And heart like a cross that bears dead agonyOf naked love, clenched in his fists the shame,And in his belly the smouldering hate of me.And I, as I stand in the cold, averted flowers,Feel the shame-wounds in his hands pierce through my own,And breathe despair that turns my lungs to stoneAnd know the dead Christ weighing on my bone.
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What large, dark hands are those at the windowLifted, grasping in the yellow lightWhich makes its way through the curtain webAt my heart to-night?Ah, only the leaves! So leave me at rest,In the west I see a redness comeOver the evening's burning breast —For now the pain is numb.The woodbine creeps abroadCalling low to her lover:The sunlit flirt who all the dayHas poised above her lips in playAnd stolen kisses, shallow and gayOf dalliance, now has gone away— She woos the moth with her sweet, low word,And when above her his broad wings hoverThen her bright breast she will uncoverAnd yield her honey-drop to her lover.Into the yellow, evening glowSaunters a man from the farm below,Leans, and looks in at the low-built shedWhere hangs the swallow's marriage bed.The bird lies warm against the wall.She glances quick her startled eyesTowards him, then she turns awayHer small head, making warm displayOf red upon the throat. Her terrors swayHer out of the nest's warm, busy ball,Whose plaintive cries start up as she fliesIn one blue stoop from out the stiesInto the evening's empty hall.Oh, water-hen, beside the rushesHide your quaint, unfading blushes,Still your quick tail, and lie as dead,Till the distance covers his dangerous tread.The rabbit presses back her ears,Turns back her liquid, anguished eyesAnd crouches low: then with wild springSpurts from the terror of the oncomingTo be choked back, the wire ringHer frantic effort throttling:Piteous brown ball of quivering fears!Ah soon in his large, hard hands she dies,And swings all loose to the swing of his walk.Yet calm and kindly are his eyesAnd ready to open in brown surpriseShould I not answer to his talkOr should he my tears surmise.I hear his hand on the latch, and rise from my chairWatching the door open: he flashes bareHis strong teeth in a smile, and flashes his eyesIn a smile like triumph upon me; then careless-wiseHe flings the rabbit soft on the table boardAnd comes towards me: ah, the uplifted swordOf his hand against my bosom, and oh, the broadBlade of his hand that raises my face to applaudHis coming: he raises up my face to himAnd caresses my mouth with his fingers, smelling grimOf the rabbit's fur! God, I am caught in a snareI know not what fine wire is round my throat,I only know I let him finger thereMy pulse of life, letting him nose like a stoatWho sniffs with joy before he drinks the blood:And down his mouth comes to my mouth, and downHis dark bright eyes descend like a fiery hoodUpon my mind: his mouth meets mine, and a floodOf sweet fire sweeps across me, so I drownWithin him, die, and find death good.
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And Gwydion said to Math, when it was Spring:"Come now and let us make a wife for Llew."And so they broke broad boughs yet moist with dew,And in a shadow made a magic ring:They took the violet and the meadow-sweetTo form her pretty face, and for her feetThey built a mound of daisies on a wing,And for her voice they made a linnet singIn the wide poppy blowing for her mouth.And over all they chanted twenty hours.And Llew came singing from the azure southAnd bore away his wife of birds and flowers.
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When the clouds shake their hyssops, and the rainLike holy water falls upon the plain,'Tis sweet to gaze upon the springing grainAnd see your harvest born.And sweet the little breeze of melodyThe blackbird puffs upon the budding tree,While the wild poppy lights upon the leaAnd blazes 'mid the corn.The skylark soars the freshening shower to hail,And the meek daisy holds aloft her pail,And Spring all radiant by the wayside paleSets up her rock and reel.See how she weaves her mantle fold on fold,Hemming the woods and carpeting the wold.Her warp is of the green, her woof the gold,The spinning world her wheel.
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Somewhere is music from the linnets' bills,And thro' the sunny flowers the bee-wings drone,And white bells of convolvulus on hillsOf quiet May make silent ringing, blownHither and thither by the wind of showers,And somewhere all the wandering birds have flown;And the brown breath of Autumn chills the flowers.But where are all the loves of long ago?O little twilight ship blown up the tide,Where are the faces laughing in the glowOf morning years, the lost ones scattered wide.Give me your hand, O brother, let us goCrying about the dark for those who died.
