TENNYSON 
 DAY -BY -DAY 
 
 EDITED-BY 
 
 ANNA H SMITH 
 
 NEW -YORK 
 T Y- CROWELL &, CO 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
 PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1907
 
 JANUARY 
 
 
 JANUARY FIRST 
 
 THE niglit is starry and cold, my friend, 
 And the New-year blithe and bold, my 
 friend, 
 Comes up to take his own. 
 
 There 's a new foot on the floor, my friend, 
 A new face at the door, my friend, 
 
 A new face at the door. 
 
 Death of the Old Tear 
 
 JANUARY SECOND 
 
 The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
 
 And God fulfils himself in many ways, 
 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 
 
 Morte D 'Arthur 
 
 JANUARY THIRD 
 
 Fly, happy happy sails and bear the Press; 
 Fly happy with the mission of the Cross; 
 Knit land to land, and blowing havenward 
 With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll, 
 Enrich the markets of the golden year. 
 
 The Golden Year
 
 JANUARY FOURTH 
 
 Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping 
 
 something new: 
 That which they hav^ done but earnest of the 
 
 things that they shall do. 
 
 Locksley Hall 
 
 JANUARY FIFTH 
 
 He heeded not reviling tones, 
 
 Nor sold his heart to idle moans, 
 
 Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones : 
 
 But looking upward, full of grace, 
 He pray'd, and from a happy place 
 
 God's glory smote him on the face. 
 
 The T<wo Voices 
 
 JANUARY SIXTH 
 
 For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill 
 And break the shore, and evermore 
 Make and break, and work their will ; 
 Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll 
 Round us, each with different powers, 
 And other forms of life than ours, 
 What know we greater than the soul ? 
 On God and Godlike men we build our trust. 
 
 Ode on the Death of Wellington 
 
 JANUARY SEVENTH 
 
 Bring in great logs and let them lie, 
 To make a solid core of heat ;
 
 Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat 
 Of all things ev'n as he were by. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 JANUARY EIGHTH 
 
 I will not shut me from my kind, 
 And, lest I stiffen into stone, 
 I will not eat my heart alone, 
 
 Nor feed with sighs a passing wind. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 JANUARY NINTH 
 
 O purblind race of miserable men, 
 How many among us at this very hour 
 Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves; 
 By taking true for false, or false for true ; 
 Here, thro' the feeble twilight of this world 
 Groping, how many, until we pass and reach 
 
 That other, where we see as we are seen ! 
 
 Enid 
 
 JANUARY TENTH 
 
 Make knowledge circle with the winds; 
 But let her herald, Reverence, fly 
 Before her to whatever sky 
 Bear seed of men and growth of minds. 
 
 "Lo<ve Thou Thy Land" 
 JANUARY ELEVENTH 
 
 I said, "The years with change advance: 
 
 If I make dark my countenance, 
 
 I shut my life from happier chance." 
 
 The Tnuo f^oicet 
 [3]
 
 JANUARY TWELFTH 
 
 Reign thou above the storms of sorrow and ruth 
 That roar beneath ; unshaken peace hath won 
 
 thee: 
 
 So shalt thou pierce the woven glooms of truth ; 
 So shall the blessing of the meek be on thee ; 
 So in thine hour of dawn, the body's youth, 
 
 An honourable eld shall come upon thee. 
 
 Sonnet 
 
 JANUARY THIRTEENTH 
 
 Let there be thistles, there are grapes ; 
 
 If old things, there are new; 
 Ten thousand broken lights and shapes, 
 
 Yet glimpses of the true. 
 Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme, 
 
 We lack not rhymes and reasons, 
 As on this whirligig of Time 
 
 We circle with the seasons. 
 
 Will Waterproof** Monologue 
 
 JANUARY FOURTEENTH 
 
 Late, late, so late ! and dark the night and chill ! 
 Late, late, so late ! but we can enter still. 
 Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now. 
 
 No light had we: for that we do repent; 
 And learning this, the bridegroom will relent. 
 Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now. 
 
 Gtattewerg 
 
 [4]
 
 JANUARY FIFTEENTH 
 
 Watch what main-currents draw the years : 
 Cut Prejudice against the grain : 
 But gentle words are always gain : 
 
 Regard the weakness of thy peers. 
 
 "Love Thou Thy Land" 
 
 JANUARY SIXTEENTH 
 
 Is this enough to say 
 That my desire, like all strongest hopes, 
 By its own energy fulfilled itself, 
 
 Merged in completion ? 
 
 The Gardeners Daughter 
 
 JANUARY SEVENTEENTH 
 
 Two children in two neighbour villages 
 Playing mad pranks along the heathy leas; 
 Two strangers meeting at a festival ; 
 Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall; 
 Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease; 
 Two graves grass-green beside a gray church- 
 tower, 
 
 Wash'd with still rains and daisy-blossomed ; 
 Two children in one hamlet born and bred; 
 So runs the round of life from hour to hour. 
 
 Circumstance 
 
 JANUARY EIGHTEENTH 
 
 Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the 
 proud ; 
 
 [5]
 
 Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and 
 
 cloud ; 
 Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate. 
 
 Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or 
 
 frown ; 
 
 With that wild wheel we go not up or down ; 
 Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great. 
 
 Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands; 
 Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands ; 
 
 For man is man and master of his fate. 
 
 Enid 
 
 JANUARY NINETEENTH 
 
 Oh ! who would fight and march and counter- 
 march, 
 
 Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field, 
 And shovell'd up into a bloody trench 
 
 Where no one knows? 
 
 Audley Court 
 
 JANUARY TWENTIETH 
 
 He, 
 
 Vex'd with a morbid devil in his blood 
 That veiPd the world with jaundice, hid his face 
 From all men, and commercing with himself, 
 He lost the sense that handles daily life 
 That keeps us all in order more or less 
 And sick of home went overseas for change. 
 
 Walking to the Mail 
 
 [6]
 
 JANUARY TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 For Love himself took part against himself 
 To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love 
 
 this world's curse, beloved but hated came 
 Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine, 
 And crying, "Who is this? behold thy bride," 
 
 She push'd me from thee. 
 
 Lo<ve and Duty 
 
 JANUARY TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 For me, I thank the saints, I am not great. 
 For if there ever come a grief to me 
 
 1 cry my cry in silence, and have done : 
 
 None knows it, and my tears have brought me 
 
 good : 
 
 But even were the griefs of little ones 
 As great as those of great ones, yet this grief 
 Is added to the griefs the great must bear, 
 That howsoever much they may desire 
 Silence, they cannot weep behind a cloud. 
 
 Guinevere 
 
 JANUARY TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 Shy she was, and I thought her cold ; 
 
 Thought her proud, and fled over the sea; 
 Fill'd I was with folly and spite, 
 
 When Ellen Adair was dying for me. 
 
 Bitterly wept I over the stone : . 
 Bitterly weeping I turn'd away : 
 
 [7]
 
 There lies the body of Ellen Adair ! 
 And there the heart of Edward Gray ! 
 
 Edward Gray 
 
 JANUARY TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 Love that hath us in the net, 
 Can he pass, and we forget? 
 Many suns arise and set. 
 Many a chance the years beget. 
 Love the gift is Love the debt. 
 
 Even so. 
 
 The Miller s Daughter 
 
 JANUARY TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 Love is hurt with jar and fret. 
 Love is made a vague regret. 
 Eyes with idle tears are wet. 
 Idle habit links us yet. 
 What is love ? for we forget : 
 
 Ah, no ! no ! 
 
 The Miller's Daughter 
 
 JANUARY TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 Forgive! How many will say, "forgive," and 
 
 find 
 
 A sort of absolution in the sound 
 To hate a little longer ! No ; the sin 
 That neither God nor man can well forgive, 
 
 Hypocrisy, I saw it in him at once. 
 
 Sea Dreams 
 
 [8]
 
 JANUARY TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 Overquick art thou 
 
 To catch a loathly plume fall'n from the wing 
 Of that foul bird of rapine whose whole prey 
 
 Is man's good name. 
 
 Vinrien 
 
 JANUARY TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 The world will not believe a man repents : 
 And this wise world of ours is mainly right. 
 Full seldom does a man repent, or use 
 Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch 
 Of blood and custom wholly out of him, 
 And make all clean, and plant himself afresh. 
 
 Enid 
 
 JANUARY TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 Ah yet, tho' all the world forsake, 
 
 Tho' fortune clip my wings, 
 I will not cramp my heart, nor take 
 
 Half-views of men and things. 
 
 Will Waterproof^s Monologue 
 
 JANUARY THIRTIETH 
 
 O we will walk this world, 
 Yoked in all exercise of noble end, 
 And so thro' those dark gates across the wild 
 
 That no man knows. 
 
 The Princess 
 
 [9]
 
 JANUARY THIRTY-FIRST 
 
 In vain shalt thou, or any, call 
 
 The spirits from their golden day, 
 Except, like them, thou too canst say 
 
 My spirit is at peace with all. 
 
 They haunt the silence of the breast, 
 Imaginations calm and fair, 
 The memory like a cloudless air, 
 
 The conscience as a sea at rest : 
 
 But when the heart is full of din, 
 
 And doubt beside the portal waits, 
 They can but listen at the gates, 
 
 And hear the household jar within. 
 
 In Mcmoriam 
 
 I I0 ]
 
 FEBRUARY 
 
 
 
 FEBRUARY FIRST 
 
 WHEN cats run home and light is come, 
 And dew is cold upon the ground, 
 And the far-off stream is dumb, 
 And the whirring sail goes round, 
 And the whirring sail goes round ; 
 Alone and warming his five wits, 
 The white owl in the belfry sits. 
 
 The White Owl 
 
 FEBRUARY SECOND 
 
 Every day hath its night: 
 Every night its morn : 
 Thorough dark and bright 
 Winged hours are borne; 
 
 Ah ! welaway ! 
 Seasons flower and fade; 
 Golden calm and storm 
 
 Mingle day by day. 
 There is no bright form 
 Doth not cast a shade 
 Ah ! welaway !
 
 FEBRUARY THIRD 
 
 God gives us love. Something to love 
 
 He lends us ; but, when love is grown 
 To ripeness, that on which it throve 
 
 Falls off, and love is left alone. 
 
 To J. S. 
 
 FEBRUARY FOURTH 
 
 Love thou thy land, with love far-brought 
 From out the storied Past, and used 
 Within the Present, but transfused 
 Thro' future time by power of thought. 
 
 "Love Thou 'Thy Land" 
 
 FEBRUARY FIFTH 
 
 Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, 
 These three alone lead life to sovereign power. 
 Yet not for power, (power of herself 
 Would come uncall'd for,) but to live by law, 
 A6ling the law we live by without fear; 
 And, because right is right, to follow right 
 
 Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence. 
 
 (Enone 
 
 FEBRUARY SIXTH 
 
 What good should follow this, if this were done? 
 What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey, 
 Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 
 Were it well to obey then, if a king demand 
 An al unprofitable, against himself? 
 
 Morte D" Arthur
 
 FEBRUARY SEVENTH 
 
 Deliver not the tasks of might * 
 
 To weakness, neither hide the ray 
 From those, not blind, who wait for day, 
 
 Tho' sitting girt with doubtful light. 
 
 "Love Thou Thy Land" 
 FEBRUARY EIGHTH 
 
 Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, for- 
 ward let us range. 
 
 Let the great world spin for ever down the ring- 
 ing grooves of change. 
 
 Locksley Hall 
 
 FEBRUARY NINTH 
 
 Nothing will die; 
 All things will change 
 Through eternity. 
 
 'Tis the world's winter; 
 Autumn and summer 
 
 Are gone long ago. 
 
 Nothing Will Die 
 
 FEBRUARY TENTH 
 
 All thoughts, all creeds, all dreams are true, 
 
 All visions wild and strange ; 
 Man is the measure of all truth 
 
 Unto himself. All truth is change: 
 
 All men do walk in sleep, and all 
 Have faith in that they dream : 
 
 [ 13]
 
 For all things are as they seem to all, 
 f And all things flow like a stream. 
 
 01 ptoires 
 
 FEBRUARY ELEVENTH 
 
 My name, once mine, now thine, is closelier 
 
 mine, 
 For fame, could fame be mine, that fame were 
 
 thine, 
 
 And shame, could shame be thine, that shame 
 were mine. 
 
 So trust me not at all or all in all. 
 
 Fvuien 
 
 FEBRUARY TWELFTH 
 
 In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours. 
 Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers: 
 Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all. 
 
 It is the little rift within the lute, 
 That by and by will make the music mute, 
 And ever widening slowly silence all. 
 
 Vivien 
 
 FEBRUARY THIRTEENTH 
 "Thro' slander, meanest spawn of Hell 
 
 (And women's slander is the worst), 
 And you, whom once I loved so well, 
 Thro' you, my life will be accurst."
 
 I spoke with heart, and heat and force, 
 
 I shook her breast with vague alarms 
 Like torrents from a mountain source 
 
 We rush'd into each other's arms. 
 
 The Letter* 
 
 FEBRUARY FOURTEENTH 
 
 We parted : sweetly gleam'd the stars, 
 And sweet the vapour-braided blue, 
 Low breezes fann'd the belfry bars, 
 
 As homeward by the church I drew. 
 The very graves appear'd to smile, 
 
 So fresh they rose in shadow'd swells; 
 "Dark porch,"! said, "and silent aisle, 
 
 There comes a sound of marriage bells." 
 
 The Letters 
 
 FEBRUARY FIFTEENTH 
 
 Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in 
 
 his glowing hands ; 
 Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden 
 
 sands. 
 
 Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all 
 
 the chords with might; 
 Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in 
 
 music out of sight. 
 
 Lockiley Hall 
 
 I '5 j
 
 FEBRUARY SIXTEENTH 
 
 All precious things, discover'd late, 
 To those that seek them issue forth ; 
 
 For love in sequel works with fate, 
 
 And draws the veil from hidden worth. 
 
 The Day Dream 
 
 FEBRUARY SEVENTEENTH 
 
 What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon 
 
 days like these? 
 Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to 
 
 golden keys. 
 
