Ethics and Morality

The infant april joins the spring
And views its watery skye
As youngling linnet trys its wing
And fears at first to flye
With timid step she ventures on
And hardly dares to smile
The blossoms open one by one
And sunny hours beguile

But finer days approacheth yet
With scenes more sweet to charm
And suns arrive that rise and set
Bright strangers to a storm
And as the birds with louder song
Each mornings glory cheers
With bolder step she speeds along
And looses all her fears
In wanton gambols like a child
She tends her early toils
And seeks the buds along the wild
That blossom while she smiles
And laughing on with nought to chide
She races with the hours
Or sports by natures lovley side
And fills her lap with flowers

Tho at her birth north cutting gales
Her beautys oft disguise
And hopfull blossoms turning pales
Upon her bosom dies
Yet ere she seeks another place
And ends her reign in this
She leaves us with as fair a face
As ere gave birth to bliss

And fairey month of waking mirth
From whom our joys ensue
Thou early gladder of the earth
Thrice welcom here anew
With thee the bud unfolds to leaves
The grass greens on the lea
And flowers their tender boon recieves
To bloom and smile with thee

The shepherds on thy pasture walks
The first fair cowslip finds
Whose tufted flowers on slender stalks
Keep nodding to the winds
And tho thy thorns withold the may
Their shades the violets bring
Which childern stoop for in their play
As tokens of the spring


The time when daiseys bloom divine
With thy calm hours begun
And crowflowers blazing blooms are thine
Bright childern of the sun
Along thy woodlands shaded nooks
The primrose wanly comes
And shining in thy pebley brooks
The horse bleb gaily blooms

The long lost charm of sparkling dew
Thy gentle birth recieves
And on thy wreathing locks we view
The first infolding leaves
And seeking firstling buds and flowers
The trials of thy skill
Were pastimes of my infant hours
And so they haunt me still

To see thy first broad arum leaves
I lovd them from a child
And where thy woodbines sprouting weaves
I joyd to trace the wild
And jocund as thy lambs at play
I met the wanton wind
With feelings that have passd away
Whose shadows cling behind

Those joys which childhood claims its own
Woud they were kin to men
Those treasures to the world unknown
When known-was witherd then
But hovering round our growing years
To gild cares sable shroud
Their spirit thro the gloom appears
As suns behind a cloud

As thou first met my infant eyes
When thro thy fields I flew
Whose distance where they meet the skyes
Was all the worlds I knew
That warmth of fancys wildest hours
Which made things kin to life
That heard a voice in trees and flowers
Has swoond in reasons strife

Sweet month thy pleasures bids thee be
The fairest child of spring
And every hour that comes with thee
Comes some new joy to bring
The trees still deepen in their bloom
Crass greens the meadow lands


And flowers with every morning come
As dropt by fairey hands

The field and gardens lovley hours
Begin and end with thee
For whats so sweet as peeping flowers
And bursting buds to see
What time the dews unsullied drops
In burnishd gold distills
On crocus flowers unclosing tops
And drooping daffodills

Each day with added glorys come
And as they leave the night
Put on the roseys lovley bloom
And blushes with delight
And suns that wait their welcome birth
With earlier haste pursue
Their journeys to this lower earth
To free their steps from dew

To see thee come all hearts rejoice
And warms with feelings strong
With thee all nature finds a voice
And hums a waking song
The lover views thy welcome hours
And thinks of summer come
And takes the maid thy early flowers
To tempt her steps from home

Along each hedge and sprouting bush
The singing birds are blest
And linnet green and speckld thrush
Prepare their mossy nest
On the warm bed thy plain supplys
The young lambs find repose
And mid thy green hills basking lies
Like spots of lingering snows

Young things of tender life again
Enjoys thy sunny hours
And gosslings waddle ocr the plain
As yellow as its flowers
Or swim the pond in wild delight
To catch the water flye
Where hissing geese in ceasless spite
Make childern scamper bye

Again the fairey tribes pursue
Their pleasures on the plain
And brightend with the morning dew
Black circles shine again


And on its superstitious ground
Where flowers seem loath to dwell
The toadstools fuzzy balls abound
And mushrooms yearly swell

The seasons beautys all are thine
That visit with the year
Beautys that poets think divine
And all delight to hear
Thy latter days a pleasure brings
That gladden every heart
Pleasures that come like lovley things
But like to shades depart

