Would they were written, (and in heav'n they are,)
The patient deeds of men of low estate!
Esteem'd so little, but how truly great!
When will their modest beams be hail'd afar,
And peacefully smile down the pomps of war?
Oh, when will Labour's weary sons descry,
Illumining with love an equal sky,
The honour'd rays of Toil's eternal star?
I know that our Redeemer lives; I know
That well he marks our strife with want and fear;
Our long-assur'd inheritance of woe!
I know that his good angels love to write
Our humblest deeds in everlasting light;

I hunted her down the morning.
Sharp hoof and shoulders bare,
She fled me in swift scorning,
With her great golden mane of hair
Firing the hot and quivering air.
Down broad bleached plain, up sunburnt hill
She led me and I followed still.
She leapt the rock, I saw the gleam
Of glistening haunches in the stream;
Her little murdering hoof she drove
Through reed and flower, her hair alone
With long gold fingers urged me on
Till I was mad and blind with love,
With sun and sleep and sharp desire
That make the first hours keen as fire;

Love—what is love? A great and aching heart;
Wrung hands; and silence; and a long despair.
Life—what is life? Upon a moorland bare
To see love coming and see love depart.

A star that once
within night's velvet whispered all
the words of love
is now a mortal in the world
below—See this swirling hair!

I FOUND in flowers my love asleep
Where scents and shadows fell most deep:
I wonder if my love would weep
To know I found her laid asleep.

I kissed her eyelids as she lay,
She did not wake or turn away;
To her what bird or bee shall say
I kissed her eyelids as she lay?

And to the Father of Eternal days,
And fairest things, that fairer yet will be,
Shall I no song of adoration raise,
While Passion's world, and Life's great agony,
Are one dread hymn, dread Progresser! to thee?
Thou, Love, are Progress! And be thine the praise
If I have ever lov'd thy voice divine,
And o'er the sadness of my slander'd lays
Flings its redeeming charm a note of thine.
Oh, Gentlest Might Almighty! if of mine
One strain shall live, let it thy impress bear;
And please wherever humble virtues twine
The rose and woodbine with the thorns of care,

What doth it cover? Mystery and Thee.
Life Everlasting, and All-vital Sleep,
That Mystery is, and evermore will be.
Thou art all passions, all in one, dark Fear!
All passions of all men, the bond and free,
Whether they love, or hate, or laugh, or weep;
For all would have, and all who have would keep.
Then, lift the veil, and thy own features see
Beneath it, thou strong servant of Love's might!
Taught by the Progresser to show Man here
God's face in goodness only, and the right:
Reading his Name in darkness which is light;
And ever summoning the infinite

The morning of the last day of the year
Instructs me that my course is nearly run.
I thank thee that I see another sun,
Father of Seasons! that I still am here
To do thy will; and that the dawn is near
Of a New Life for me. What have I won
In worthy strife? What good work unbegun
Awaits me? Father, I must soon appear
Before thee, to be sentenc'd. If I strove
In kindness, I am safe. What is our own?
That only which we build for thee and thine.
Who shall reap love, unless he sow in love?
If I have labour'd for myself alone,

“So careful of the Type she seems;”
She mends what Man so foully makes:
Searching for five minute misprints
In a forest of mistakes.

If I (in form) dictated this
You will agree, at any rate,
Some things are here which you believe
And I did not dictate.

As you were better than a friend
In more than friendship we agree—
Friendship at best may be a bond:
And Truth has made us free.

Who enters by that Door alone,
However, dubious or afraid
For that one hour is that one Mind
For which the world was made . . .

O hurry where by water among trees
The delicate-stepping stag and his lady sigh,
When they have but looked upon their images,—
O that none ever loved but you and I!

Or have you heard that sliding silver-shoed
Pale silver-proud queen-woman of the sky,
When the sun looked out of his golden hood?—
O that none ever loved but you and I!

O hurry to the ragged wood, for there
I'll hollo all those lovers out and cry—
O my share of the world, O yellow hair!
No one has ever loved but you and I.