 Locksley Hall 
 
 FEBRUARY EIGHTEENTH 
 
 Cursed be the social wants that sin against the 
 
 strength of youth ! 
 Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the 
 
 living truth ! 
 
 Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest 
 Nature's rule ! 
 
 Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd fore- 
 head of the fool ! 
 
 Locksley Hall 
 
 FEBRUARY NINETEENTH 
 
 A still small voice spake unto me, 
 "Thou art so full of misery, 
 Were it not better not to be?" 
 
 [ '6 j
 
 Then to the still small voice I said, 
 "Let me not cast in endless shade 
 
 What is so wonderfully made." 
 
 The Two Voices 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTIETH 
 
 "If all be dark, vague voice," I said, 
 "These things are wrapt in doubt and dread, 
 Nor canst thou show the dead are dead. 
 
 "The sap dries up: the plant declines. 
 A deeper tale my heart divines." 
 
 The T<uuo Pokes 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 
 
 Thou madest man, he knows not why ; 
 He thinks he was not made to die; 
 And thou hast made him : thou art just. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 And me this knowledge bolder made, 
 
 Or else I had not dared to flow 
 In these words toward you, and invade 
 
 Even with a verse your holy woe. 
 
 'T is strange that those we lean on most, 
 
 Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed, 
 Fall into shadow, soonest lost: 
 
 Those we love first are taken first. 
 
 To J. S. 
 
 [ '7]
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 Behold, we know not anything; 
 
 I can but trust that good shall fall 
 At last far off at last, to all, 
 
 And every winter change to spring. 
 
 So runs my dream : but what am I ? 
 An infant crying in the night : 
 An infant crying for the light : 
 
 And with no language but a cry. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 They never learned to love who never knew to 
 
 weep. 
 
 Love and Sorrow 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 " Forward, the Light Brigade ! " 
 Was there a man dismay'd? 
 Not tho' the soldier knew 
 
 Some one had blunder'd : 
 Their's not to make reply, 
 Their's not to reason why, 
 Their's but to do and die, 
 Into the valley of Death 
 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 
 'The Charge of the Light Brigade 
 
 [ 18]
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 FcTr once, when I was up so high in pride 
 That I was halfway down the slope to Hell, 
 By overthrowing me you threw me higher. 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 " Not war, if possible, 
 
 king," I said, "lest from the abuse of war, 
 The desecrated shrine, the trampled year, [flower 
 The smouldering homestead, and the household 
 Torn from the lintel all the common wrong 
 A smoke go up thro' which I loom to her 
 
 Three times a monster." 
 
 The Princes* 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that 
 
 Honour feels, 
 And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each 
 
 other's heels. 
 
 Locksley Hall 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 Let the sweet heavens endure, 
 
 Not close and darken above me 
 Before I am quite quite sure 
 
 That there is one to love me ; 
 Then let come what come may 
 To a life that has been so sad, 
 
 1 shall have had my day. 
 
 Maud
 
 MARCH 
 
 
 
 
 MARCH FIRST 
 
 HE spoke among you, and the Man who 
 spoke ; 
 
 Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, 
 Nor palter'd with Eternal God for power; 
 Who let the turbid streams of rumour flow 
 Thro' either babbling world of high and low; 
 Whose life was work, whose language rife 
 With rugged maxims hewn from life ; 
 Who never spoke against a foe 
 
 Ode on the Death of Wellington 
 
 MARCH SECOND 
 
 The path of duty was the way to glory: 
 
 He, that ever following her commands, 
 
 On with toil of heart and knees and hands, 
 
 Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won 
 
 His path upward, and prevail'd, 
 
 Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 
 
 Are close upon the shining table-lands 
 
 To which our God Himself is moon and sun. 
 
 Ode on the Death of Wellington 
 
 ['
 
 MARCH THIRD 
 
 O lift your natures up : 
 
 Embrace our aims : work out your freedom. Girls. 
 Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal'd : 
 Drink deep, until the habits of the slave, 
 The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite 
 And slander, die. Better not be at all 
 
 Than not be noble. 
 
 The Princess 
 
 MARCH FOURTH 
 
 Like men, like manners : like breeds like, they say. 
 Kind nature is the best : those manners next 
 That fit us like a nature second-hand ; 
 Which are indeed the manners of the great. 
 
 Walking to the Mail 
 
 MARCH FIFTH 
 
 Will some one say, then why not ill for good ? 
 Why took ye not your pastime? To that man 
 My work shall answer, since I knew the right 
 And did it ; for a man is not as God, 
 But then most Godlike being most a man. 
 
 Love and Duty 
 
 MARCH SIXTH 
 
 Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know 
 The woman's cause is man's : they rise or sink 
 Together, dwarf d or godlike, bond or free : 
 For she that out of Lethe scales with man
 
 The shining steps of Nature, shares with man 
 His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal, 
 Stays all the fair young planet in her hands 
 If she be small, slight-natured, miserable, 
 How shall men grow ? 
 
 The Princess 
 
 MARCH SEVENTH 
 
 Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres 
 
 I find a magic bark ; 
 I leap on board : no helmsman steers: 
 
 I float till all is dark. 
 A gentle sound, an awful light ! 
 
 Three angels bear the holy Grail: 
 With folded feet, in stoles of white, 
 
 On sleeping wings they sail. 
 Ah, blessed vision ! blood of God ! 
 
 My spirit beats her mortal bars, 
 As down dark tides the glory slides, 
 
 And star-like mingles with the stars. 
 
 Sir Galahad 
 
 MARCH EIGHTH 
 
 Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the 
 
 younger day : 
 
 Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. 
 
 Locksley Hall 
 
 MARCH NINTH 
 
 For the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid by 
 the veil.
 
 Who knows the ways of the world, how God will 
 
 bring them about ? 
 Our planet is one, the suns are many, the world 
 
 is wide. 
 Shall I weep if a Poland fall? shall I shriek if a 
 
 Hungary fail? 
 Or an infant civilization be ruled with rod or with 
 
 knout ? 
 I have not made the world, and He that made it 
 
 will guide. 
 
 Maud 
 
 MARCH TENTH 
 
 Heaven weeps above the earth all night till morn, 
 In darkness weeps, as all ashamed to weep, 
 Because the earth hath made her state forlorn 
 With self-wrought evils of unnumbered years, 
 And doth the fruit of her dishonour reap. 
 And all the day heaven gathers back her tears 
 Into her own blue eyes so clear and deep, 
 And showering down the glory of lightsome day, 
 Smiles on the earth's worn brow to win her if she 
 
 may. 
 
 The Tears of Heaven 
 
 MARCH ELEVENTH 
 
 O thou, new-year, delaying long, 
 
 Delayest the sorrow in my blood, 
 That longs to burst a frozen bud, 
 
 And flood a fresher throat with song. 
 
 In Memoriam
 
 MARCH TWELFTH 
 , Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers and he 
 
 bears a laden breast, 
 Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness 
 
 of his rest. 
 
 Locksley Hall 
 
 MARCH THIRTEENTH 
 
 Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing pur- 
 pose runs, 
 And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the 
 
 process of the suns. 
 
 Locksley Hall 
 
 MARCH FOURTEENTH 
 
 Think you this mould of hopes and fears 
 Could find no statelier than his peers 
 
 In yonder hundred million spheres ? 
 
 The Tnvo Voice* 
 
 MARCH FIFTEENTH 
 
 Would that my gloomed fancy were 
 
 'As thine, my mother, when with brows 
 
 Propped on thy knees, my hands upheld 
 
 In thine, I listened to thy vows, 
 
 For me outpoured in holiest prayer 
 
 For me unworthy! and beheld 
 
 Thy mild deep eyes upraised, that knew 
 
 The beauty and repose of faith, 
 
 And the clear spirit shining through. 
 
 Oh ! wherefore do we grow awry 
 
 From toots which strike so deep? 
 
 [25] Supposed Confessions
 
 MARCH SIXTEENTH 
 
 But help me, heaven, for surely I repent. 
 For what is true repentance but in thought 
 Not ev'n in inmost thought to think again 
 The sins that made the past so pleasant to us : 
 And I have sworn never to see him more, 
 
 To see him more. 
 
 Guinevere 
 
 MARCH SEVENTEENTH 
 
 The little rift within the lover's lute, 
 Or little pitted speck in garner'd fruit, 
 
 That rotting inward slowly moulders all. 
 
 Vivien 
 
 MARCH EIGHTEENTH 
 
 Comfort ? comfort scorn'd of devils ! this is truth 
 
 the poet sings, 
 That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering 
 
 happier things. 
 
 Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy 
 
 heart be put to proof, 
 In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is 
 
 on the roof. 
 
 Locksley Hall 
 
 MARCH NINETEENTH 
 
 I remember one that perish'd : sweetly did she 
 
 speak and move : 
 Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was 
 
 to love. 
 
 [26]
 
 Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the 
 
 love she bore ? 
 No she never loved me truly : love is love for 
 
 evermore. 
 
 Locksley Hall 
 
 MARCH TWENTIETH 
 
 What words are these have fall'n from me? 
 
 Can calm despair and wild unrest 
 
 Be tenants of a single breast, 
 Or sorrow such a changeling be? 
 
 Or doth she only seem to take 
 
 The touch of change in calm or storm ; 
 
 But knows no more of transient form 
 In her deep self, than some dead lake 
 
 That holds the shadow of a lark 
 
 Hung in the shadow of a heaven ? 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 MARCH TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 'Twere better not to breathe or speak, 
 Than cry for strength, remaining weak, 
 And seem to find, but still to seek. 
 
 Moreover, but to seem to find 
 
 Asks what thou lackest, thought resign'd, 
 
 A healthy frame, a quiet mind. 
 
 The Two Voices
 
 MARCH TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 Deep on the convent-roof the snows 
 
 Are sparkling to the moon : 
 My breath to heaven like vapour goes: 
 
 May my soul follow soon ! 
 The shadows of the convent-towers 
 
 Slant down the snowy sward, 
 Still creeping with the creeping hours 
 
 That lead me to my Lord : 
 Make Thou my spirit pure and clear 
 
 As are the frosty skies, 
 Or this first snowdrop of the year 
 
 That in my bosom lies. 
 
 St. Agnes' Eve 
 
 MARCH TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 I dream'd there would be Spring no more, 
 That Nature's ancient power was lost : 
 The streets were black with smoke and frost, 
 
 They chatter'd trifles at the door. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 MARCH TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 Strong Son of God, immortal Love, 
 
 Whom we, that have not seen thy face, 
 By faith, and faith alone, embrace, 
 
 Believing where we cannot prove; 
 
 Thine are these orbs of light and shade ; 
 Thou madest Life in man and brute; 
 
 [28]
 
 Thou madest Death ; and lo, thy foot 
 Is on the skull which thou hast made. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 MARCH TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind, 
 And in her bosom bore the baby, Sleep. 
 
 The Gardener's Daughter 
 
 MARCH TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 Shall we not look into the laws 
 
 Of life and death, and things that seem, 
 
 And things that be, and analyze 
 
 Our double nature, and compare 
 
 All creeds till we have found the one, 
 
 If one there be? 
 
 Supposed Confessions 
 
 MARCH TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 It is man's privilege to doubt, 
 If so be that from doubt at length, 
 Truth may stand forth unmoved of change, 
 An image with profulgent brows, 
 And perfect limbs, as from the storm 
 Of running fires and fluid range 
 Of lawless airs, at last stood out 
 This excellence and solid form 
 
 Of constant beauty. 
 
 Supposed Confessions 
 
 09]
 
 MARCH TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 He fought his doubts and gather'd strength, 
 He would not make his judgement blind, 
 He faced the speclres of the mind 
 
 And laid them : thus he came at length 
 
 To find a stronger faith his own ; 
 
 And Power was with him in the night, 
 Which makes the darkness and the light, 
 
 And dwells not in the light alone. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 MARCH TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 Altho' I be the basest of mankind, 
 
 From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin, 
 
 Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet 
 
 For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy, 
 
 I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold 
 
 Of saintdom, and to clamour, mourn and sob, 
 
 Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer, 
 
 Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin. 
 
 St. Simeon Stylites 
 
 MARCH THIRTIETH 
 
 And all is well, tho' faith and form 
 Be sunder'd in the night of fear; 
 Well roars the storm to those that hear 
 
 A deeper voice across the storm. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 [30]
 
 MARCH THIRTY-FIRST 
 
 When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, 
 
 And rarely pipes the mounted thrush ; 
 
 Or underneath the barren bush 
 Flits by the sea-blue bird of March. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 [31]
 
 APRIL 
 
 APRIL FIRST 
 
 TAKE warning! he that will not sing 
 While yon sun prospers in the blue, 
 Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new, 
 
 Caught in the frozen palms of Spring. 
 
 The Blackbird 
 
 APRIL SECOND 
 
 I am any man's suitor, 
 
 If any will be my tutor: 
 Some say this life is pleasant, 
 
 Some think it speedeth fast: 
 In time there is no present, 
 
 In eternity no future, 
 
 In eternity no past. 
 
 We laugh, we cry, we are born, we die, 
 Who will riddle me the how and the why? 
 
 The //ow" and the "Why" 
 APRIL THIRD 
 
 The fresh-flushing springtime calls 
 
 To the flooding waters cool, 
 
 Young fishes, on an April morn, 
 
 Up and down a rapid river, 
 
 Leap the little waterfalls 
 
 That sing into the pebbled pool. ,. , 
 
 [33]
 
 APRIL FOURTH 
 
 So many worlds, so much to do, 
 
 So little done, such things to be, 
 How know I what had need of thee, 
 For thou wert strong as thou wert true ? 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 APRIL FIFTH 
 
 Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn, 
 
 Draw forth the cheerful day from night : 
 O Father, touch the east, and light 
 
 The light that shone when Hope was born. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 APRIL SIXTH 
 
 Do we indeed desire the dead 
 
 Should still be near us at our side ? 
 Is there no baseness we would hide? 
 
 No inner vileness that we dread ? 
 
 Shall he for whose applause I strove, 
 
 I had such reverence for his blame, 
 See with clear eye some hidden shame 
 
 And I be lessen 'd in his love? 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 [34]
 
 APRIL SEVENTH 
 
 Morn in the white wake of the morning star 
 Came furrowing all the orient into gold. 
 