Thy opend leaves and ripend buds
The cuckoo makes his choice
And shepherds in thy greening woods
First hears the cheering voice
And to thy ripend blooming bowers
The nightingale belongs
And singing to thy parting hours
Keeps night awake with songs

With thee the swallow dares to come
And primes his sutty wings
And urgd to seek their yearly home
Thy suns the Martin brings
And lovley month be leisure mine
Thy yearly mate to be
Tho may day scenes may brighter shine
Their birth belongs to thee

I waked me with thy rising sun
And thy first glorys viewd
And as thy welcome hours begun
Their sunny steps pursued
And now thy sun is on the set
Like to a lovley eve
I view thy parting with regret
And linger loath to leave

Thou lovley april fare thee well
Thou early child of spring
Tho born where storms too often dwell
Thy parents news to bring
Yet what thy parting youth supplys
No other months excell
Thou first for flowers and sunny skyes
Sweet april fare thee well.

O WHAT has made that sudden noise?
What on the threshold stands?
It never crossed the sea because
John Bull and the sea are friends;
But this is not the old sea
Nor this the old seashore.
What gave that roar of mockery,
That roar in the sea's roar?
The ghost of Roger Casement
Is beating on the door.


John Bull has stood for Parliament,
A dog must have his day,
The country thinks no end of him,
For he knows how to say,
At a beanfeast or a banquet,
That all must hang their trust
Upon the British Empire,
Upon the Church of Christ.
The ghost of Roger Casement
Is beating on the door.


John Bull has gone to India
And all must pay him heed,
For histories are there to prove
That none of another breed
Has had a like inheritance,
Or sucked such milk as he,
And there's no luck about a house
If it lack honesty.
The ghost of Roger Casement
Is beating on the door.


I poked about a village church
And found his family tomb
And copied out what I could read
In that religious gloom;
Found many a famous man there;
But fame and virtue rot.
Draw round, beloved and bitter men,
Draw round and raise a shout;
The ghost of Roger Casement
Is beating on the door.

. . . At the close of a winter day,
Their anchors down, by London town, the Three Great Captains lay;
And one was Admiral of the North from Solway Firth to Skye,
And one was Lord of the Wessex coast and all the lands thereby,
And one was Master of the Thames from Limehouse to Blackwall,
And he was Captain of the Fleet -- the bravest of them all.
Their good guns guarded their great gray sides
that were thirty foot in the sheer,
When there came a certain trading-brig with news of a privateer.
Her rigging was rough with the clotted drift that drives in a Northern breeze,
Her sides were clogged with the lazy weed that spawns in the Eastern seas.
Light she rode in the rude tide-rip, to left and right she rolled,
And the skipper sat on the scuttle-butt and stared at an empty hold.
"I ha' paid Port dues for your Law," quoth he, "and where is the Law ye boast
If I sail unscathed from a heathen port to be robbed on a Christian coast?
Ye have smoked the hives of the Laccadives as we burn the lice in a bunk,
We tack not now to a Gallang prow or a plunging Pei-ho junk;
I had no fear but the seas were clear as far as a sail might fare
Till I met with a lime-washed Yankee brig that rode off Finisterre.
There were canvas blinds to his bow-gun ports to screen the weight he bore,
And the signals ran for a merchantman from Sandy Hook to the Nore.
He would not fly the Rovers' flag -- the bloody or the black,
But now he floated the Gridiron and now he flaunted the Jack.
He spoke of the Law as he crimped my crew -- he swore it was only a loan;
But when I would ask for my own again, he swore it was none of my own.
He has taken my little parrakeets that nest beneath the Line,
He has stripped my rails of the shaddock-frails and the green unripened pine;
He has taken my bale of dammer and spice I won beyond the seas,
He has taken my grinning heathen gods -- and what should he want o' these?
My foremast would not mend his boom, my deckhouse patch his boats;
He has whittled the two, this Yank Yahoo, to peddle for shoe-peg oats.
I could not fight for the failing light and a rough beam-sea beside,
But I hulled him once for a clumsy crimp and twice because he lied.
Had I had guns (as I had goods) to work my Christian harm,
I had run him up from his quarter-deck to trade with his own yard-arm;
I had nailed his ears to my capstan-head, and ripped them off with a saw,
And soused them in the bilgewater, and served them to him raw;
I had flung him blind in a rudderless boat to rot in the rocking dark,
I had towed him aft of his own craft, a bait for his brother shark;
I had lapped him round with cocoa husk, and drenched him with the oil,
And lashed him fast to his own mast to blaze above my spoil;
I had stripped his hide for my hammock-side,
and tasselled his beard i' the mesh,
And spitted his crew on the live bamboo
that grows through the gangrened flesh;
I had hove him down by the mangroves brown,
where the mud-reef sucks and draws,
Moored by the heel to his own keel to wait for the land-crab's claws!
He is lazar within and lime without, ye can nose him far enow,
For he carries the taint of a musky ship -- the reek of the slaver's dhow!"
The skipper looked at the tiering guns and the bulwarks tall and cold,


