Poets From England

"Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing, I cannot ease the burden of your fears, Or make quick-coming death a little thing, Or bring again the pleasure of past years, Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears, Or hope again for aught that I can say, The idle singer of an empty day."

"To happy folk All heaviest words no more of meaning bear Than far-off bells saddening the Summer air."

"The heavy trouble, the bewildering care That weighs us down who live and earn our bread, These idle verses have no power to bear; So let em sing of names rememberèd, Because they, living not, can ne'er be dead, Or long time take their memory quite away From us poor singers of an empty day."

"Late February days; and now, at last, Might you have thought that Winter's woe was past; So fair the sky was and so soft the air."

"Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time, Why should I strive to set the crooked straight? Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme Beats with light wing against the ivory gate, Telling a tale not too importunate To those who in the sleepy region stay, Lulled by the singer of an empty day."

"Upon the floor uncounted medals lay Like things of little value; here and there Stood golden caldrons, that might well outweigh The biggest midst an emperor's copper-ware, And golden cups were set on tables fair, Themselves of gold; and in all hollow things Were stored great gems, worthy the crowns of kings."

"A world made to be lost, — A bitter life 'twixt pain and nothing tost."

"Oh, friends, content you! this is much indeed, And we are paid, thus garnering for our need Your blessings only, bringing in their train God's blessings as the south wind brings the rain. And for the rest, no little thing shall be (Since ye through all yet keep your memory) The gentle music of the bygone years, Long past to us with all their hopes and fears."

"Slayer of the Winter, art thou here again? O welcome, thou that bring'st the Summer nigh! The bitter wind makes not thy victory vain, Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky."

"I too Will go, remembering what I said to you, When any land, the first to which we came Seemed that we sought, and set your hearts aflame, And all seemed won to you: but still I think, Perchance years hence, the fount of life to drink, Unless by some ill chance I first am slain. But boundless risk must pay for boundless gain."

"Rejoice, lest pleasureless ye die. Within a little time must ye go by. Stretch forth your open hands, and while ye live Take all the gifts that Death and Life may give!"

"Wind! wind! thou art sad, art thou kind? Wind, wind, unhappy! thou art blind, Yet still thou wanderest the lily-seed to find."

"Masters, I have to tell a tale of woe, A tale of folly and of wasted life, Hope against hope, the bitter dregs of strife, Ending, where all things end, in death at last."

"Forgetfulness of grief I yet may gain; In some wise may come ending to my pain; It may be yet the Gods will have me glad! Yet, Love, I would that thee and pain I had!"

"Forget six counties overhung with smoke, Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke, Forget the spreading of the hideous town; Think rather of the pack-horse on the down, And dream of London, small, and white, and clean, The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green."

"It is the longest night in all the year, Near on the day when the Lord Christ was born; Six hours ago I came and sat down here, And ponder'd sadly, wearied and forlorn."

"O servant of the high God, Galahad!"

"He did not die in the night, He did not die in the day. But in the morning twilight His spirit pass'd away."

"Speak but one word to me over the corn, Over the tender, bow'd locks of the corn."

"And ever she sung from noon to noon, Two red roses across the moon."

"Earth, left silent by the wind of night, Seems shrunken 'neath the gray unmeasured height."

"There were four of us about that bed; The mass-priest knelt at the side, I and his mother stood at the head, Over his feet lay the bride; We were quite sure that he was dead, Though his eyes were open wide."

"And then the image, that well-nigh erased Over the castle-gate he did behold, Above a door well wrought in coloured gold Again he saw; a naked girl with wings Enfolded in a serpent's scaly rings."

"Had she come all the way for this, To part at last without a kiss? Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain That her own eyes might see him slain Beside the haystack in the floods?"

"Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips, Think but one thought of me up in the stars."

"Came Launcelot walking; this is true, the kiss Wherewith we kissed in meeting that spring day, I scarce dare talk of the remember'd bliss."

""You must be very old, Sir Giles," I said; he said: "Yea, very old:" Whereat the mournfullest of smiles Creased his dry skin with many a fold."

"With the arrogance of youth, I determined to do no less than to transform the world with Beauty. If I have succeeded in some small way, if only in one small corner of the world, amongst the men and women I love, then I shall count myself blessed, and blessed, and blessed, and the work goes on."

"One of these cloths is heaven, and one is hell, Now choose one cloth for ever; which they be, I will not tell you, you must somehow tell Of your own strength and mightiness."

"They hammer'd out my basnet point Into a round salade."