 The Princesi 
 
 APRIL EIGHTH 
 
 Like souls that balance joy and pain, 
 With tears and smiles from heaven again 
 The maiden Spring upon the plain 
 Came in a sunlit fall of rain. 
 
 In crystal vapour everywhere 
 Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between, 
 And, far in forest-deeps unseen, 
 The topmost elm-tree gather'd green 
 
 From draughts of balmy air. 
 
 Sir Launcelot and <%ueen Guinevere 
 
 APRIL NINTH 
 
 Now fades the last long streak of snow, 
 Now burgeons every maze of quick 
 About the flowering squares, and thick 
 
 By ashen roots the violets blow. 
 
 Now rings the woodland loud and long, 
 The distance takes a lovelier hue, 
 And drown'd in yonder living blue 
 
 The lark becomes a sightless song. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 ( 35]
 
 APRIL TENTH 
 
 Earth is dry to the centre, 
 But spring, a new comer, 
 A spring rich and strange, 
 
 Shall make the winds blow 
 Round and round, 
 
 Through and through, 
 Here and there, 
 Till the air 
 And the ground 
 
 Shall be filled with life anew. 
 
 Nothing Will Die 
 
 APRIL ELEVENTH 
 
 O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this 
 
 day is done 
 The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond 
 
 the sun 
 For ever and for ever with those just souls and 
 
 true 
 And what is life, that we should moan ? why make 
 
 we such ado? 
 
 'The May Queen 
 
 APRIL TWELFTH 
 
 Our voices took a higher range ; 
 
 Once more we sang: "They do not die 
 Nor lose their mortal sympathy, 
 
 Nor change to us, although they change." 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 [36]
 
 APRIL THIRTEENTH 
 
 Courage, St. Simeon ! This dull chrysalis 
 Cracks into shining wings, and hope ere death 
 Spreads more and more and more, that God hath 
 
 now 
 Sponged and made blank of crimeful record all 
 
 My mortal archives. 
 
 St. Simeon Stylites 
 
 APRIL FOURTEENTH 
 
 O well for him whose will is strong ! 
 
 He suffers, but he will not suffer long ; 
 
 He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong : 
 
 For him nor moves the loud world's random mock, 
 
 Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound, 
 
 Who seems a promontory of rock, 
 
 That, compass'd round with turbulent sound, 
 
 In middle ocean meets the surging shock, 
 
 Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown'd. 
 
 mil 
 
 APRIL FIFTEENTH 
 
 But ill for him who, bettering not with time, 
 
 Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will, 
 
 And ever weaker grows thro' afted crime, 
 
 Or seeming-genial venial fault, 
 
 Recurring and suggesting still ! 
 
 He seems as one whose footsteps halt, 
 
 Toiling in immeasurable sand, 
 
 [ 37]
 
 And o'er a weary sultry land, 
 
 Far beneath a blazing vault, 
 
 Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill, 
 
 The city sparkles like a grain of salt. 
 
 mil 
 
 APRIL SIXTEENTH 
 
 A love still burning upward, giving light 
 To read those laws; an accent very low 
 In blandishment, but a most silver flow 
 Of subtle-paced counsel in distress, 
 Right to the heart and brain, tho' undescried, 
 
 Winning its way with extreme gentleness 
 Thro' all the outworks of suspicious pride ; 
 A courage to endure and to obey; 
 A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway, 
 Crown'd Isabel, thro' all her placid life, 
 The queen of marriage, a most perfe6t wife. 
 
 Isabel 
 APRIL SEVENTEENTH 
 
 For woman is not undevelopt man, 
 
 But diverse : could we make her as the man, 
 
 Sweet love were slain : his dearest bond is this, 
 
 Not like to like, but like in difference. 
 
 The Princess 
 
 APRIL EIGHTEENTH 
 
 Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere 
 Of common duties, decent not to fail 
 In offices of tenderness, and pay 
 
 Meet adoration to my household gods. 
 
 Ulysses 
 [38]
 
 APRJL NINETEENTH 
 
 The wish, that of the living whole 
 
 No life may fail beyond the grave; 
 Derives it not from what we have 
 
 The likest God within the soul? 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 APRIL TWENTIETH 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 I know you proud to bear your name, 
 Your pride is yet no mate for mine, 
 
 Too proud to care from whence I came. 
 Nor would I break for your sweet sake 
 
 A heart that doats on truer charms. 
 A simple maiden in her flower 
 
 Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere 
 
 APRIL TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 So dark a mind within me dwells, 
 
 And I make myself such evil cheer, 
 That if I be dear to some one else, 
 
 Then some one else may have much to fear, 
 But if I be dear to some one else, 
 
 Then I should be to myself more dear. 
 Shall I not take care of all that I think, 
 Yea ev'n of wretched meat and drink, 
 If I be dear, 
 
 If I be dear to some one else. 
 
 Maud 
 
 [39]
 
 APRIL TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 "What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?" I cried. 
 "A hidden hope," the voice replied: 
 
 So heavenly-toned, that in that hour 
 From out my sullen heart a power 
 Broke, like the rainbow from the shower, 
 
 To feel, altho' no tongue can prove, 
 That every cloud, that spreads above 
 
 And veileth love, itself is love. 
 
 The T'-wo Voices 
 
 APRIL TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 Cry, faint not : either Truth is born 
 Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, 
 
 Or in the gateways of the morn. 
 
 The Two Voices 
 
 APRIL TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 Dip down upon the northern shore, 
 
 O sweet new-year delaying long; 
 
 Thou doest expedtant nature wrong ; 
 Delaying long, delay no more. 
 
 What stays thee from the clouded noons, 
 Thy sweetness from its proper place? 
 Can trouble live with April days, 
 
 Or sadness in the summer moons? 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 [40]
 
 APRIL TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 The path by which we twain did go, 
 
 Which led by tradts that pleased us well, 
 Thro' four sweet years arose and fell, 
 From flower to flower, from snow to snow : 
 
 And we with singing cheer'd the way, 
 
 And crown'd with all the season lent, 
 From April on to April went, 
 
 And glad at heart from May to May. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 APRIL TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 Who can say 
 
 Why To-day 
 To-morrow will be yesterday? 
 
 Who can tell 
 
 Why to smell 
 
 The violet, recalls the dewy prime 
 Of youth and buried time? 
 
 The cause is nowhere found in rhyme. 
 
 Song 
 
 APRIL TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 The smell of violets, hidden in the green, 
 
 Pour'd back into my empty soul and frame 
 The times when I remember to have been 
 
 Joyful and free from blame. 
 
 A Dream of Fair Women
 
 APRIL TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 Is it, then, regret for buried time 
 
 That keenlier in sweet April wakes, 
 And meets the year, and gives and takes 
 
 The colours of the crescent prime ? 
 
 Not all : the songs, the stirring air, 
 The life re-orient out of dust, 
 Cry thro' the sense to hearten trust 
 
 In that which made the world so fair. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 APRIL TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the 
 robin's breast ; 
 
 In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself an- 
 other crest ; 
 
 In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the bur- 
 
 nish'd dove ; 
 In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns 
 
 to thoughts of love. 
 
 Locksley Hall 
 
 APRIL THIRTIETH 
 
 You must wake and call me early, call me early, 
 
 mother dear ; 
 To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad 
 
 New-year ;
 
 Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest 
 
 merriest day ; 
 For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to 
 
 be Queen o' the May. 
 
 The May Queen 
 
 [ 43 J
 
 ) ^v*v / 
 
 MAY 
 
 MAY FIRST 
 
 THE night-winds come and go, mother, upon 
 the meadow-grass, 
 And the happy stars above them seem to brighten 
 
 as they pass ; 
 There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the 
 
 live-long day, 
 And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm 
 
 to be Queen o' the May. 
 
 The May Queen 
 
 MAY SECOND 
 
 Fair year, with brows of royal love 
 
 Thou comest, as a king. 
 All in the bloomed May. 
 Thy golden largess fling, 
 And longer hear us sing; 
 Though thou art fleet of wing, 
 
 Yet stay. 
 Alas ! that eyes so full of light 
 
 Should be so wandering ! 
 
 Song 
 
 I 45]
 
 MAY THIRD 
 
 Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire, 
 The little speedwell's darling blue, 
 Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew, 
 
 Laburnums, dropping- wells of fire. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 MAY FOURTH 
 
 The path of duty was the way to glory : 
 He that walks it, only thirsting 
 For the right, and learns to deaden 
 Love of self, before his journey closes, 
 He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 
 Into glossy purples, which outredden 
 All voluptuous garden-roses. 
 
 Ode on the Death of Wellington 
 
 MAY FIFTH 
 
 And I must work thro' months of toil, 
 
 And years of cultivation, 
 Upon my proper patch of soil 
 
 To grow my own plantation. 
 I'll take the showers as they fall, 
 
 I will not vex my bosom : 
 Enough if at the end of all 
 
 A little garden blossom. 
 
 Amphion 
 
 MAY SIXTH 
 
 I wonder'd, while I paced along : 
 
 The woods were fill'd so full with song, 
 
 There seem'd no room for sense of wrong.
 
 So variously seem'd all things wrought, 
 I marvell'd how the mind was brought 
 Xo anchor by one gloomy thought. 
 
 "The Two Voice* 
 
 MAY SEVENTH 
 
 The varying year with blade and sheaf 
 Clothes and reclothes the happy plains; 
 
 Here rests the sap within the leaf, 
 Here stays the blood along the veins. 
 
 Faint shadows, vapours lightly curl'd, 
 
 Faint murmurs from the meadows come, 
 
 Like hints and echoes of the world 
 
 To spirits folded in the womb. 
 
 The Day-Dream 
 
 MAY EIGHTH 
 
 A million emeralds break from the ruby-budded 
 lime 
 
 In the little grove where I sit ah, wherefore can- 
 not I be 
 
 Like things of the season gay, like the bountiful 
 season bland, 
 
 When the far-off sail is blown by the breeze of 
 a softer clime, 
 
 Half-lost in the liquid azure bloom of a crescent 
 of sea, 
 
 The silent sapphire-spangled marriage ring of the 
 
 land? 
 
 Maud 
 
 [47]
 
 MAY NINTH 
 
 All the land in flowery squares, 
 Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind, 
 Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud 
 Drew downward : but all else of Heaven was pure 
 Up to the Sun, and May from verge to verge, 
 And May with me from head to heel. 
 
 The Gardeners Daughter 
 
 MAY TENTH 
 
 Many a morning on the moorland did we hear 
 
 the copses ring, 
 
 And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the full- 
 ness of the Spring. 
 
 Locksley Hall 
 
 MAY ELEVENTH 
 
 Mine be the strength of spirit fierce and free, 
 Like some broad river rushing down alone, 
 With the selfsame impulse wherewith he was 
 
 thrown 
 
 From his loud fount upon the echoing lea: 
 Which with increasing might doth forward flee 
 By town, and tower, and hill, and cape, and isle, 
 And in the middle of the green salt sea 
 Keeps his blue waters fresh for many a mile. 
 
 Sonnet
 
 MAY TWELFTH 
 
 Mine be the Power which ever to its sway 
 Will win the wise at once, and by degrees 
 May into uncongenial spirits flow; 
 Even as the great gulfstream of Florida 
 Floats far away into the Northern seas 
 The lavish growths of southern Mexico. _ 
 
 MAY THIRTEENTH 
 
 Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing 
 
 Under my eye ; 
 Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing 
 
 Over the sky. 
 
 One after another the white clouds are Meeting; 
 Every heart this May morning in joyance is beat- 
 Full merrily; [ing 
 Yet all things must die. 
 The stream will cease to flow ; 
 The wind will cease to blow; 
 The clouds will cease to fleet ; 
 The heart will cease to beat; 
 
 For all things must die. . ^ L . ,. p.. 
 
 All Things Will Die 
 
 MAY FOURTEENTH 
 
 Oh teach me yet 
 Somewhat before the heavy clod 
 Weighs on me, and the busy fret 
 Of that sharp-headed worm begins 
 In the gross blackness underneath. 
 
 r -i Supposed Confessions
 
 MAY FIFTEENTH 
 
 My own dim life should teach me this, 
 That life shall live for evermore, 
 Else earth is darkness at the core, 
 
 And dust and ashes all that is. 
 
 In Memonam 
 
 MAY SIXTEENTH 
 
 Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace: 
 
 Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, 
 While the stars burn, the moons increase, 
 
 And the great ages onward roll. 
 
 Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet. 
 
 Nothing comes to thee new or strange. 
 blceo full of rest from head to feet; 
 
 Lie still, dry oust, secure of change. 
 
 To J. S 
 
 MAY SEVENTEENTH 
 
 We are puppets, Man in his pride, and Beauty 
 fair in her flower ; 
 
 Do we move ourselves, or are moved by an un- 
 seen hand at a game 
 
 That pushes us off from the board, and others ever 
 succeed ? 
 
 Ah yet, we cannot be kind to each other here for 
 an hour ; 
 
 We whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin at a 
 brother's shame ; 
 
 However we brave it out, we men are a little breed. 
 
 [- 50 j Maud
 
 MAY EIGHTEENTH 
 
 And the parson made it his text that week, and 
 he said likewise, 
 
 That a lie which is half a truth is ever the black- 
 est of lies, 
 
 That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought 
 with outright, 
 
 But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter 
 
 to fight. 
 
 The Grandmother s Apology 
 
 MAY NINETEENTH 
 
 Arise, my God, and strike, for we hold Thee just, 
 Strike dead the whole weak race of venomous 
 
 worms, 
 That sting each other here in the dust; 
 
 We are not worthy to live. 
 
 Maud 
 
 MAY TWENTIETH 
 
 These are slanders : never yet 
 Was noble man but made ignoble talk. 
 
 Elaine 
 
 MAY TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 Thy leaf has perish'd in the green, 
 
 And, while we breathe beneath the sun, 
 The world which credits what is done 
 
 Is cold to all that might have been.
 