And the Captains Three full courteously peered down at the gutted hold,
And the Captains Three called courteously from deck to scuttle-butt: --
"Good Sir, we ha' dealt with that merchantman or ever your teeth were cut.
Your words be words of a lawless race, and the Law it standeth thus:
He comes of a race that have never a Law, and he never has boarded us.
We ha' sold him canvas and rope and spar -- we know that his price is fair,
And we know that he weeps for the lack of a Law as he rides off Finisterre.
And since he is damned for a gallows-thief by you and better than you,
We hold it meet that the English fleet should know that we hold him true."
The skipper called to the tall taffrail: -- "And what is that to me?
Did ever you hear of a Yankee brig that rifled a Seventy-three?
Do I loom so large from your quarter-deck that I lift like a ship o' the Line?
He has learned to run from a shotted gun and harry such craft as mine.
There is never a Law on the Cocos Keys to hold a white man in,
But we do not steal the niggers' meal, for that is a nigger's sin.
Must he have his Law as a quid to chaw, or laid in brass on his wheel?
Does he steal with tears when he buccaneers?
'Fore Gad, then, why does he steal?"
The skipper bit on a deep-sea word, and the word it was not sweet,
For he could see the Captains Three had signalled to the Fleet.
But three and two, in white and blue, the whimpering flags began: --
"We have heard a tale of a -- foreign sail, but he is a merchantman."
The skipper peered beneath his palm and swore by the Great Horn Spoon: --
"'Fore Gad, the Chaplain of the Fleet would bless my picaroon!"
By two and three the flags blew free to lash the laughing air: --
"We have sold our spars to the merchantman -- we know that his price is fair."
The skipper winked his Western eye, and swore by a China storm: --
"They ha' rigged him a Joseph's jury-coat to keep his honour warm."
The halliards twanged against the tops, the bunting bellied broad,
The skipper spat in the empty hold and mourned for a wasted cord.
Masthead -- masthead, the signal sped by the line o' the British craft;
The skipper called to his Lascar crew, and put her about and laughed: --
"It's mainsail haul, my bully boys all -- we'll out to the seas again --
Ere they set us to paint their pirate saint, or scrub at his grapnel-chain.
It's fore-sheet free, with her head to the sea,
and the swing of the unbought brine --
We'll make no sport in an English court till we come as a ship o' the Line:
Till we come as a ship o' the Line, my lads, of thirty foot in the sheer,
Lifting again from the outer main with news of a privateer;
Flying his pluck at our mizzen-truck for weft of Admiralty,
Heaving his head for our dipsey-lead in sign that we keep the sea.
Then fore-sheet home as she lifts to the foam -- we stand on the outward tack,
We are paid in the coin of the white man's trade --
the bezant is hard, ay, and black.
The frigate-bird shall carry my word to the Kling and the Orang-Laut
How a man may sail from a heathen coast to be robbed in a Christian port;
How a man may be robbed in Christian port while Three Great Captains there
Shall dip their flag to a slaver's rag -- to show that his trade is fair!"

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
The midnight activities of Whats-his Name,
Scarcely a general now known to fame
Can tell you of that famous day and year.


When feeble Mr. Asquith, getting old,
The destinies of England were almost sold
To a Welsh shifter with an ogling eye,
And Whats-his-name attained nobility.


The Dashing Rupert of the pulping trade,
Rough from the virgin forests inviolate,
Thus rose in Albion, and tickled the State
And where he once set foot, right there he stayed.