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All day they loitered by the resting ships,Telling their beauties over, taking stock;At night the verdict left my messmates' lips,'TheWandereris the finest ship in dock.'I had not seen her, but a friend, since drowned,Drew her, with painted ports, low, lovely, lean,Saying, 'The Wanderer, clipper, outward bound,The loveliest ship my eyes have ever seen —'Perhaps to-morrow you will see her sail.She sails at sunrise': but the morrow showedNoWanderersetting forth for me to hail;Far down the stream men pointed where she rode,Rode the great trackway to the sea, dim, dim,Already gone before the stars were gone.I saw her at the sea-line's smoky rimGrow swiftly vaguer as they towed her on.Soon even her masts were hidden in the hazeBeyond the city; she was on her courseTo trample billows for a hundred days;That afternoon the norther gathered force,Blowing a small snow from a point of east.'Oh, fair for her,' we said, 'to take her south.'And in our spirits, as the wind increased,We saw her there, beyond the river mouth,Setting her side-lights in the wildering dark,To glint upon mad water, while the galeRoared like a battle, snapping like a shark,And drunken seamen struggled with the sail;While with sick hearts her mates put out of mindTheir little children left astern, ashore,And the gale's gathering made the darkness blind,Water and air one intermingled roar.Then we forgot her, for the fiddlers played,Dancing and singing held our merry crew;The old ship moaned a little as she swayed.It blew all night, oh, bitter hard it blew!So that at midnight I was called on deckTo keep an anchor-watch: I heard the seaRoar past in white procession filled with wreck;Intense bright frosty stars burned over me,And the Greek brig beside us dipped and dippedWhite to the muzzle like a half-tide rock,Drowned to the mainmast with the seas she shipped;Her cable-swivels clanged at every shock.And like a never-dying force, the windRoared till we shouted with it, roared untilIts vast vitality of wrath was thinned,Had beat its fury breathless and was still.By dawn the gale had dwindled into flaw,A glorious morning followed: with my friendI climbed the fo'c's'le-head to see; we sawThe waters hurrying shorewards without end.Haze blotted out the river's lowest reach;Out of the gloom the steamers, passing by,Called with their sirens, hooting their sea-speech;Out of the dimness others made reply.And as we watched there came a rush of feetCharging the fo'c's'le till the hatchway shook.Men all about us thrust their way, or beat,Crying, 'TheWanderer! Down the river! Look!'I looked with them towards the dimness; thereGleamed like a spirit striding out of nightA full-rigged ship unutterably fair,Her masts like trees in winter, frosty-bright.Foam trembled at her bows like wisps of wool;She trembled as she towed. I had not dreamedThat work of man could be so beautiful,In its own presence and in what it seemed.'So she is putting back again,' I said.'How white with frost her yards are on the fore!'One of the men about me answer made,'That is not frost, but all her sails are tore,'Torn into tatters, youngster, in the gale;Her best foul-weather suit gone.' It was true,Her masts were white with rags of tattered sailMany as gannets when the fish are due.Beauty in desolation was her pride,Her crowned array a glory that had been;She faltered tow'rds us like a swan that died,But although ruined she was still a queen.'Put back with all her sails gone,' went the word;Then, from her signals flying, rumour ran,'The sea that stove her boats in killed her third;She has been gutted and has lost a man.'So, as though stepping to a funeral march,She passed defeated homewards whence she cameRagged with tattered canvas white as starch,A wild bird that misfortune had made tame.She was refitted soon: another tookThe dead man's office; then the singers hoveHer capstan till the snapping hawsers shook;Out, with a bubble at her bows, she drove.Again they towed her seawards, and againWe, watching, praised her beauty, praised her trim,Saw her fair house-flag flutter at the main,And slowly saunter seawards, dwindling dim;And wished her well, and wondered, as she died,How, when her canvas had been sheeted home,Her quivering length would sweep into her stride,Making the greenness milky with her foam.But when we rose next morning, we discernedHer beauty once again a shattered thing;Towing to dock theWandererreturned,A wounded sea-bird with a broken wing.A spar was gone, her rigging's disarrayTold of a worse disaster than the last;Like draggled hair dishevelled hung the stay,Drooping and beating on the broken mast.Half-mast upon her flagstaff hung her flag;Word went among us how the broken sparHad gored her captain like an angry stag,And killed her mate a half-day from the bar.She passed to dock upon the top of flood.An old man near me shook his head and swore:'Like a bad woman, she has tasted blood —There'll be no trusting in her any more.'We thought it truth, and when we saw her thereLying in dock, beyond, across the stream,We would forget that we had called her fair,We thought her murderess and the past a dream.And when she sailed again we watched in awe,Wondering what bloody act her beauty planned,What evil lurked behind the thing we saw,What