 So here shall silence guard thy fame ; 
 
 But somewhere, out of human view, 
 Whate'er thy hands are set to do 
 
 Is wrought with tumult of acclaim. , . . 
 
 In Memonam 
 
 MAY TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go? 
 Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? 
 For now I see the true old times are dead, 
 When every morning brought a noble chance, 
 And every chance brought out a noble knight. 
 Such times have been not since the light that led 
 The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
 But now the whole ROUND TABLE is dissolved 
 Which was an image of the mighty world ; 
 And I, the last, go forth companionless, 
 And the days darken round me, and the years, 
 Among new men, strange faces, other minds. 
 
 Morte D' Arthur 
 MAY TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 
 To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use ! 
 As tho' to breathe were life. 
 
 Ulysses 
 
 MAY TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 Meet is it changes should control 
 
 Our being, -lest we rust in ease. 
 
 We all are changed by still degrees, 
 All but the basis of the soul. 
 
 "Love Thou Thy Land" 
 [ 5* ]
 
 MAY TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 Where she, who kept a tender Christian hope 
 Haunting a holy text, and still to that 
 Returning, as the bird returns, at night, 
 "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath," 
 Said, "Love, forgive him:" but he did not speak; 
 And silenced by that silence lay the wife, 
 Remembering our dear Lord who died for all, 
 And musing on the little lives of men, 
 And how they mar this little by their feuds. 
 
 Sea Dreams 
 
 MAY TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 The little hearts that know not how to forgive. 
 
 Maud 
 
 MAY TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 For mockery is the fume of little hearts. 
 And blessed be the King, who hath forgiven 
 My wickedness to him, and left me hope 
 That in mine own heart I can live down sin 
 And be his mate hereafter in the heavens 
 
 Before high God. 
 
 Guinevere 
 
 MAY TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 Cry, faint not, climb : the summits slope 
 Beyond the furthest flights of hope, 
 Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope. 
 
 The Two Voices 
 
 [53]
 
 MAY TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 Yet all experience is an arch wherethro', 
 Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades 
 
 Forever and forever when I move. 
 
 Ulysses 
 
 MAY THIRTIETH 
 
 "Dead ? he ? of heart-disease ? what heart had he 
 To die of? dead!" 
 
 "Ah, dearest, if there be 
 A devil in man, there is an angel too, 
 And if he did that wrong you charge him with, 
 
 His angel broke his heart." 
 
 Sea Dreams 
 
 MAY THIRTY-FIRST 
 
 Ay me ! I fear 
 
 All may not doubt, but everywhere 
 Some must clasp Idols. Yet, my God, 
 Whom call I Idol? Let thy dove 
 Shadow me over, and my sins 
 Be unremembered, and thy love 
 
 Enlighten me. 
 
 Supposed Confessions 
 
 [54]
 
 JUNE 
 
 
 
 
 JUNE FIRST 
 
 SWEET after showers, ambrosial air, 
 That rollest from the gorgeous gloom 
 Of evening over brake and bloom 
 And meadow, slowly breathing bare 
 
 The round of space, and rapt below 
 Thro' all the dewy-tassell'd wood, 
 And shadowing down the horned flood 
 
 In ripples, fan my brows and blow 
 
 The fever from my cheek, and sigh 
 
 The full new life that feeds thy breath 
 Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death, 
 
 111 brethren, let the fancy fly 
 
 From belt to belt of crimson seas 
 
 On leagues of odour streaming far, 
 To where in yonder orient star 
 
 A hundred spirits whisper "Peace." 
 
 /// Memoriam 
 
 [55]
 
 JUNE SECOND 
 
 But any man that walks the mead, 
 
 In bud or blade, or bloom, may find, 
 According as his humours lead, 
 
 A meaning suited to his mind. 
 
 The Day-Dream 
 
 JUNE THIRD 
 
 Sometimes a little corner shines, 
 
 As over rainy mist inclines 
 
 A gleaming crag with belts of pines. 
 
 The Two Volcet 
 
 JUNE FOURTH 
 
 The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee, 
 
 The snake slipt under a spray, 
 The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak, 
 
 And stared, with his foot on the prey, 
 And the nightingale thought, "I have sung many 
 songs, 
 
 But never a one so gay, 
 For he sings of what the world will be 
 
 When the years have died away." 
 
 The Poefs Song 
 
 JUNE FIFTH 
 
 Sometimes the linnet piped his song: 
 Sometimes the throstle whistled strong: 
 Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along, 
 Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong: 
 By grassy capes with fuller sound 
 [ 56]
 
 In curves the yellowing river ran, 
 And drooping chestnut-buds began 
 To spread into the perfedt fan, 
 Above the teeming ground. 
 
 Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere 
 
 JUNE SIXTH 
 
 As she fled fast thro' sun and shade, 
 The happy winds upon her play'd, 
 Blowing the ringlet from the braid : 
 She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd 
 
 The rein with dainty finger-tips, 
 A man had given all other bliss, 
 And all his worldly worth for this, 
 To waste his whole heart in one kiss 
 
 Upon her perfect lips. 
 
 Sir Launctlot and Queen Guinci-tre 
 
 JUNE SEVENTH 
 
 The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good, 
 The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill, 
 And all good things from evil, brought the night. 
 
 Lo<vc and Duty 
 
 JUNE EIGHTH 
 
 And Eustace turn'd, and smiling said to me, 
 "Hear how the bushes echo! by my life, 
 These birds have joyful thoughts. Think you they 
 sing 
 
 [ 57]
 
 Like poets, from the vanity of song? 
 
 Or have they any sense of why they sing? 
 
 And would they praise the heavens for what they 
 
 have ?" 
 
 The Gardeners Daughter 
 
 JUNE NINTH 
 
 And I made answer, "Were there nothing else 
 For which to praise the heavens but only love, 
 That only love were cause enough for praise." 
 
 The Gardener 's Daughter 
 
 JUNE TENTH 
 
 She sleeps: her breathings are not heard 
 
 In palace chambers far apart. 
 The fragrant tresses are not stirr'd 
 
 That lie upon her charmed heart. 
 She sleeps : on either hand upswells 
 
 The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest : 
 She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells 
 
 A perfedl form in perfedt rest. _.. _ 
 
 The Day-Dream 
 
 JUNE ELEVENTH 
 "O eyes long laid in happy sleep!" 
 
 "O happy sleep, that lightly fled !" 
 "O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!" 
 
 "O love, thy kiss would wake the dead !" 
 And o'er them many a flowing range 
 
 Of vapour buoy'd the crescent-bark, 
 And, rapt thro' many a rosy change, 
 
 The twilight died into the dark. _., 
 
 The Day-Dream 
 
 [ 58]
 
 JUNE TWELFTH 
 
 And on her lover's arm she leant, 
 
 And round her waist she felt it fold, 
 And far across the hills they went 
 
 In that new world which is the old : 
 Across the hills, and far away 
 
 Beyond their utmost purple rim, 
 And deep into the dying day 
 
 The happy princess follow'd him. 
 
 'The Day-Dteam 
 
 JUNE THIRTEENTH 
 
 I wonder'd at the bounteous hours, 
 The slow result of winter showers: 
 You scarce could see the grass for flowers. 
 
 The Tnvo Voices 
 
 JUNE FOURTEENTH 
 
 O joy to him in this retreat, 
 
 Immantled in ambrosial dark, 
 To drink the cooler air, and mark 
 The landscape winking through the heat. 
 
 / Memoriam 
 
 JUNE FIFTEENTH 
 
 Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, 
 
 Come hither, the dances are done, 
 In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, 
 
 Queen lily and rose in one; 
 Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, 
 
 To the flowers, and be their sun. Maud 
 
 ( 59]
 
 JUNE SIXTEENTH 
 
 There has fallen a splendid tear 
 
 From the passion-flower at the gate. 
 She is coming, my dove, my dear ; 
 
 She is coming, my life, my fate ; 
 The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near; 
 
 And the white rose weeps, "She is late;" 
 The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;" 
 
 And the lily whispers, "I wait." 
 
 Maud 
 
 JUNE SEVENTEENTH 
 
 She is coming, my own, my sweet; 
 
 Were it ever so airy a tread, 
 My heart would hear her and beat, 
 
 Were it earth in an earthy bed ; 
 My dust would hear her and beat, 
 
 Had I lain for a century dead ; 
 Would start and tremble under her feet, 
 
 And blossom in purple and red. 
 
 Maud 
 
 JUNE EIGHTEENTH 
 
 Dear as remember'd kisses after death, 
 And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd 
 On lips that are for others ; deep as love, 
 Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; 
 O Death in Life, the days that are no more. 
 
 The Princess 
 
 [60] 
 
 .
 
 JUNE NINETEENTH 
 
 I falter where I firmly trod, 
 
 And falling with my weight of cares 
 Upon the great world's altar-stairs 
 
 That slope thro' darkness up to God; 
 
 I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, 
 And gather dust and chaff, and call 
 To what I feel is Lord of all, 
 
 And faintly trust the larger hope. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 JUNE TWENTIETH 
 
 The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: 
 The long day wanes : the slow moon climbs : the 
 
 deep 
 
 Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 
 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. 
 Push off, and sitting well in order smite 
 The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds 
 To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 
 
 Of all the western stars, until I die. 
 
 Ulysses 
 
 JUNE TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 
 And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 
 
 Ulysses 
 
 [61 ]
 
 JUNE TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 Oh yet we trust that somehow good 
 Will be the final goal of ill, 
 To pangs of nature, sins of will, 
 
 Defects of doubt, and taints of blood. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 JUNE TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 That nothing walks with aimless feet ; 
 That not one life shall be destroy'd, 
 Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
 When God hath made the pile complete; 
 
 That not a worm is cloven in vain ; 
 That not a moth v/ith vain desire 
 Is shrivell'd in a fruitless fire, 
 
 Or but subserves another's gain. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 JUNE TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 Like simple noble natures, credulous 
 
 Of what they long for, good in friend or foe, 
 
 There most in those who most have done them ill. 
 
 Enid 
 
 JUNE TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 Whither away, whither away, whither away? fly 
 
 no more. 
 Whither away from the high green field, and the 
 
 happy blossoming shore? 
 [62]
 
 Day and night to the billow the fountain calls ; 
 
 Down shower the gambolling waterfalls 
 
 From wandering over the lea : 
 
 Out of the live-green heart of the dells 
 
 They freshen the silvery-crimson shells, 
 
 And thick with white bells the clover-hill swells 
 
 High over the full-toned sea. 
 
 The Sea Fairies 
 
 JUNE TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat, 
 
 Nor any cloud would cross the vault, 
 But day increased from heat to heat, 
 
 On stony drought and steaming salt; 
 Till now at noon she slept again, 
 
 And seem'd knee-deep in mountain grass, 
 And heard her native breezes pass, 
 And runlets babbling down the glen. 
 
 She breathed in sleep a lower moan, 
 
 And murmuring, as at night and morn, 
 She thought, "My spirit is here alone, 
 Walks forgotten, and is forlorn." 
 
 Mariana in the South 
 
 JUNE TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon 
 Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring 
 The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit 
 Of wisdom. Wait : my faith is large in Time, 
 And that which shapes it to some perfect end. 
 
 Love and Duty
 
 JUNE TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 Flower in the crannied wall, 
 I pluck you out of the crannies, 
 I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
 Little flower but if I could understand 
 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
 I should know what God and man is. 
 
 "Flower in the Crannied Wall' 
 
 JUNE TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite 
 Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love. 
 News from the humming city comes to it 
 In sound of funeral or of marriage bells; 
 And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear 
 The windy clanging of the minster clock ; 
 Although between it and the garden lies 
 A league of grass, wash'd by a slow broad stream, 
 That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar, 
 Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on, 
 Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge 
 Crown'd with the minster-towers. 
 
 The fields between 
 
 Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-udder'd kine, 
 And all about the large lime feathers low, 
 The lime a summer home of murmurous wings. 
 
 The Gardener s Daughter 
 
 [64]
 
 JUNE THIRTIETH 
 
 Airy, fairy Lilian, 
 
 Flitting, fairy Lilian, 
 When I ask her if she love me, 
 Claps her tiny hands above me, 
 
 Laughing all she can ; 
 She'll not tell me if she love me, 
 
 Cruel little Lilian. 
 
 Lilian
 
 JULY 
 
 
 
 JULY FIRST 
 
 A^D brushing ankle-deep in flowers, 
 We heard behind the woodbine veil 
 The milk that bubbled in the pail, 
 
 And buzzings of the honeyed hours. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 JULY SECOND 
 
 Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I 
 
 linger on the shore, 
 And the individual withers, and the world is more 
 
 and more. 
 
 Locksley Hall 
 
 JULY THIRD 
 
 A wind to puff your idol-fires, 
 
 And heap their ashes on the head ; 
 To shame the boast so often made, 
 That we are wiser than our sires. 
 
 "Love 'Thou Thy Land"'' 
 
 JULY FOURTH 
 
 O yet, if Nature's evil star 
 
 Drive men in manhood, as in youth, 
 To follow flying steps of Truth 
 
 Across the brazen bridge of war 
 [67]
 
 If New and Old, disastrous feud. 
 Must ever shock, like armed foes, 
 And this be true, till Time shall close, 
 
 That Principles are rain'd in blood; 
 
 Not yet the wise of heart would cease 
 To hold his hope thro' shame and guilt. 
 But with his hand against the hilt, 
 
 Would pace the troubled land, like Peace. 
 
 "Love Thou Thy Land" 
 
 JULY FIFTH 
 
 Not less, tho' dogs of Faction bay, 
 
 Would serve his kind in deed and word, 
 Certain, if knowledge bring the sword, 
 
 That knowledge takes the sword away. 
 
 "Love Thou Thy Land'" 
 
 JULY SIXTH 
 
 When will the hundred summers die, 
 
 And thought and time be born again, 
 And newer knowledge, drawing nigh, 
 
 Bring truth that sways the soul of men? 
 Here all things in their place remain, 
 
 As all were order'd, ages since. 
 Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain, 
 
 And bring the fated fairy Prince. 
 