Old 'Erb was doting, so the rumour ran,
Ahd Rupert ran the rumour round in wheels,
And David's harp let out heart-rending squeals:
'Find us a harpist ! ! DAVID is the man!!'


Dave was the man to sell the shot and shell,
And Basil was the Greek that rode around
On sea and land, with all convenience found
To sell, to sell, to sell, that's it, to SELL


Destroyers, bombs and spitting mitrailleuses.
He used to lunch with Balfour in those days
And if the papers seldom sang his praise,
The simple Britons never knew he was,


Until a narsty German told them so.
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of things that happened very long ago,
And scarcely heed one word of what you hear.


Bury it all, bury it all well deep,
And let the blighters start it all over again.
They'll trick you again and again, as you sleep;
But you shall know that these were the men,

He passed in the very battle-smoke
Of the war that he had descried.
Three hundred mile of cannon spoke
When the Master-Gunner died.
He passed to the very sound of the guns;
But, before his eye grew dim,
He had seen the faces of the sons
Whose sires had served with him,
He had touched their sword-hilts and greeted
With the old sure word of praise;
And there was virtue in touch and speech
As it had been in old days.
So he dismissed them and took his rest,
And the steadfast spirit went forth
Between the adoring East and West
And the tireless guns of the North.
Clean, simple, valiant, well-beloved,
Flawless in faith and fame,
Whom neither ease nor honours moved
An hair's-breadth from his aim.
Never again the war-wise face,
The weighed and urgent word
That pleaded in the market-place-
Pleaded and was not heard!
Yet from his life a new life springs
Through all the hosts to come,
And Glory is the least of things
That follow this man home.

TO The States, or any one of them, or any city of The States,

Resist much, obey little;

Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved;

Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city, of this earth, ever

afterward resumes its liberty.

This is the song for a soldier
To sing as he rides from home
To the fields afar where the battles are
Or over the ocean's foam:
'Whatever the dangers waiting
In the lands I have not seen,
If I do not fall-if I come back at all,
Then I will come back clean.


'I may lie in the mud of the trenches,
I may reek with blood and mire,
But I will control, by the God in my soul,
The might of my man's desire.
I will fight my foe in the open,
But my sword shall be sharp and keen
For the foe within who would lure me to sin,
And I will come back clean.


'I may not leave for my children
Brave medals that I have worn,
But the blood in my veins shall leave no stains
On bride or on babes unborn;
And the scars that my body may carry
Shall not be from deeds obscene,
For my will shall say to the beast,
Obey
!
And I will come back clean.


'Oh, not on the fields of slaughter
And not in the prison-cell,
Or in hunger and cold is the story told
By war, of its darkest hell.
But the old, old sin of the senses
Can tell what that word may mean
To the soldiers' wives and to innocent lives,
And I will come back clean.'

Our Fathers in a wondrous age,
Ere yet the Earth was small,
Ensured to us a heritage,
And doubted not at all
That we the children of their heart,
Which then did beat so high,
In later rime should play like part
For our posterity.
A thousand years they steadfast built,
To 'vantage us and ours,
The Walls that were a world's despair,
The sea-constraining Towers:
Yet in their midmost pride they knew,
And unto Kings made known,
Not all from these their strength they drew,
Their faith from brass or stone.
Youth's passion, manhood's fierce intent,
With age's judgment wise,
They spent, and counted not they spent,
At daily sacrifice.
Not lambs alone nor purchased doves .
Or tithe of trader's gold--
Their lives most dear, their dearer loves,
They offered up of old.
Refraining e'en from lawful things,
They bowed the neck to bear
The unadorned yoke that brings
Stark toil and sternest care.
Wherefore through them is Freedom sure;
Wherefore through them we stand,
From all but sloth and pride secure,
In a delightsome land.
Then, fretful, murmur not they gave
So great a charge to keep,
Nor dream that awestruck Time shall save
Their labour while we sleep.
Dear-bought and clear, a thousand year,
Our fathers' title runs.
Make we likewise their sacrifice,
Defrauding not our sons.

My window-pane is starred with frost,
The world is bitter cold to-night,
The moon is cruel, and the wind
Is like a two-edged sword to smite.
God pity all the homeless ones,
The beggars pacing to and fro,
God pity all the poor to-night
Who walk the lamp-lit streets of snow.
My room is like a bit of June,
Warm and close-curtained fold on fold,
But somewhere, like a homeless child,
My heart is crying in the cold.

