wind

Butcher the evil millionaire, peasant,
And leave him stinking in the square.
Torture the chancellor. Leave the ambassador
Strung by his thumbs from the pleasant
Embassy wall, where the vines were.
Then drill your hogs and sons for another war.

Fire on the screaming crowd, ambassador,
Sick chancellor, brave millionaire,
And name them by the name that is your name.
Give privilege to the wound, and maim
The last resister. Poison the air
And mew for peace, for order, and for war.

Bewilderingly, from wildly shaken cloud,
Invisible hands, deft moving everywhere,
Have woven a winding sheet of velvet air,
And laid the dead earth in her downy shroud.
And more and more, in white confusion, crowd
Wan, whirling flakes, while o'er the icy glare
Blue heaven that was glooms blackening o'er the bare
Tree skeletons, to ruthless tempest bowed.

Nay, let the outer world be winter-locked;
Beside the hearth of glowing memories
I warm my life. Once more our boat is rocked,

'You! What d'you mean by this?' I rapped.
'You dare come on parade like this?'
'Please, sir, it's-' ''Old yer mouth,' the sergeant snapped.
'I takes 'is name, sir?'-'Please, and then dismiss.'

Some days 'confined to camp' he got,
For being 'dirty on parade'.
He told me, afterwards, the damnèd spot
Was blood, his own. 'Well, blood is dirt,' I said.

'Blood's dirt,' he laughed, looking away,
Far off to where his wound had bled
And almost merged for ever into clay.
'The world is washing out its stains,' he said.

THE HOUSE

The cornerstone in Truth is laid,
The guardian walls of Honour made,
The roof of Faith is built above,
The fire upon the hearth is Love:
Though rains descend and loud winds call,
This happy house shall never fall.


THE DOORSTEAD

The lintel low enough to keep out pomp and pride:
The threshold high enough to turn deceit aside:
The doorband strong enough from robbers to defend:
This door will open at a touch to welcome every friend.


THE HEARTHSTONE

Above the vale of Inkerman,
Calmly the moon's rays fell,
Revealing as by light of day,
That deep and lonely dell;
Tchernaya's waters as a band
Of silver graceful flowed,
But who can paint the ghastly scene,
Which those bright rays disclosed!
Thickly as leaves around the path
Through copse and brush-wood dense,
Lay piles of dead and wounded men,
Slain in that fierce defense.
The fearful moan, the struggles fierce,
The hoarse and gurgling cry

The hounds of despair, the hounds of the autumnal wind,
Gnaw with their howling the black echoes of evenings.
The darkness, immensely, gropes in the emptiness
For the moon, seen by the light of water.

From point to point, over there, the distant lights,
And in the sky, above, dreadful voices
Coming and going from the infinity of the marshes and planes
To the infinity of the valleys and the woods.

And roadways that stretch out like sails
And pass each other, coming unfolded in the distance, soundlessly,

In my one love are many loves entwined;
Each hour makes me unfaithful to the last;
The beauty present dims the beauty past;
Of her worst rivals is her self combined.
When she is pale, in her dear cheek I find
The fairest shade on earth was ever cast;
And if she blush, that hue is not surpassed
In roses ruffled by the wanton wind.
Sometimes her sweet lips droop to a purpose sad;
Then all my soul in loving sympathy
Burns to dispel her sadness with a kiss;
And when they flash and curve in laughter glad,

How often we forget all time, when lone
Admiring Nature's universal throne;
Her woods - her winds - her mountains - the intense
Reply of Hers to Our intelligence!

I.

In youth I have known one with whom the Earth
In secret communing held - as he with it,
In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth:
Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
A passionate light - such for his spirit was fit -
And yet that spirit knew - not in the hour

IN the highlands, in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
   And the young fair maidens
   Quiet eyes;
Where essential silence cheers and blesses,
And for ever in the hill-recesses
   Her more lovely music
   Broods and dies--

O to mount again where erst I haunted;
Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,
   And the low green meadows
   Bright with sward;
And when even dies, the million-tinted,
And the night has come, and planets glinted,

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The Ship was still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.

Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flow’d over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.

The Abbot of Aberbrothok
Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.