 The Day-Dream 
 
 [68]
 
 JULY SEVENTH 
 
 To follow knowledge, like a sinking star, 
 Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 
 
 Ulysses 
 
 JULY EIGHTH 
 
 Life piled on life 
 
 Were all too little, and of one to me 
 Little remains : but every hour is saved 
 From that eternal silence, something more, 
 A bringer of new things. .,, 
 
 JULY NINTH 
 
 At eve a dry cicala sung, 
 
 There came a sound as of the sea ; 
 Backward the lattice-blind she flung, 
 
 And lean'd upon the balcony. 
 There all in spaces rosy-bright 
 
 Large Hesper glitter'd on her tears, 
 And deepening thro' the silent spheres, 
 Heaven over Heaven rose the night. 
 
 And weeping then she made her moan, 
 
 "The night comes on that knows not morn, 
 When I shall cease to be all alone, 
 To live forgotten, and love forlorn." 
 
 Mariana in the South 
 
 JULY TENTH 
 
 Whatever crazy sorrow saith, 
 
 No life that breathes with human breath 
 
 Has ever truly long'd for death.
 
 'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, 
 Oh life, not death, for which we pant; 
 More life, and fuller, that I want. ^ 
 
 JULY ELEVENTH 
 
 Love trebled life within me, and with each 
 The year increased. 
 
 The daughters of the year, 
 One after one, thro' that still garden pass'd : 
 Each garlanded with her peculiar flower 
 Danced into light, and died into the shade. 
 
 The Gardener s Daughter 
 
 JULY TWELFTH 
 
 Ah, one rose, 
 
 One rose, but one, by those fair ringers cull'd, 
 Were worth a hundred kisses press'd on lips 
 Less exquisite than thine. ^ Gafdna , s Daughtir 
 
 JULY THIRTEENTH 
 
 A crowd of hopes, 
 
 That sought to sow themselves like winged seeds, 
 Born out of everything I heard and saw, 
 Flutter'd about my senses and my soul ; 
 And vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm 
 To one that travels quickly, made the air 
 Of Life delicious, and all kinds of thought, 
 That verged upon them, sweeter than the dream 
 Dream'd by a happy man, when the dark East, 
 Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn. 
 
 The Gardeners Daughter 
 [70]
 
 JULY FOURTEENTH 
 
 O Blackbird ! sing me something well: 
 
 While all the neighbours shoot thee round, 
 I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, 
 
 Where thou may'st warble, eat and dwell. 
 
 The espaliers and the standards all 
 
 Are thine ; the range of lawn and park : 
 The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark, 
 
 All thine, against the garden wall. 
 
 The Blackbird 
 
 JULY FIFTEENTH 
 
 He had never kindly heart, 
 Nor ever cared to better his own kind, 
 Who first wrote satire, with no pity in it. 
 
 Sea Dreams 
 
 JULY SIXTEENTH 
 
 The tiny-trumpeting gnat can break our dream 
 When sweetest ; and the vermin voices here 
 May buzz so loud we scorn them, but they sting. 
 
 Elaine 
 
 JULY SEVENTEENTH 
 
 I would dwell with thee, 
 
 Merry grasshopper, 
 Thou art so glad and free, 
 
 And as light as air ;
 
 Thou hast no sorrow or tears, 
 
 Thou hast no compt of years. 
 
 No withered immortality, 
 
 But a short youth sunny and free. ^ Grasshopper 
 
 JULY EIGHTEENTH 
 
 For every worm beneath the moon 
 Draws different threads, and late and soon 
 Spins, toiling out his own cocoon, q-i q- y . 
 
 JULY NINETEENTH 
 
 But were I loved, as I desire to be, 
 What is there in the great sphere of the earth, 
 And range of evil between death and birth, 
 That I should fear, if I were loved by thee? 
 
 Sonnets 
 
 JULY TWENTIETH 
 
 All the inner, all the outer world of pain 
 
 Clear Love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert 
 
 mine, 
 
 As I have heard that, somewhere in the main, 
 Fresh- water-springs come up through bitter brine. 
 
 Sonnets 
 JULY TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 The violet varies from the lily as far 
 
 As oak from elm : one loves the soldier, one 
 
 The silken priest of peace, one this, one that, 
 
 And some unworthily. 
 
 J The Princess 
 
 [ 72 J
 
 JULY TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 Have I not found a happy earth? 
 
 I least should breathe a thought of pain. 
 Woulu God renew me from my birth 
 
 I'd almost live my life again. 
 So sweet it seems with thee to walk, 
 
 And once again to woo thee mine 
 It seems in after-dinner talk 
 
 Across the walnuts and the wine. 
 
 ; Mdler s Daughter 
 
 JULY TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 He makes no friend who never made a foe. 
 But now it is my glory to have loved 
 One peerless, without stain. 
 
 Elaine 
 
 JULY TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 The quick lark's closest-carolled strains, 
 The shadow rushing up the sea, 
 The lightning-flash atween the rains, 
 The sunlight driving down the lea, 
 The leaping stream, the very wind, 
 That will not stay, upon his way, 
 To stoop the cowslip to the plains, 
 Is not so clear and bold and free 
 As you, my falcon Rosalind. 
 
 [73] 
 
 Rosalind
 
 JULY TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 Live yet live 
 
 Shall sharpest pathos blight us, knowing all 
 Life needs for life is possible to will 
 Live happy; tend thy flowers; be tended by 
 My blessing ! Should my Shadow cross thy thoughts 
 Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou 
 For calmer hours to Memory's darkest hold, 
 If not to be forgotten not at once 
 
 Not all forgotten. 
 
 Lo<ve and Duty 
 
 JULY TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 I know that this was Life, the track 
 Whereon with equal feet we Tared ; 
 And then, as now, the day prepared 
 
 The daily burden for the back. 
 
 But this it was that made me move 
 As light as carrier-birds in air ; 
 I loved the weight I had to bear, 
 
 Because it needed help of Love. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 JULY TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 Comfort her, comfort her, all things good, 
 While I am over the sea ! 
 Let me and my passionate love go by, 
 But speak to her all things holy and high, 
 Whatever happen to me ! 
 [74]
 
 Me and my harmful love go by ; 
 But come to her waking, find her asleep, 
 Powers of the height, Powers of the deep, 
 And comfort her tho' I die. 
 
 Maud 
 
 JULY TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 My mother pitying made a thousand prayers ; 
 My mother was as mild as any saint, 
 Half-canonized by all that look'd on her, 
 So gracious was her tacl and tenderness. 
 
 The Princess 
 
 JULY TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, 
 Whose loves in higher love endure; 
 What souls possess themselves so pure, 
 
 Or is there blessedness like theirs? 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 JULY THIRTIETH 
 
 Not learned, save in gracious household ways, 
 Not perfecl, nay, but full of tender wants, 
 No Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 
 In Angel instindts, breathing Paradise, 
 Interpreter between the Gods and men, 
 Who look'd all native to her place, and yet 
 On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere 
 Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce 
 Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved, 
 
 And girdled her with music. 
 
 The Princes' 
 
 [7S ]
 
 JULY THIRTY-FIRST 
 
 Happy he 
 
 With such a mother ! faith in womankind 
 Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high 
 Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall 
 
 He shall not blind his soul with clay. 
 
 7 'he Princess 
 
 [76]
 
 AUGUST 
 
 
 
 
 AUGUST FIRST 
 
 BE mine a philosopher's life in the quiet wood- 
 land ways, 
 
 Where if I cannot be gay let a passionless peao 1 
 be my lot, 
 
 Far-off from the clamour of liars belied in the hub- 
 bub of lies ; 
 
 From the long-neck'd geese of the world that are 
 ever hissing dispraise 
 
 Because their natures are little, and, whether ht 
 heed it or not, 
 
 Where each man walks with his head in a cloud 
 
 of poisonous flies. 
 
 Maud 
 
 AUGUST SECOND 
 
 Is it well to wish thee happy? having known 
 
 me to decline 
 
 On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart 
 than mine ! 
 
 Yet it shall be : thou shalt lower to his level day 
 by day, 
 
 What is fine within thee growing coarse to sym- 
 pathise with clay. 
 
 Locksley HaQ, 
 
 [77]
 
 AUGUST THIRD 
 
 As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated 
 
 with a clown, 
 And the grossness of his nature will have weight 
 
 to drag thee down. 
 
 He will hold thee, when his passion shall have 
 
 spent its novel force, 
 Something better than his dog, a little dearer than 
 
 his horse. 
 
 LocksUy Hall 
 
 AUGUST FOURTH 
 
 Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a 
 
 moulder'd string? 
 I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so 
 
 slight a thing. 
 
 LocksUy Hall 
 
 AUGUST FIFTH 
 
 Something it is which thou hast lost, 
 
 Some pleasure from thine early years. 
 Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears, 
 
 That grief hath shaken into frost ! 
 
 In Memonam 
 
 AUGUST SIXTH 
 
 There was no motion in the dumb dead air, 
 Not any song of bird or sound of rill} 
 
 Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre 
 Is not so deadly still 
 [78]
 
 As that wide forest. Growths of jasmine turn'd 
 
 Their humid arms festooning tree to tree, 
 
 And at the root thro' lush green grasses burn'd 
 
 The red anemone. 
 
 A Dream of Fair Women 
 
 AUGUST SEVENTH 
 
 On either side the river lie 
 Long fields of barley and of rye, 
 That clothe the wold and meet the sky; 
 And thro' the field the road runs by 
 
 To many-tower'd Camelot; 
 And up and down the people go, 
 Gazing where the lilies blow 
 Round an island there below, 
 
 The island of Shalott. 
 
 The Lady of ' Shalott 
 
 AUGUST EIGHTH 
 
 Willows whiten, aspens quiver, 
 Little breezes dusk and shiver 
 Thro' the wave that runs for ever 
 By the island in the river 
 
 Flowing down to Camelot. 
 Four gray walls, and four gray towers, 
 Overlook a space of flowers, 
 And the silent isle imbowers 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 The Lady of Shalott 
 
 [79]
 
 AUGUST NINTH 
 
 I muse on joy that will not cease, 
 
 Pure spaces clothed in living beams, 
 Pure lilies of eternal peace, 
 
 Whose odours haunt my dreams. 
 
 Sir Galahad 
 
 A UGUST TENTH 
 
 'Tis a morning pure and sweet, 
 And the light and shadow fleet; 
 She is walking in the meadow, 
 And the woodland echo rings; 
 In a moment we shall meet; 
 She is singing in the meadow, 
 And the rivulet at her feet 
 Ripples on in light and shadow 
 To the ballad that she sings. 
 
 Maud 
 
 AUGUST ELEVENTH 
 
 Silence, beautiful voice! 
 
 Be still, for you only trouble the mind 
 
 With a joy in which I cannot rejoice, 
 
 A glory I shall not find. 
 
 Still ! I will hear you no more, 
 
 For your sweetness hardly leaves me a choice 
 
 But to move to the meadow and fall before 
 
 Her feet on the meadow grass, and adore, 
 
 Not Tier, who is neither courtly nor kind, 
 
 Not her, not her, but a voice. 
 
 Maud 
 
 [80]
 
 AUGUST TWELFTH 
 
 But am I not the nobler thro' thy love ? 
 
 O three times less unworthy! likewise thou 
 
 Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years. 
 
 Love and Duty 
 
 AUGUST THIRTEENTH 
 
 And never yet, since high in Paradise 
 O'er the four rivers the first roses blew, 
 Came purer pleasure unto mortal kind 
 Than lived thro' her, who in that perilous hour 
 Put hand to hand beneath her husband's heart, 
 And felt him hers again : she did not weep, 
 But o'er her meek eyes came a happy mist 
 Like that which kept the heart of Eden green 
 
 Before the useful trouble of the rain. 
 
 Enid 
 
 AUGUST FOURTEENTH 
 
 But now by this my love has closed her sight 
 And given false death her hand, and stol'n away 
 To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell 
 Among the fragments of the golden day. 
 May nothing there her maiden grace affright! 
 Dear heart, I feel with thee the drowsy spell. 
 
 Maud 
 
 AUGUST FIFTEENTH 
 
 And all that night IJieard the watchman peal 
 The sliding season : all that night I heard 
 The heavy clocks knolling the drowsy hours. 
 [81 ]
 
 The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good, 
 O'er the mute city stole with folded wings, 
 Distilling odours on me as they went 
 To greet their fairer sisters of the East. 
 
 The Gardener's Daughter 
 
 AUGUST SIXTEENTH 
 
 It is not true that second thoughts are best, 
 But first, and third, which are a riper first; 
 Too ripe, too late ! they come too late for use. 
 
 Sea Dreams 
 
 AUGUST SEVENTEENTH 
 
 But the broad light glares and beats, 
 
 And the shadow flits and fleets 
 
 And will not let me be ; 
 
 And I loathe the squares and streets, 
 
 And the faces that one meets, 
 
 Hearts with no love for me : 
 
 Always I long to creep 
 
 Into some still cavern deep, 
 
 There to weep, and weep, and weep 
 
 My whole soul out to thee. 
 
 ' Maud 
 
 AUGUST EIGHTEENTH 
 
 Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
 The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
 To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
 The casement slowly grows a glimmering square ; 
 So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 
 
 The Princess 
 [82]
 
 AUGUST NINETEENTH 
 
 The dim red morn had died, her journey done, 
 And with dead lips smiled at the twilight 
 
 plain, 
 
 Half-falPn across the threshold of the sun, 
 Never to rise again. 
 
 A Dream of Fair Women 
 
 AUGUST TWENTIETH 
 
 And from within me a clear urider-tone 
 
 Thrill'd thro' mine ears in that unblissful 
 
 clime, 
 "Pass freely thro': the wood is all thine own, 
 
 Until the end of time." 
 
 A Dream of Fair Women 
 
 AUGUST TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 "Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land, 
 "This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon." 
 In the afternoon they came unto a land, 
 In which it seemed always afternoon. 
 All round the coast the languid air did swoon, 
 Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. 
 Full-faced above the valley stood the moon ; 
 And like a downward smoke, the slender stream 
 Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. 
 