strength was there that thus annulled man's hand,How next its triumph would compel man's willInto compliance with external Fate,How next the powers would use her to work illOn suffering men; we had not long to wait.For soon the outcry of derision rose,'Here comes theWanderer!' the expected cry.Guessing the cause, our mockings joined with thoseYelled from the shipping as they towed her by.She passed us close, her seamen paid no heedTo what was called: they stood, a sullen group,Smoking and spitting, careless of her need,Mocking the orders given from the poop.Her mates and boys were working her; we stared.What was the reason of this strange return,This third annulling of the thing prepared?No outward evil could our eyes discern.Only like someone who has formed a planBeyond the pitch of common minds, she sailed,Mocked and deserted by the common man,Made half divine to me for having failed.We learned the reason soon; below the townA stay had parted like a snapping reed,'Warning,' the men thought, 'not to take her down.'They took the omen, they would not proceed.Days passed before another crew would sign.TheWandererlay in dock alone, unmanned,Feared as a thing possessed by powers malign,Bound under curses not to leave the land.But under passing Time fear passes too;That terror passed, the sailors' hearts grew bold.We learned in time that she had found a crewAnd was bound out and southwards as of old.And in contempt we thought, 'A little whileWill bring her back again, dismantled, spoiled.It is herself; she cannot change her style;She has the habit now of being foiled.'So when a ship appeared among the hazeWe thought, 'TheWandererback again'; but no,NoWanderershowed for many, many days,Her passing lights made other waters glow.But we would often think and talk of her,Tell newer hands her story, wondering, then,Upon what ocean she wasWanderer,Bound to the cities built by foreign men.And one by one our little conclave thinned,Passed into ships, and sailed, and so away,To drown in some great roaring of the wind,Wanderers themselves, unhappy fortune's prey.And Time went by me making memory dim.Yet still I wondered if theWandererfaredStill pointing to the unreached ocean's rim,Brightening the water where her breast was bared.And much in ports abroad I eyed the ships,Hoping to see her well-remembered formCome with a curl of bubbles at her lipsBright to her berth, the sovereign of the storm.I never did, and many years went by;Then, near a Southern port, one Christmas Eve,I watched a gale go roaring through the sky,Making the cauldrons of the clouds upheave.Then the wrack tattered and the stars appeared,Millions of stars that seemed to speak in fire;A byre-cock cried aloud that morning neared,The swinging wind-vane flashed upon the spire.And soon men looked upon a glittering earth,Intensely sparkling like a world new-born;Only to look was spiritual birth,So bright the raindrops ran along the thorn.So bright they were, that one could almost passBeyond their twinkling to the source, and knowThe glory pushing in the blade of grass,That hidden soul which makes the flowers grow.That soul was there apparent, not revealed;Unearthly meanings covered every tree;That wet grass grew in an immortal field;Those waters fed some never-wrinkled sea.The scarlet berries in the hedge stood outLike revelations, but the tongue unknown;Even in the brooks a joy was quick; the troutRushed in a dumbness dumb to me alone.All of the valley was aloud with brooks;I walked the morning, breasting up the fells,Taking again lost childhood from the rooks,Whose cawing came above the Christmas bells.I had not walked that glittering world before,But up the hill a prompting came to me,'This line of upland runs along the shore:Beyond the hedgerow I shall see the sea.'And on the instant from beyond awayThat long familiar sound, a ship's bell, brokeThe hush below me in the unseen bay.Old memories came: that inner prompting spoke.And bright above the hedge a seagull's wingsFlashed and were steady upon empty air.'A Power unseen,' I cried, 'prepares these things;'Those are her bells, theWandereris there.'So, hurrying to the hedge and looking down,I saw a mighty bay's wind-crinkled blueRuffling the image of a tranquil town,With lapsing waters glittering as they grew.And near me in the road the shipping swung,So stately and so still in such great peaceThat like to drooping crests their colours hung,Only their shadows trembled without cease.I did but glance upon those anchored ships.Even as my thought had told, I saw her plain;Tense, like a supple athlete with lean hips,Swiftness at pause, theWanderercome again —Come as of old a queen, untouched by Time,Resting the beauty that no seas could tire,Sparkling, as though the midnight's rain were rime,Like a man's thought transfigured into fire.And as I looked, one of her men beganTo sing some simple tune of Christmas Day;Among her crew the song spread, man to man,Until the singing rang across the bay;And soon in other anchored ships the menJoined in the singing with clear throats, untilThe farm-boy heard it up the windy glen,Above the noise of sheep-bells on the hill.Over the water came the lifted song —Blind pieces in a mighty game we swing;Life's battle is a conquest for the strong;The meaning shows in the defeated thing.
