XXXVIII

'Tis time, I think by Wenlock town
 The golden broom should blow;
The hawthorn sprinkled up and down
 Should charge the land with snow.

Spring will not wait the loiterer's time
 Who keeps so long away;
So others wear the broom and climb
 The hedgerows heaped with may.

Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge,
 Gold that I never see;
Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedge
 That will not shower on me.

Into my heart an air that kills
 From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
 What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
 I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
 And cannot come again.

 In my own shire, if I was sad
Homely comforters I had:
The earth, because my heart was sore,
Sorrowed for the son she bore;
And standing hills, long to remain,
Shared their short-lived comrade's pain.
And bound for the same bourn as I,
On every road I wandered by,
Trod beside me, close and dear,
The beautiful and death-struck year:
Whether in the woodland brown
I heard the beechnut rustle down,
And saw the purple crocus pale
Flower about the autumn dale;
Or littering far the fields of May
Lady-smocks a-bleaching lay,
And like a skylit water stood
The bluebells in the azured wood.

 Yonder, lightening other loads,
The seasons range the country roads,
But here in London streets I ken
No such helpmates, only men;
And these are not in plight to bear,
If they would, another's care.
They have enough as 'tis: I see
In many an eye that measures me
The mortal sickness of a mind
Too unhappy to be kind.
Undone with misery, all they can
Is to hate their fellow man;
And till they drop they needs must still
Look at you and wish you ill.

Once in the wind of morning
 I ranged the thymy wold;
The world-wide air was azure
 And all the brooks ran gold.

There through the dews beside me
 Behold a youth that trod,
With feathered cap on forehead,
 And poised a golden rod.

With mien to match the morning
 And gay delightful guise
And friendly brows and laughter
 He looked me in the eyes.

Oh whence, I asked, and whither?
 He smiled and would not say,
And looked at me and beckoned
 And laughed and led the way.

And with kind looks and laughter
 And nought to say beside
We two went on together,
 I and my happy guide.

Across the glittering pastures
 And empty upland still
And solitude of shepherds
 High in the folded hill,

By hanging woods and hamlets
 That gaze through orchards down
On many a windmill turning
 And far-discovered town,

With gay regards of promise
 And sure unslackened stride
And smiles and nothing spoken
 Led on my merry guide.

By blowing realms of woodland
 With sunstruck vanes afield
And cloud-led shadows sailing
 About the windy weald,

By valley-guarded granges
 And silver waters wide,
Content at heart I followed
 With my delightful guide.

And like the cloudy shadows
 Across the country blown
We two face on for ever,
 But not we two alone.

With the great gale we journey
 That breathes from gardens thinned,
Borne in the drift of blossoms
 Whose petals throng the wind;

Buoyed on the heaven-heard whisper
 Of dancing leaflets whirled
From all the woods that autumn
 Bereaves in all the world.

And midst the fluttering legion
 Of all that ever died
I follow, and before us
 Goes the delightful guide,

With lips that brim with laughter
 But never once respond,
And feet that fly on feathers,
 And serpent-circled wand.

When I meet the morning beam,
Or lay me down at night to dream,
I hear my bones within me say,
"Another night, another day."

"When shall this slough of sense be cast,
This dust of thoughts be laid at last,
The man of flesh and soul be slain
And the man of bone remain?"

"This tongue that talks, these lungs that shout,
These thews that hustle us about,
This brain that fills the skull with schemes,
And its humming hive of dreams,-"

"These to-day are proud in power
And lord it in their little hour:
The immortal bones obey control
Of dying flesh and dying soul."

" 'Tis long till eve and morn are gone:
Slow the endless night comes on,
And late to fulness grows the birth
That shall last as long as earth."

"Wanderers eastward, wanderers west,
Know you why you cannot rest?
'Tis that every mother's son
Travails with a skeleton."

"Lie down in the bed of dust;
Bear the fruit that bear you must;
Bring the eternal seed to light,
And morn is all the same as night."

"Rest you so from trouble sore,
Fear the heat o' the sun no more,
Nor the snowing winter wild,
Now you labour not with child."

"Empty vessel, garment cast,
We that wore you long shall last.
-Another night, another day."
So my bones within me say.

Therefore they shall do my will
To-day while I am master still,
And flesh and soul, now both are strong,
Shall hale the sullen slaves along,

Before this fire of sense decay,
This smoke of thought blow clean away,
And leave with ancient night alone
The stedfast and enduring bone.

Shot? so quick, so clean an ending?
 Oh that was right, lad, that was brave:
Yours was not an ill for mending,
 'Twas best to take it to the grave.

Oh you had forethought, you could reason,
 And saw your road and where it led,
And early wise and brave in season
 Put the pistol to your head.

Oh soon, and better so than later
 After long disgrace and scorn,
You shot dead the household traitor,
 The soul that should not have been born.

Right you guessed the rising morrow
 And scorned to tread the mire you must:
Dust's your wages, son of sorrow,
 But men may come to worse than dust.

Souls undone, undoing others,-
 Long time since the tale began.
You would not live to wrong your brothers:
 Oh lad, you died as fits a man.

Now to your grave shall friend and stranger
 With ruth and some with envy come:
Undishonoured, clear of danger,
 Clean of guilt, pass hence and home.

Turn safe to rest, no dreams, no waking;
 And here, man, here's the wreath I've made:
'Tis not a gift that's worth the taking,
 But wear it and it will not fade.

If it chance your eye offend you,
 Pluck it out, lad, and be sound:
'Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you,
 And many a balsam grows on ground.

And if your hand or foot offend you,
 Cut it off, lad, and be whole;
But play the man, stand up and end you,
 When your sickness is your soul.

 Bring, in this timeless grave to throw,
No cypress, sombre on the snow;
Snap not from the bitter yew
His leaves that live December through;
Break no rosemary, bright with rime
And sparkling to the cruel clime;
Nor plod the winter land to look
For willows in the icy brook
To cast them leafless round him: bring
No spray that ever buds in spring.

 But if the Christmas field has kept
Awns the last gleaner overstept,
Or shrivelled flax, whose flower is blue
A single season, never two;
Or if one haulm whose year is o'er
Shivers on the upland frore,
-Oh, bring from hill and stream and plain
Whatever will not flower again,
To give him comfort: he and those
Shall bide eternal bedfellows
Where low upon the couch he lies
Whence he never shall arise.

"Here the hangman stops his cart:
Now the best of friends must part.
Fare you well, for ill fare I:
Live, lads, and I will die."

"Oh, at home had I but stayed
'Prenticed to my father's trade,
Had I stuck to plane and adze,
I had not been lost, my lads."

"Then I might have built perhaps
Gallows-trees for other chaps,
Never dangled on my own,
Had I but left ill alone."

"Now, you see, they hang me high,
And the people passing by
Stop to shake their fists and curse;
So 'tis come from ill to worse."

"Here hang I, and right and left
Two poor fellows hang for theft:
All the same's the luck we prove,
Though the midmost hangs for love."

"Comrades all, that stand and gaze,
Walk henceforth in other ways;
See my neck and save your own:
Comrades all, leave ill alone."

"Make some day a decent end,
Shrewder fellows than your friend.
Fare you well, for ill fare I:
Live, lads, and I will die."