 The Lotos-Eaters 
 
 [83 J
 
 AUGUST TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing 
 
 lowly) 
 
 With half-dropt eyelids still, 
 Beneath a heaven dark and holy, 
 To watch the long bright river drawing slowly 
 His waters from the purple hill 
 To hear the dewy echoes calling 
 From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine 
 To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling 
 Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine! 
 Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, 
 Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath 
 
 the pine. 
 
 'The Lotos -Eaters 
 
 AUGUST TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 To hear each other's whisper'd speech ; 
 
 Eating the Lotos day by day, 
 
 To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, 
 
 And tender curving lines of creamy spray; 
 
 To lend our hearts and spirits wholly 
 
 To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; 
 
 To muse and brood and live again in memory, 
 
 With those old faces of our infancy 
 
 Heap'd over with a mound of grass, 
 
 Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of 
 
 brass ! 
 
 The Lotos-Eaters
 
 AUGUST TWENTY-FOURTH 
 Our father's dust is left alone 
 
 And silent under other snows: 
 
 There in due time the woodbine blows, 
 
 The violet comes, but we are gone. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 AUGUST TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 We ceased : a gentler feeling crept 
 Upon us : surely rest is meet : 
 "They rest," we said, "their sleep is sweet," 
 
 And silence follow'd, and we wept. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 AUGUST TWENTY-SIXTH 
 Break, break, break, 
 
 On thy cold gray stones, O Sea ! 
 And I would that my tongue could utter 
 
 The thoughts that arise in me. 
 
 O well for the fisherman's boy, 
 
 That he shouts with his sister at play ! 
 
 O well for the sailor lad, 
 
 That he sings in his boat on the bay ! 
 
 "Break, break, break" 
 
 AUGUST TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 And the stately ships go on 
 
 To their haven under the hill ; 
 But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, 
 And the sound of a voice that is still! 
 [8 5 ]
 
 Break, break, break, 
 
 At the foot of thy crags, O Sea ! 
 But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
 
 Will never come back to me. 
 
 "Break, break, break" 
 
 AUGUST TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 Why the life goes when the blood is spilt? 
 
 What the life is? where the soul may lie? 
 Why a church is with a steeple built; 
 And a house with a chimney pot? 
 Who will riddle me the how and the what? 
 Who will riddle me the what and the why ? 
 
 The "flow" and the "Why" 
 
 AUGUST TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 That Beauty, Good, and Knowledge, are three 
 
 sisters 
 
 That doat upon each other, friends to man, 
 Living together under the same roof, 
 And never can be sunder'd without tears. 
 And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be 
 Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie 
 Howling in outer darkness. Not for this 
 Was common clay ta'en from the common earth, 
 Moulded by God, and temper'd with the tears 
 Of angels to the perfect shape of man. 
 
 To (The Palace of Art) 
 
 [86]
 
 AUGUST THIRTIETH 
 
 He has a solid base of temperament: 
 But as the waterlily starts and slides 
 Upon the level in little puffs of wind, 
 Tho' anchor'd to the bottom, such is he. 
 
 The Princess 
 
 AUGUST THIRTY-FIRST 
 Sunset and evening star, 
 And one clear call for me ! 
 And may there be no moaning of the bar, 
 When I put out to sea, 
 
 But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 
 Too full for sound and foam, , 
 
 When that which drew from out the boundless 
 
 deep 
 Turns again home. 
 
 Twilight and evening bell, 
 
 And after that the dark ! 
 
 And may there be no sadness of farewell, 
 
 When I embark; 
 
 For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place 
 
 The flood may bear me far, 
 
 I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
 
 When I have crost the bar. 
 
 Crossing the Bar 
 
 [ 87]
 
 SEPTEMBER 
 
 
 
 SEPTEMBER FIRST 
 
 O SOUND to rout the brood of cares, 
 The sweep of scythe in morning dew, 
 The gust that round the garden flew, 
 And tumbled half the mellowing pears ! 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 SEPTEMBER SECOND 
 
 The charmed sunset linger'd low adown 
 
 In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale 
 
 Was seen far inland, and the yellow down 
 
 Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale 
 
 And meadow, set with slender galingale ; 
 
 A land where all things always seem'd the same ! 
 
 And round about the keel with faces pale, 
 
 Dark faces pale against that rosy flame, 
 
 The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came. 
 
 The Lotos-Eaters 
 
 SEPTEMBER THIRD 
 
 There is sweet music here that softer falls 
 Than petals from blown roses on the grass, 
 Or night-dews on still waters between walls 
 Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; 
 [89]
 
 Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, 
 Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes; 
 Music that brings sweet sleep down from the bliss- 
 ful skies. 
 
 The Lotos-Eaters 
 
 SEPTEMBER FOURTH 
 
 Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness, 
 And utterly consumed with sharp distress, 
 While all things else have rest from weariness? 
 All things have rest : why should we toil alone, 
 We only toil, who are the first of things, 
 And make perpetual moan, 
 Still from one sorrow to another thrown : 
 Nor ever fold our wings, 
 And cease from wanderings, 
 Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm ; 
 Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, 
 "There is no joy but calm!" 
 Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of 
 
 things ? 
 
 The Lotos-Eaters 
 
 SEPTEMBER FIFTH 
 
 Death is the end of life ; ah, why 
 
 Should life all labour be ? 
 
 The Lotos- Eaters 
 
 [90]
 
 SEPTEMBER SIXTH 
 
 O ye, the wise who think, the wise who reign, 
 
 From growing commerce loose her latest chain, 
 
 And let the fair white-wing'd peacemaker fly 
 
 To happy havens under all the sky, 
 
 And mix the seasons and the golden hours; 
 
 Till each man find his own in all men's good, 
 
 And all men work in noble brotherhood 
 
 Breaking their mailed fleets and armed towers, 
 
 And ruling by obeying Nature's powers, 
 
 And gathering all the fruits of earth, and crown'd 
 
 with all her flowers. 
 Ode Sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition, 1862 
 
 SEPTEMBER SEVENTH 
 
 And oft I talk'd with Dubric, the high saint, 
 Who, with mild heat of holy oratory, 
 Subdued me somewhat to that gentleness, 
 Which, when it weds with manhood, makes a 
 
 man. 
 
 Enid 
 
 SEPTEMBER EIGHTH 
 
 At last I heard a voice upon the slope 
 Cry to the summit, "Is there any hope?" 
 To which an answer peal'd from that high land, 
 But in a tongue no man could understand; 
 And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn 
 God made Himself an awful rose of dawn. 
 
 The Vision of Sin 
 [91]
 
 SEPTEMBER NINTH 
 
 Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, 
 At last he beat his music out. 
 There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
 
 Believe me, than in half the creeds. 
 
 la Memoriam 
 
 SEPTEMBER TENTH 
 
 As nine months go to the shaping an infant ripe 
 for his birth, 
 
 So many a million of ages have gone to the mak- 
 ing of man : 
 
 He now is first, but is he the last? is he not too 
 
 base ? 
 
 Maud 
 
 SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH 
 
 O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, 
 Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, 
 And tell her, tell her what I tell to thee. 
 
 tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, 
 That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, 
 And dark and true and tender is the North. 
 
 The Princess 
 
 SEPTEMBER TWELFTH 
 
 1 would have hid her needle in my heart, 
 To save her little finger from a scratch 
 
 No deeper than the skin : my ears could hear 
 Her lightest breath : her least remark was worth 
 [9* ]
 
 The experience of the wise. I went and came ; 
 Her voice fled always thro' the summer land ; 
 I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days! 
 The flower of each, those moments when we met, 
 The crown of all, we met to part no more. 
 
 Edwin Morris, or The Lake 
 
 SEPTEMBER THIRTEENTH 
 Kate hath a spirit ever strung 
 
 Like a new bow, and bright and sharp 
 
 As edges of the scymetar. 
 Whence shall she take a fitting mate? 
 
 For Kate no common love will feel ; 
 My woman-soldier, gallant Kate, 
 
 As pure and true as blades of steel. 
 
 SEPTEMBER FOURTEENTH 
 
 I would I were an armed knight, 
 Far famed for well-won enterprise, 
 
 And wearing on my swarthy brows 
 The garland of new-wreathed emprise; 
 
 For in a moment I would pierce 
 The blackest files of clanging fight, 
 And strongly strike to left and right, 
 
 In dreaming of my lady's eyes. _. 
 
 SEPTEMBER FIFTEENTH 
 
 Sweet is true love tho' given in vain, in vain ; 
 And sweet is death who puts an end to pain : 
 I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 
 [ 93 J
 
 Love, art thou sweet ? then bitter death must be : 
 Love, thou art bitter ; sweet is death to me. 
 
 Love, if death be sweeter, let me die. 
 
 Elaine 
 
 SEPTEMBER SIXTEENTH 
 Ah, what shall I be at fifty 
 Should Nature keep me alive, 
 If I find the world so bitter 
 When I am but twenty-five ? 
 Yet, if she were not a cheat, 
 If Maud were all that she seem'd, 
 And her smile were all that I dream'd, 
 Then the world were not so bitter 
 
 But a smile could make it sweet. 
 
 Maud 
 
 SEPTEMBER SEVENTEENTH 
 
 The man of science himself is fonder of glory, and 
 
 vain, 
 An eye well-pra6lised in nature, a spirit bounded 
 
 and poor; 
 The passionate heart of the poet is whirl'd into 
 
 folly and vice. 
 
 1 would not marvel at either, but keep a temper- 
 
 ate brain ; 
 For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn 
 
 it, were more 
 Than to walk all day like the sultan of old in a 
 
 garden of spice. 
 
 Maud 
 
 [94]
 
 SEPTEMBER EIGHTEENTH 
 
 There is confusion worse than death, 
 
 Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, 
 
 Long labour unto aged breath, 
 
 Sore task to hearts worn out with many wars 
 
 And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot 
 
 stars. 
 
 The Lotos-Efittrf 
 
 SEPTEMBER NINETEENTH 
 Oh ! sure it is a special care 
 Of God, to fortify from doubt, 
 To arm in proof, and guard about 
 With triple-mailed trust, and clear 
 Delight, the infant's dawning year. 
 
 Supposed Confessions 
 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTIETH 
 
 I loved the brimming wave that swam 
 
 Thro' quiet meadows round the mill, 
 The sleepy pool above the dam, 
 
 The pool beneath it never still, 
 The meal-sacks on the whiten'd floor, 
 
 The dark round of the dripping wheel, 
 The very air about the door 
 
 Made misty with the floating meal. 
 
 The Miller's Daughter 
 
 [95]
 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 The world is somewhat ; it goes on somehow ; 
 But what is the meaning of then and now? 
 
 I feel there is something; but how and what? 
 I know there is somewhat; but what and why? 
 I cannot tell if that somewhat be I. 
 
 The " How" and the "Why" 
 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 Kate saith "the world is void of might." 
 
 Kate saith "the men are gilded flies." 
 
 Kate snaps her ringers at my vows; 
 
 Kate will not hear of lover's sighs. 
 
 Kate 
 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 As thro' the land at eve we went, 
 
 And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, 
 We fell out, my wife and I, 
 O we fell out I know not why, 
 
 And kiss'd again with tears. 
 
 For when we came where lies the child 
 
 We lost in other years, 
 There above the little grave, 
 O there above the little grave, 
 
 We kiss'd again with tears. 
 
 The Princess 
 
 [96]
 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 More soluble is this knot 
 By gentleness than war. 
 
 The Princess 
 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 So much the gathering darkness charm'd : we sat 
 But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie, 
 Perchance upon the future man : the walls 
 Blacken'd about us, bats wheel'd,and owls whoop'd, 
 And gradually the powers of the night, 
 That range above the region of the wind, 
 Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up 
 Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds, 
 Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens. 
 
 The Princess 
 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 Lo ! in the middle of the wood, 
 The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud 
 With winds upon the branch, and there 
 Grows green and broad, and takes no care, 
 Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon 
 Nightly dew-fed ; and turning yellow 
 
 Falls, and floats adown the air. 
 
 The Lotos-Eaters 
 
 [97]
 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 Lo ! sweeten'd with the summer light, 
 
 The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, 
 
 Drops in a silent autumn night. 
 
 All its allotted length of days, 
 
 The flower ripens in its place, 
 
 Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, 
 
 Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. 
 
 The Lotos-Eaten 
 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave 
 In silence; ripen, fall and cease: 
 Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dream- 
 ful ease. 
 
 The Lotos-Eaten 
 
 SEPTEMBER TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea, 
 
 Thy tribute wave deliver: 
 No more by thee my steps shall be, 
 
 For ever and for ever. 
 
 Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, 
 
 A rivulet then a river: 
 No where by thee my steps shall be, 
 
 For ever and for ever. 
 
 A Fareivell 
 
 [98]
 
 SEPTEMBER THIRTIETH 
 
 But here will sigh thine alder tree, 
 
 And here thine aspen shiver; 
 And here by thee will hum the bee, 
 
 For ever and for ever. 
 
 A thousand suns will stream on thee, 
 
 A thousand moons will quiver; 
 But not by thee my steps shall be, 
 
 For ever and for ever. 
 
 A Farewell 
 
 [ 99]
 
 OCTOBER 
 
 OCTOBER FIRST 
 
 THOUGH Night hath climbed her peak of 
 highest noon, 
 
 And bitter blasts the screaming autumn whirl, 
 All night through archways of the bridged pearl, 
 And portals of pure silver walks the moon. 
 Walk on, my soul, nor crouch to agony, 
 Turn cloud to light, and bitterness to joy, 
 And dross to gold with glorious alchemy, 
 Basing thy throne above the world's annoy. 
 
 Sonnet 
 
 OCTOBER SECOND 
 
 Beat, happy stars, timing with things below, 
 Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell, 
 Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe 
 That seems to draw but it shall not be so: 
 
 Let all be well, be well. 
 
 Maud 
 
 [ 10!
 
 OCTOBER THIRD 
 
 let the solid ground 
 Not fail beneath my feet 
 
 Before my life has found 
 
 What some have found so sweet; 
 Then let come what come may, 
 What matter if I go mad, 
 
 1 shall have had my day. 
 
