peace

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than

HERE lies the woven garb he wore
Of grass he gathered by the shore
Whereon the phantom waves still fret and foam
And sigh along the visionary sand.
‘Where is he now?’ you cry; ‘What desolate land
Gleams round him in dull mockery of home?’

You knew him by the robe he cast
About him, grey and worn at last.
‘It fades,’ you murmur, ‘changes, lives and dies.
Why has he vanished? Whither is he fled?
And is there any light among the dead?

Some say that Guy of Warwick
The man that killed the Cow,
And brake the mighty Boar alive
Beyond the bridge at Slough;
Went up against a Loathly Worm
That wasted all the Downs,
And so the roads they twist and squirm
(If a may be allowed the term)
From the writhing of the stricken Worm
That died in seven towns.
I see no scientific proof
That this idea is sound,
And I should say they wound about
To find the town of Roundabout,
The merry town of Roundabout,

Who is it lacks the knowledge? Who are the curs that dare
To whine and sneer that they do not fear the whelps in the Lion's lair?
But we of the North will answer, while life in the North remains,
Let the curs beware lest the whelps they dare are the Riders of the Plains;
For these are the kind whose muscle makes the power of the Lion's jaw,
And they keep the peace of our people and the honour of British law.

A woman has painted a picture,--'tis a neat little bit of art

I was at peace until you came
And set a careless mind aflame;
I lived in quiet; cold, content;
All longing in safe banishment,
Until your ghostly lips and eyes
Made wisdom unwise.

Naught was in me to tempt your feet
To seek a lodging. Quite forgot
Lay the sweet solitude we two
In childhood used to wander through;
Time's cold had closed my heart about,
And shut you out.

Well, and what then? . . . O vision grave,
Take all the little all I have!

1901


Not in the camp his victory lies
Or triumph in the market-place,
Who is his Nation's sacrifice
To turn the judgement from his race.

Happy is he who, bred and taught
By sleek, sufficing Circumstance --
Whose Gospel was the apparelled thought,
Whose Gods were Luxury and Chance --

Seese, on the threshold of his days,
The old life shrivel like a scroll,
And to unheralded dismays
Submits his body and his soul;

The fatted shows wherein he stood

The overfaithful sword returns the user
His heart's desire at price of his heart's blood.
The clamour of the arrogant accuser
Wastes that one hour we needed to make good.
This was foretold of old at our outgoing;
This we accepted who have squandered, knowing,
The strength and glory of our reputations,
At the day's need, as it were dross, to guard
The tender and new-dedicate foundations
Against the sea we fear -- not man's award.

They that dig foundations deep,
Fit for realms to rise upon,

Shall we conceal the Case, or tell it -
   We who believe the evidence?
   Here and there the watch-towers knell it
   With a sullen significance,
Heard of the few who hearken intently and carry an eagerly upstrained
sense.

   Hearts that are happiest hold not by it;
   Better we let, then, the old view reign;
   Since there is peace in it, why decry it?
   Since there is comfort, why disdain?
Note not the pigment the while that the painting determines
humanity's joy and pain!

As when the Paschal week is o'er,
Sleeps in the silent aisles no more
The breath of sacred song,
But by the rising Saviour's light
Awakened soars in airy flight,
Or deepening rolls along;

The while round altar, niche, and shrine,
The funeral evergreens entwine,
And a dark brilliance cast,
The brighter for their hues of gloom,
Tokens of Him, who through the tomb
Into high glory passed:

Such were the lights and such the strains.
When proudly streamed o'er ocean plains

He stood before my heart's closed door,
And asked to enter in;
But I had barred the passage o'er
By unbelief and sin.

He came with nail-prints in his hands,
To set my spirit free;
With wounded feet he trod a path
To come and sup with me.

He found me poor and brought me gold,
The fire of love had tried,
And garments whitened by his blood,
My wretchedness to hide.

The glare of life had dimmed my eyes,
Its glamour was too bright.
He came with ointment in his hands