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When the tea is brought at five o'clock,And all the neat curtains are drawn with care,The little black cat with bright green eyesIs suddenly purring there.At first she pretends, having nothing to do,She has come in merely to blink by the grate,But, though tea may be late or the milk may be sour,She is never late.And presently her agate eyesTake a soft large milky haze,And her independent casual glanceBecomes a stiff, hard gaze.Then she stamps her claws or lifts her ears,Or twists her tail and begins to stir,Till suddenly all her lithe body becomesOne breathing, trembling purr.The children eat and wriggle and laugh,The two old ladies stroke their silk:But the cat is grown small and thin with desire,Transformed to a creeping lust for milk.The white saucer like some full moon descendsAt last from the clouds of the table above;She sighs and dreams and thrills and glows,Transfigured with love.She nestles over the shining rim,Buries her chin in the creamy sea;Her tail hangs loose; each drowsy pawIs doubled under each bending knee.A long, dim ecstasy holds her life;Her world is an infinite shapeless white,Till her tongue has curled the last holy drop,Then she sinks back into the night,Draws and dips her body to heapHer sleepy nerves in the great arm-chair,Lies defeated and buried deepThree or four hours unconscious there.
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Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?Give them me.No.Give them me. Give them me.No.Then I will howl all night in the reeds,Lie in the mud and howl for them.Goblin, why do you love them so?They are better than stars or water,Better than voices of winds that sing,Better than any man's fair daughter,Your green glass beads on a silver ring.Hush, I stole them out of the moon.Give me your beads, I want them.No.I will howl in a deep lagoonFor your green glass beads, I love them so.Give them me. Give them.No.
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The holy boyWent from his mother out in the cool of the dayOver the sun-parched fieldsAnd in among the olives shining green and shining grey.There was no sound,No smallest voice of any shivering stream.Poor sinless little boy,He desired to play and to sing; he could only sigh and dream.Suddenly cameRunning along to him naked, with curly hair,That rogue of the lovely world,That other beautiful child whom the virgin Venus bare.The holy boyGazed with those sad blue eyes that all men know.Impudent Cupid stoodPanting, holding an arrow and pointing his bow.(Will you not play?Jesus, run to him, run to him, swift for our joy.Is he not holy, like you?Are you afraid of his arrows, O beautiful dreaming boy?)And now they standWatching one another with timid gaze;Youth has met youth in the wood,But holiness will not change its melancholy ways.Cupid at lastDraws his bow and softly lets fly a dart.Smile for a moment, sad world! —It has grazed the white skin and drawn blood from the sorrowful heart.Now, for delight,Cupid tosses his locks and goes wantonly near;But the child that was born to the crossHas let fall on his cheek, for the sadness of life, a compassionate tear.Marvellous dream!Cupid has offered his arrows for Jesus to try;He has offered his bow for the game.But Jesus went weeping away, and left him there wondering why.
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I heard a bird at dawnSinging sweetly on a tree,That the dew was on the lawn,And the wind was on the lea;But I didn't listen to him,For he didn't sing to me.I didn't listen to him,For he didn't sing to meThat the dew was on the lawnAnd the wind was on the lea;I was singing at the timeJust as prettily as he.I was singing all the time,Just as prettily as he,About the dew upon the lawnAnd the wind upon the lea;So I didn't listen to himAnd he sang upon a tree.
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The crooked paths go every wayUpon the hill — they wind aboutThrough the heather in and outOf the quiet sunniness.And there the goats, day after day,Stray in sunny quietness,Cropping here and cropping there,As they pause and turn and pass,Now a bit of heather spray,Now a mouthful of the grass.In the deeper sunniness,In the place where nothing stirs,Quietly in quietness,In the quiet of the furze,For a time they come and lieStaring on the roving sky.If you approach they run away,They leap and stare, away they bound,With a sudden angry sound,To the sunny quietude;Crouching down where nothing stirsIn the silence of the furze,Couching down again to broodIn the sunny solitude.If I were as wise as theyI would stray apart and brood,I would beat a hidden wayThrough the quiet heather sprayTo a sunny solitude;And should you come I'd run away,I would make an angry sound,I would stare and turn and boundTo the deeper quietude,To the place where nothing stirsIn the silence of the furze.In that airy quietnessI would think as long as they;Through the quiet sunninessI would stray away to broodBy a hidden beaten wayIn a sunny solitude.I would think until I foundSomething I can never find,Something lying on the ground,In the bottom of my mind.
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To A.E.
I hear a sudden cry of pain!There is a rabbit in a snare:Now I hear the cry again,But I cannot tell from where.But I cannot tell from whereHe is calling out for aid;Crying on the frightened air,Making everything afraid.Making everything afraid,Wrinkling up his little face,As he cries again for aid;And I cannot find the place!And I cannot find the placeWhere his paw is in the snare:Little one! Oh, little one!I am searching everywhere.
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Play to the tender stops, though cheerily:Gently, my soul, my song: let no one hear:Sing to thyself alone; thine ecstasyRising in silence to the inward earThat is attuned to silence: do not tellA friend, a bird, a star, lest they should say —He danced in woods and meadows all the day,Waving his arms, and cried as evening fell,'O, do not come,' and cried, 'O, come, thou queen,And walk with me unwatched upon the greenUnder the sky.'
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