 Maud 
 
 OCTOBER FOURTH 
 
 Not die; but live a life of truest breath, 
 And teach true life to fight with mortal wrongs. 
 O, why should Love, like men in drinking-songs, 
 Spice his fair banquet with the dust of death ? 
 Make answer, Maud my bliss, 
 Maud made my Maud by that long lover's kiss, 
 Life of my life, wilt thou not answer this? 
 "The dusky strand of Death inwoven here 
 With dear Love's tie, makes Love himself more 
 dear." 
 
 Maud 
 
 OCTOBER FIFTH 
 
 This truth came borne with bier and pall, 
 I felt it, when I sorrow'd most, 
 c Tis better to have loved and lost, 
 
 Than never to have loved at all. 
 
 In Memcriam 
 
 ( icz]
 
 OCTOBER SIXTH 
 
 The bulrush nods unto its brother, 
 The wheatears whisper to each other : 
 What is it they say? What do they there? 
 Why two and two make four? Why round is not 
 
 square? 
 
 Why the rock stands still, and the light clouds fly ? 
 Why the heavy oak groans, and the white willows 
 
 sigh ? 
 
 Why deep is not high, and high is not deep? 
 Whether we wake, or whether we sleep? 
 Whether we sleep, or whether we die? 
 How you are you ? Why I am I ? 
 Who will riddle me the how and the why? 
 
 The " How " and the " Why' 
 
 OCTOBER SEVENTH 
 
 A spirit haunts the year's last hours 
 Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers: 
 
 To himself he talks ; 
 For at eventide, listening earnestly, 
 At his work you may hear him sob and sigh 
 In the walks; 
 
 Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks 
 Of the mouldering flowers : 
 
 Heavily hangs the broad sunflower 
 
 Over its grave i' the earth so chilly; 
 Heavily hangs the hollyhock, 
 
 Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. 
 
 Song 
 
 [ 103 ]
 
 OCTOBER EIGHTH 
 
 The air is damp, and hush'd, and close, 
 
 As a sick man's room when he taketh repose 
 
 An hour before death ; 
 
 My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves 
 At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves, 
 
 And the breath 
 
 Of the fading edges of box beneath, 
 And the year's last rose. 
 
 Heavily hangs the broad sunflower 
 
 Over its grave i' the earth so chilly; 
 Heavily hangs the hollyhock, 
 
 Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. 
 
 Song 
 
 OCTOBER NINTH 
 
 Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, 
 And in a little while our lips are dumb. 
 Let us alone. What is it that will last ? 
 
 The Lotos-Eaters 
 
 OCTOBER TENTH 
 
 See what a lovely shell, 
 Small and pure as a pearl, 
 Lying close to my foot, 
 Frail, but a work divine, 
 Made so fairily well 
 With delicate spire and whorl, 
 How exquisitely minute, 
 A miracle of design ! 
 
 Maud 
 
 [ I0 4 ]
 
 OCTOBER ELEVENTH 
 What is it r a learned man 
 Could give it a clumsy name. 
 Let him name it who can, 
 The beauty would be the same. 
 
 Maud 
 
 OCTOBER TWELFTH 
 The tiny cell is forlorn, 
 Void of the little living will 
 That made it stir on the shore. 
 Did he stand at the diamond door 
 Of his house in a rainbow frill ? 
 Did he push, when he was uncurl'd, 
 A golden foot or a fairy horn 
 Thro' his dim water-world ? 
 
 Maud 
 
 OCTOBER THIRTEENTH 
 
 Slight, to be crush'd with a tap 
 Of my finger-nail on the sand, 
 Small, but a work divine, 
 Frail, but of force to withstand 
 Year upon year, the shock 
 Of cataradl seas that snap 
 The three-decker's oaken spine 
 Athwart the ledges of rock, 
 Here on the Breton strand ! 
 
 Maud 
 
 ( 105 ]
 
 OCTOBER FOURTEENTH 
 
 Calm is the morn without a sound, 
 Calm as'to suit a calmer grief, 
 And only thro' the faded leaf 
 
 The chestnut pattering to the ground : 
 
 Calm and deep peace on this high wold, 
 And on these dews that drench the furze, 
 And all the silvery gossamers 
 
 That twinkle into green and gold. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 OCTOBER FIFTEENTH 
 
 Calm and still light on yon great plain 
 That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, 
 And crowded farms and lessening towers, 
 To mingle with the bounding main. 
 
 Calm and deep peace in this wide air, 
 These leaves that redden to the fall ; 
 And in my heart, if calm at all, 
 
 If any calm, a calm despair. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 OCTOBER SIXTEENTH 
 
 To Sleep I give my powers away; 
 
 My will is bondsman to the dark; 
 
 I sit within a helmless bark, 
 And with my heart I muse and say : 
 
 [ 106]
 
 heart, how fares it with thee now, 
 That thou should'st fail from thy desire, 
 Who scarcely darest to inquire, 
 
 "What is it makes me beat so low?" 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 OCTOBER SEVENTEENTH 
 
 Such clouds of nameless trouble cross 
 All night below the darken'd eyes ; 
 With morning wakes the will, and cries, 
 
 "Thou shalt not be the fool of loss." 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 OCTOBER EIGHTEENTH 
 
 1 sometimes hold it half a sin 
 
 To put in words the grief I feel ; 
 For words, like Nature, half reveal 
 And half conceal the Soul within. 
 
 But, for the unquiet heart and brain, 
 A use in measured language lies; 
 The sad mechanic exercise, 
 
 Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 OCTOBER NINETEENTH 
 
 In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, 
 Like coarsest clothes against the cold ; 
 But that large grief which these enfold 
 
 Is given in outline and no more. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 ( 107]
 
 OCTOBER TWENTIETH 
 
 One writes, that "Other friends remain," 
 That "Loss is common to the race"- 
 And common is the commonplace, 
 
 And vacant chaff well meant for grain. 
 
 That loss is common would not make 
 My own less bitter, rather more : 
 Too common ! Never morning wore 
 
 To evening, but some heart did break. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 I hold 
 
 That it becomes no man to nurse despair, 
 But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms 
 To follow up the worthiest till he die. 
 
 The Princess 
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 
 Tears from the depth of some divine despair 
 Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, 
 In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, 
 And thinking of the days that are no more. 
 
 Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, 
 That brings our friends up from the underworld, 
 Sad as the last which reddens over one 
 That sinks with all we love below the verge ; 
 So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 
 
 The Princess 
 [ .08]
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 My princess, O my princess ! true she errs, 
 But in her own grand way : being herself 
 Three times more noble than threescore of men, 
 She sees herself in every woman else, 
 And so she wears her error like a crown 
 
 To blind the truth and me. 
 
 'The Princess 
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 Comedown, O maid, fromyondermountain height: 
 What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang) 
 In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? 
 But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease 
 To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, 
 To sit a star upon the sparkling spire ; 
 And come, for Love is of the valley, come, 
 For Love is of the valley, come thou down 
 
 And find him. 
 
 The Princess 
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 Yet in the long years liker must they grow; 
 The man be more of woman, she of man; 
 He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 
 Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world ; 
 She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, 
 Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind ; 
 Till at the last she set herself to man, 
 
 Like perfedt music unto noble words. 
 
 T/te Princess 
 
 [ I0 9 ]
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 Dear, but let us type them now 
 In our own lives, and this proud watchword rest 
 Of equal; seeing either sex alone 
 Is half itself, and in true marriage lies 
 Nor equal, nor unequal : each fulfils 
 Defecl: in each, and always thought in thought, 
 Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow, 
 The single pure and perfect animal, 
 The two-cell'd heart beating, with one full stroke, 
 
 Life. 
 
 The Princess 
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 Shall eagles not be eagles ? wrens be wrens ? 
 If all the world were falcons, what of that? 
 The wonder of the eagle were the less, 
 But he not less the eagle. Happy days 
 Roll onward, leading up the golden year. 
 
 The Golden Year 
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 Less of sentiment than sense 
 Had Katie ; not illiterate ; neither one 
 Who dabbling in the fount of ficlive tears, 
 And nursed by mealy-mouthM philanthropies, 
 Divorce the Feeling from her mate the Deed. 
 
 The Brook 
 
 [ no]
 
 OCTOBER TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 O Katie, what I suffer'd for your sake ! 
 For in I went, and call'd old Philip out 
 To show the farm : full willingly he rose : 
 He led me thro' the short sweet-smelling lanes 
 Of his wheat-suburb, babbling as he went. 
 He praised his land, his horses, his machines; 
 He praised his ploughs, his cows, his hogs, his dogs ; 
 He praised his hens, his geese, his guinea-hens; 
 His pigeons, who in session on their roofs 
 Approved him, bowing at their own deserts : 
 Then from the plaintive mother's teat he took 
 Her blind and shuddering puppies, naming each, 
 And naming those, his friends, for whom they 
 
 were : 
 Then crost the common into Darnley chase 
 
 To show Sir Arthur's deer. 
 
 The Brook 
 
 OCTOBER THIRTIETH 
 
 Then, while I breathed in sight of haven, he, 
 Poor fellow, could he help it ? recommenced, 
 And ran thro' all the coltish chronicle, 
 Wild Will, Black Bess, Tantivy, Tallyho, 
 Reform, White Rose, Bellerophon, the Jilt, 
 Arbaces, and Phenomenon, and the rest, 
 Till, not to die a listener, I arose, 
 And with me Philip, talking still ; and so 
 We turn'd our foreheads from the falling sun, 
 And following our own shadows thrice as long 
 As when they follow'd us from Philip's door, 
 [ "' J
 
 Arrived, and found the sun of sweet content 
 Re-risen in Katie's eyes, and all things well. 
 
 The Brook 
 
 OCTOBER THIRTY-FIRST 
 
 And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 
 Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers, 
 
 Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be. 
 
 The Princess
 
 NOVEMBER FIRST 
 
 TO-NIGHT the winds began to rise 
 And roar from yonder dropping day: 
 The last red leaf is whirl'd away, 
 The rooks are blown about the skies; 
 
 The forest crack'd, the waters curPd, 
 The cattle huddled on the lea; 
 And wildly dash'd on tower and tree 
 
 The sunbeam strikes along the world. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 NOVEMBER SECOND 
 
 Put down the passions that make earth Hell ! 
 Down with ambition, avarice, pride, 
 Jealousy, down ! cut off from the mind 
 The bitter springs of anger and fear ; 
 Down too, down at your own fireside, 
 With the evil tongue and the evil ear, 
 
 For each is at war with mankind. 
 
 Maud 
 
 NOVEMBER THIRD 
 
 His gain is loss; for he that wrongs his friend 
 Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about 
 [ "3 ]
 
 A silent court of justice in his breast, 
 Himself the judge and jury, and himself 
 The prisoner at the bar, ever condemn'd : 
 And that drags down his life. 
 
 Sea Dreams 
 
 NOVEMBER FOURTH 
 
 Home they brought her warrior dead: 
 
 She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry: 
 All her maidens, watching, said, 
 "She must weep or she will die." 
 
 Then they praised him, soft and low, 
 Call'd him worthy to be loved, 
 
 Truest friend and noblest foe ; 
 Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 
 
 The Princess 
 
 NOVEMBER FIFTH 
 
 Stole a maiden from her place, 
 Lightly to the warrior stept, 
 
 Took the face-cloth from the face; 
 Yet she neither moved nor wept. 
 
 Rose a nurse of ninety years, 
 
 Set his child upon her knee 
 Like summer tempest came her tears 
 "Sweet my child, I live for thee." 
 
 The Princess 
 
 [ "4]
 
 NOVEMBER SIXTH 
 
 As these white robes are soiled and dark, 
 
 To yonder shining ground ; 
 As this pale taper's earthly spark, 
 
 To yonder argent round ; 
 So shows my soul before the Lamb, 
 
 My spirit before Thee; 
 So in mine earthly house I am, 
 
 To that I hope to be. 
 Break up the heavens, O Lord ! and far, 
 
 Thro' all yon starlight keen, 
 Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star, 
 
 In raiment white and clean. 
 
 St. Agnes' E*ue 
 
 NOVEMBER SEVENTH 
 
 Again the voice spake unto me: 
 "Thou art so steep'd in misery, 
 Surely 'twere better not to be. 
 
 "Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, 
 Not any train of reason keep : 
 Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep." 
 
 The Two Voicct 
 
 NOVEMBER EIGHTH 
 
 I said that "all the years invent; 
 Each month is various to present 
 The world with some development. 
 
 [ "$]
 
 "Were this not well, to bide mine hour, 
 Tho' watching from a ruin'd tower 
 How grows the day of human power?" 
 
 "The Tivo Voices 
 
 NOVEMBER NINTH 
 
 A second voice was at mine ear, 
 
 A little whisper silver-clear, 
 
 A murmur, "Be of better cheer." 
 
 As from some blissful neighbourhood 
 A notice faintly understood, 
 
 "I see the end, and know the good." 
 
 The Two Voices 
 
 NOVEMBER TENTH 
 
 A little hint to solace woe, 
 A hint, a whisper breathing low, 
 "I may not speak of what I know.'* 
 
 Like an ^olian harp that wakes 
 
 No certain air, but overtakes 
 
 Far thought with music that it makes: 
 
 Such seem'd the whisper at my side. 
 
 The Two Voices 
 
 NOVEMBER ELEVENTH 
 
 Forgive my grief for one. removed, 
 Thy creature, whom I found so fair. 
 I trust he lives in thee, and there 
 
 I find him worthier to be loved. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 [ 116]
 
 NOVEMBER TWELFTH 
 
 Words weaker than your grief would make 
 
 Grief more. 'Twere better I should cease; 
 Although myself could almost take 
 
 The place of him that sleeps in peace. 
 
 To J. S, 
 
 NOVEMBER THIRTEENTH 
 
 A shadow flits before me, 
 
 Not thou, but like to thee ; 
 
 Ah Christ, that it were possible 
 
 For one short hour to see 
 
 The souls we loved, that they might tell us 
 
 What and where they be. 
 