"And one of these strange choosing cloths was blue, Wavy and long, and one cut short and red; No man could tell the better of the two. After a shivering half-hour you said: 'God help! heaven's colour, the blue;' and he said, 'hell.' Perhaps you then would roll upon your bed, And cry to all good men that loved you well, 'Ah Christ! if only I had known, known, known.'"

"The British Empire is not a thing to love or to be proud of, but a disgrace and a nuisance, as a domination compounded of fraud, injustice and violence to be scorned by all honest men wherever possible."

"The reward of labour is life."

"The South Sea Islander must leave his canoe-carving, his sweet rest, and his graceful dances, and become the slave of a slave: trousers, shoddy, rum, missionary, and fatal disease — he must swallow all this civilization in a lump, and neither himself nor we can help him now till social order displaces the hideous tyranny of gambling that has ruined him."

"On the fall of Chartism, the Liberal party—which as an engine of progress was a party without principles or definition, but has been used as a thoroughly adequate expression of English middle-class hypocrisy, cowardice, and short-sightedness—engrossed the whole of the political progressive movement in England, and dragged the working classes along with it, blind as they were to their own interests and the solidarity of labour."

"What is this, the sound and rumour? What is this that all men hear, Like the wind in hollow valleys when the storm is drawing near, Like the rolling on of ocean in the eventide of fear? 'Tis the people marching on."

"But lo, the old inn, and the lights, and the fire, And the fiddler's old tune and the shuffling of feet; Soon for us shall be quiet and rest and desire, And to-morrow's uprising to deeds shall be sweet."

"My lady seems of ivory Forehead, straight nose, and cheeks that be Hollow'd a little mournfully. Beata mea Domina!"

"He betrayed the trust reposed in him & used his military & administrative capacity for the purpose of bringing the Soudanese under the subjection of a vile tyranny. To make a hero of such a man is a direct attack on public morality."

"Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement: a sanded floor and whitewashed walls, and the green trees, and flowery meads, and living waters outside; or a grimy palace amid the smoke with a regiment of housemaids always working to smear the dirt together so that it may be unnoticed; which, think you, is the most refined, the most fit for a gentleman of those two dwellings? So I say, if you cannot learn to love real art; at least learn to hate sham art and reject it. It is not because the wretched thing is so ugly and silly and useless that I ask you to cast it from you; it is much more because these are but the outward symbols of the poison that lies within them; look through them and see all that has gone to their fashioning, and you will see how vain labour, and sorrow, and disgrace have been their companions from the first — and all this for trifles that no man really needs!"

"I love art, and I love history, but it is living art and living history that I love... It is in the interest of living art and living history that I oppose so-called restoration. What history can there be in a building bedaubed with ornament, which cannot at the best be anything but a hopeless and lifeless imitation of the hope and vigour of the earlier world?"

"The greatest foe to art is luxury, art cannot live in its atmosphere."

"So long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on; and if that system is to last for ever, then art is doomed, and will surely die; that is to say, civilization will die."

"From out the throng and stress of lies, From out the painful noise of sighs, One voice of comfort seems to rise: "It is the meaner part that dies.""

"If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

"What shall I say concerning its mastery of and its waste of mechanical power, its commonwealth so poor, its enemies of the commonwealth so rich, its stupendous organization — for the misery of life! Its contempt of simple pleasures which everyone could enjoy but for its folly? Its eyeless vulgarity which has destroyed art, the one certain solace of labour? All this I felt then as now, but I did not know why it was so. The hope of the past times was gone, the struggles of mankind for many ages had produced nothing but this sordid, aimless, ugly confusion."

"Beauty, which is what is meant by art, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life."

"I know a little garden-close Set thick with lily and red rose, Where I would wander if I might From dewy dawn to dewy night, And have one with me wandering."

"Man alive! how can you ask such a question? Have I not told you that we know what a prison means by the undoubted evidence of really trustworthy books, helped out by our own imaginations? And haven't you specially called me to notice that the people about the roads and streets look happy? and how could they look happy if they knew that their neighbours were shut up in prison, while they bore such things quietly? And if there were people in prison, you couldn't hide it from folk, like you can an occasional man-slaying; because that isn't done of set purpose, with a lot of people backing up the slayer in cold blood, as this prison business is. Prisons, indeed! O no, no, no!"

"There sat a woman, whose wet tresses rolled On to the floor in waves of gleaming gold, Cast back from such a form as, erewhile shown To one poor shepherd, lighted up Troy town."