 Maud 
 
 NOVEMBER FOURTEENTH 
 
 Yet pity for a horse o'er-driven, 
 
 And love in which my hound has part, 
 Can hang no weight upon my heart 
 
 In its assumptions up to heaven ; 
 
 And I am so much more than these, 
 As thou, perchance, art more than I, 
 And yet I spare them sympathy, 
 
 And I would set their pains at ease. 
 
 In Memortam 
 
 NOVEMBER FIFTEENTH 
 
 Love is and was my Lord and King, 
 And in his presence I attend 
 To hear the tidings of my friend, 
 
 Which every hour his couriers bring. 
 
 In Memonam
 
 NOVEMBER SIXTEENTH 
 
 Love is and was my King and Lord, 
 And will be, tho' as yet I keep 
 Within his court on earth, and sleep 
 
 Encompass'd by his faithful guard, 
 
 And hear at times a sentinel 
 
 That moves about from place to place, 
 And whispers to the vast of space 
 
 Among the worlds, that all is well. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 NOVEMBER SEVENTEENTH 
 
 Yet is there one true line, the pearl of pearls; 
 " Man dreams of Fame while woman wakes to love." 
 True : Love, tho' Love were of the grossest, carves 
 A portion from the solid present, eats 
 And uses, careless of the rest ; but Fame, 
 The Fame that follows death is nothing to us; 
 And what is Fame in life but half-disfame, 
 
 And counterchanged with darkness? 
 
 Vivien 
 
 NOVEMBER EIGHTEENTH 
 
 Stabb'd through the heart's affections to the heart ! 
 Seeth'd like the kid in its own mother's milk ! 
 Kill'd with a word worse than a life of blows! 
 I thought that he was gentle, being great: 
 
 God, that I had loved a smaller man ! 
 
 1 should have found in him a greater heart. 
 
 Hvit*
 
 NOVEMBER NINETEENTH 
 
 Love un returned is like the fragrant flame 
 Folding the slaughter of the sacrifice 
 
 Offered to gods upon an altarthrone. 
 
 To 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTIETH 
 
 I made them lay their hands in mine and swear 
 
 To reverence the King, as if he were 
 
 Their conscience, and their conscience as their 
 
 King, 
 
 To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 
 To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 
 To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 
 To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, 
 To love one maiden only, cleave to her, 
 And worship her by years of noble deeds, 
 
 Until they won her. 
 
 Guinevere 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 The stern were mild when thou wert by, 
 The flippant put himself to school 
 And heard thee, and the brazen fool 
 
 Was soften'd, and he knew not why; 
 
 While I, thy dearest, sat apart, 
 
 And felt thy triumph was as mine; 
 
 And loved them more, that they were thine, 
 
 The graceful tacl, the Christian art; 
 
 f 9]
 
 Not. mine the sweetness or the skill, 
 But mine the love that will not tire, 
 And, born of love, the vague desire 
 
 That spurs an imitative will. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 And thus he bore without abuse 
 The grand old name of gentleman, 
 Defamed by every charlatan, 
 
 And soil'd with all ignoble use. 
 
 In Memorian. 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand, 
 Like some of the simple great ones gone 
 For ever and ever by, 
 One still strong man in a blatant land, 
 Whatever they call him, what care I, 
 Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat, one 
 Who can rule and dare not lie. 
 
 And ah for a man to arise in me, 
 
 That the man I am may cease to be! 
 
 Maud 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 Yea too, myself from myself I guard, 
 For often a man's own angry pride 
 
 Is cap and bells for a fool. 
 
 Maud 
 
 f 120 ]
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 Half fearful that, with self at strife 
 
 I take myself to task ; 
 Lest of the fullness of my life 
 
 I leave an empty flask. 
 
 Will Waterproof^; Monologue 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 And slow and sure comes up the golden year. 
 
 When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps, 
 But smit with freer light shall slowly melt 
 In many streams to fatten lower lands, 
 And light shall spread, and man be liker man 
 Thro' all the season of the golden year. 
 
 The Golden Tear 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 But where the path we walk'd began 
 To slant the fifth autumnal slope, 
 As we descended following Hope, 
 
 There sat the Shadow fear'd of man ; 
 
 Who broke our fair companionship, 
 And spread his mantle dark and cold ; 
 And wrapt thee formless in the fold, 
 
 And dull'd the murmur on thy lip; 
 
 And bore thee where I could not see 
 Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste; 
 And think, that somewhere in the waste 
 
 The Shadow sits and waits for me. 
 
 In
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep, 
 I heard a voice "believe no more" 
 And heard an ever-breaking shore 
 
 That tumbled in the Godless deep; 
 
 A warmth within the breast would melt 
 The freezing reason's colder part, 
 And like a man in wrath the heart 
 
 Stood up and answer'd "I have felt." 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 NOVEMBER TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 How sweet to have a common faith! 
 To hold a common scorn of death ! 
 And at a burial to hear 
 
 The creaking cords which wound and eat 
 Into my human heart, whene'er 
 Earth goes to earth, with grief, not fear, 
 
 With hopeful grief, were passing sweet! 
 
 Supposed Confessions 
 
 NOVEMBER THIRTIETH 
 
 A grief not uninformed, and dull, 
 Hearted with hope, of hope as full 
 As is the blood with life, or night 
 And a dark cloud with rich moonlight. 
 To stand beside a grave, and see 
 The red small atoms wherewith we
 
 Are built, and smile in calm, and say 
 "These little motes and grains shall be 
 Clothed on with immortality 
 More glorious than the noon of day." 
 
 Supposed Confessions 
 
 [ "3]
 
 DECEMBER 
 
 DECEMBER FIRST 
 
 GREAT deeds cannot die: 
 They with the sun and moon renew their 
 
 light 
 For ever, blessing those that look on them. 
 
 The Princess 
 
 DECEMBER SECOND 
 
 Not clinging to some ancient saw; 
 
 Not master'd by some modern term ; 
 
 Not swift nor slow to change, but firm 
 And in its season bring the law. 
 
 " Love Thou Thy Land " 
 
 DECEMBER THIRD 
 
 Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace ? we 
 
 have made them a curse, 
 Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not 
 
 its own ; 
 And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better 
 
 or worse 
 Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on 
 
 his own hearthstone? 
 
 Maud 
 
 [ 5 1
 
 DECEMBER FOURTH 
 
 Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 From yon blue heavens above us bent 
 The grand old gardener and his wife 
 
 Smile at the claims of long descent. 
 Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 
 
 'Tis only noble to be good. 
 Kind hearts are more than coronets, 
 
 And simple faith than Norman blood. 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere 
 
 DECEMBER FIFTH 
 
 Look thro' mine eyes with thine. True wife, 
 
 Round my true heart thine arms entwine; 
 My other dearer life in life, 
 
 Look thro' my very soul with thine ! 
 Untouch'd with any shade of years, 
 
 May those kind eyes for ever dwell ! 
 They have not shed a many tears, 
 
 Dear eyes, since first I knew them well. 
 
 The Millers Daughter 
 
 DECEMBER SIXTH 
 
 Thou who stealest fire, 
 From the fountains of the past, 
 To glorify the present ; oh, haste, 
 
 Visit my low desire ! 
 Strengthen me, enlighten me! 
 I faint in this obscurity, 
 
 Thou dewy dawn of memory. 
 
 Ode to Memory 
 
 [1*6]
 
 DECEMBER SEVENTH 
 
 This fine old world of ours is but a child 
 Yet in the go-cart. Patience ! Give it time 
 To learn its limbs : there is a hand that guides. 
 
 'The Princess 
 
 DECEMBER EIGHTH 
 
 It is better to fight for the good, than to rail at 
 
 the ill; 
 I have felt with my native land, I am one with 
 
 my kind, 
 I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom as- 
 
 sign'd. 
 
 Maud 
 
 DECEMBER NINTH 
 
 For all things serve their time 
 Toward that great yeat of equal mights and rights, 
 Nor would I fight with iron laws, in the end 
 Found golden : let the past be past. 
 
 The Princess 
 
 DECEMBER TENTH 
 
 To-morrow yet would reap to-day, 
 
 As we bear blossom of the dead ; 
 
 Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed 
 Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay. 
 
 "Love Thou Thy Land"
 
 DECEMBER ELEVENTH 
 
 O thou that after toil and storm 
 
 Mayst seem to have reach'd a purer air, 
 Whose faith has centre everywhere, 
 Nor cares to fix itself to form, 
 
 Leave thou thy sister when she prays, 
 Her early Heaven, her happy views; 
 Nor thou with shadow'd hint confuse 
 
 A life that leads melodious days. 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 DECEMBER TWELFTH 
 
 Her eyes are homes of silent prayer. 
 
 DECEMBER THIRTEENTH 
 
 Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 If Time be heavy on your hands, 
 Are there no beggars at your gate, 
 
 Nor any poor about your lands ? 
 Oh ! teach the orphan-boy to read, 
 
 Or teach the orphan-girl to sew, 
 Pray Heaven for a human heart, 
 
 And let the foolish yeoman go. 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere 
 
 DECEMBER FOURTEENTH 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 There stands a spedlre in your hall : 
 The guilt of blood is at your door : 
 
 You changed a wholesome heart to gall. 
 [ 128 ]
 
 You held your course without remorse, 
 To make him trust his modest worth, 
 
 And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare, 
 And slew him with your noble birth. 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere 
 
 DECEMBER FIFTEENTH 
 
 But, sir, you know 
 
 That these two parties still divide the world 
 Of those that want, and those that have: and still 
 The same old sore breaks out from age to age 
 
 With much the same result. 
 
 Walking to the Mail 
 
 DECEMBER SIXTEENTH 
 
 We pass : the path that each man trod 
 Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds: 
 What fame is left for human deeds 
 
 In endless age ? It rests with God. 
 
 O hollow wraith of dying fame, 
 Fade wholly, while the soul exults, 
 And self-infolds the large results 
 
 Of force that would have forged a name. 
 
 / Memorlam 
 
 DECEMBER SEVENTEENTH 
 
 Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the 
 
 battle flags were furl'd 
 
 In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the 
 world. 
 
 [ I2 9 ]
 
 There the common sense of most shall hold a fret- 
 ful realm in awe, 
 
 And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in uni- 
 versal law. 
 
 Locksley Hall 
 
 DECEMBER EIGHTEENTH 
 
 I have lived my life, and that which I have done 
 May He within himself make pure ! but thou, 
 If thou shouldst never see my face again, 
 
 Pray for my soul. 
 
 Morte D* Arthur 
 
 DECEMBER NINETEENTH 
 
 More things are wrought by prayer 
 Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy 
 
 voice 
 
 Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
 For what are men better than sheep or goats 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
 If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
 Both for themselves and those who call them friend ? 
 For so the whole round earth is every way 
 Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 
 
 Morte D" Arthur 
 DECEMBER TWENTIETH 
 
 There is none that does his work, not one ; 
 A touch of their office might have sufficed, 
 But the churchmen fain would kill their church, 
 
 As the churches have kill'd their Christ. 
 
 Maud 
 [ '30]
 
 DECEMBER TWENTY-FIRST 
 
 I am a part of all that I have met. 
 
 Ulysses 
 
 DECEMBER TWENTY-SECOND 
 O living will that shalt endure 
 
 When all that seems shall suffer shock, 
 
 Rise in the spiritual rock, 
 Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure, 
 
 That we may lift from out of dust 
 
 A voice as unto him that hears, 
 
 A cry above the conquer'd years 
 To one that with us works, and trust, 
 
 With faith that comes of self-control, 
 The truths that never can be proved 
 Until we close with all we loved, 
 
 And all we flow from, soul in soul. 
 
 In Mcmoriam 
 
 DECEMBER TWENTY-THIRD 
 
 We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move ; 
 The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun ; 
 The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her ellipse; 
 And human things returning on themselves 
 Move onward, leading up the golden year. 
 
 The Golden Year
 
 DECEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 The time draws near the birth of Christ: 
 The moon is hid ; the night is still; 
 The Christmas bells from hill to hill 
 Answer each other in the mist. 
 
 Each voice four changes on the wind, 
 That now dilate, and now decrease, 
 Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace, 
 
 Peace and goodwill, to all mankind. 
 
 In Memorlam 
 
 DECEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH 
 
 And, further inland, voices echoed "Come 
 With all good things, and war shall be no more." 
 At this a hundred bells began to peal, 
 That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed 
 The clear church-bells ring in the Christmas morn. 
 
 Morte D" Arthur 
 
 DECEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 But we grow old. Ah ! when shall all men's good 
 Be each man's rule, and universal Peace 
 Lie like a shaft of light across the land, 
 And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, 
 Thro' all the circle of the golden year ? 
 
 The Golden Year 
 
 DECEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 Old age hath yet his honour and his toil ; 
 Death closes all : but something ere the end, 
 [ '3*]
 
 Some work of noble note, may yet be done, 
 Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. 
 
 Ulysses 
 
 DECEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH 
 
 All things are taken from us, and become 
 Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past. 
 
 'The Lotos-Eaters 
 
 DECEMBER TWENTY-NINTH 
 
 Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' 
 We are not now that strength which in old days 
 Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we 
 
 are ; 
 
 One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
 Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 
 
 Ulysses 
 
 DECEMBER THIRTIETH 
 
 Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, 
 And the winter winds are wearily sighing : 
 Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow, 
 And tread softly and speak low, 
 For the old year lies a-dying. 
 
 Old year, you must not die; 
 
 You came to us so readily, 
 
 You lived with us so steadily, 
 
 Old year, you shall not die. 
 
 The Death of the Old Year 
 
 [ '33]
 
 DECEMBER THIRTY-FIRST 
 
 Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 
 The flying cloud, the frosty light: 
 The year is dying in the night; 
 
 Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 
 
 Ring out the old, ring in the new, 
 Ring, happy bells, across the snow: 
 The year is going, let him go; 
 
 Ring out the false, ring in the true. 
 
 Ring out the grief that saps the mind, 
 For those that here we see no more; 
 Ring out the feud of rich and poor, 
 
 Ring in redress to all mankind. 
 
 Ring in the valiant man and free, 
 The larger heart, the kindlier hand; 
 Ring out the darkness of the land, 
 
 Ring in the Christ that is to be. 
 
 /// Memoriam
 
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