. The voice ended, they saw his pale visage
Emerge from the darkness; his hand
On the rock of eternity unclasping
The Book of brass. Rage siez'd the strong
. Rage, fury, intense indignation
In cataracts of fire blood & gall
In whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke:
And enormous forms of energy;
All the seven deadly sins of the soul
In living creations appear'd
In the flames of eternal fury.
. Sund'ring, dark'ning, thund'ring!
Rent away with a terrible crash
Eternity roll'd wide apart
Wide asunder rolling
Mountainous all around
Departing; departing; departing:
Leaving ruinous fragments of life
Hanging frowning cliffs & all between
An ocean of voidness unfathomable.
. The roaring fires ran o'er the heav'ns
In whirlwinds & cataracts of blood
And o'er the dark desarts of Urizen
Fires pour thro' the void on all sides
On Urizens self-begotten armies.
. But no light from the fires. all was darkness
In the flames of Eternal fury
. In fierce anguish & quenchless flames
To the desarts and rocks He ran raging
To hide, but He could not: combining
He dug mountains & hills in vast strength,
He piled them in incessant labour,
In howlings & pangs & fierce madness
Long periods in burning fires labouring
Till hoary, and age-broke, and aged,
In despair and the shadows of death.
. And a roof, vast petrific around,
On all sides He fram'd: like a womb;
Where thousands of rivers in veins
Of blood pour down the mountains to cool
The eternal fires beating without
From Eternals; & like a black globe
View'd by sons of Eternity, standing
On the shore of the infinite ocean
Like a human heart strugling & beating
The vast world of Urizen appear'd.


. And Los round the dark globe of Urizen,
Kept watch for Eternals to confine,
The obscure separation alone;
For Eternity stood wide apart,
As the stars are apart from the earth
. Los wept howling around the dark Demon:
And cursing his lot; for in anguish,
Urizen was rent from his side;
And a fathomless void for his feet;
And intense fires for his dwelling.
. But Urizen laid in a stony sleep
Unorganiz'd, rent from Eternity
. The Eternals said: What is this? Death
Urizen is a clod of clay.
. Los howld in a dismal stupor,
Groaning! gnashing! groaning!
Till the wrenching apart was healed
. But the wrenching of Urizen heal'd not
Cold, featureless, flesh or clay,
Rifted with direful changes
He lay in a dreamless night
. Till Los rouz'd his fires, affrighted
At the formless unmeasurable death.

A plow, they say, to plow the snow.
They cannot mean to plant it, no --
Unless in bitterness to mock
At having cultivated rock.

Sooner or late--in earnest or in jest--
(But the stakes are no jest) Ithuriel's Hour
Will spring on us, for the first time, the test
Of our sole unbacked competence and power
Up to the limit of our years and dower
Of judgment--or beyond. But here we have
Prepared long since our garland or our grave.
For, at that hour, the sum of all our past,
Act, habit, thought, and passion, shall be cast
In one addition, be it more or less,
And as that reading runs so shall we do;
Meeting, astounded, victory at the last,
Or, first and last, our own unworthiness.
And none can change us though they die to save!

The dead child lay in the shroud,
And the widow watched beside;
And her mother slept, and the Channel swept
The gale in the teeth of the tide.
But the mother laughed at all.
"I have lost my man in the sea,
And the child is dead. Be still," she said,
"What more can ye do to me?"
The widow watched the dead,
And the candle guttered low,
And she tried to sing the Passing Song
That bids the poor soul go.
And "Mary take you now," she sang,
"That lay against my heart."
And "Mary smooth your crib to-night,"
But she could not say "Depart."
Then came a cry from the sea,
But the sea-rime blinded the glass,
And "Heard ye nothing, mother?" she said,
"'Tis the child that waits to pass."
And the nodding mother sighed.
"'Tis a lambing ewe in the whin,
For why should the christened soul cry out
That never knew of sin?"
"O feet I have held in my hand,
O hands at my heart to catch,
How should they know the road to go,
And how should they lift the latch?"
They laid a sheet to the door,
With the little quilt atop,
That it might not hurt from the cold or the dirt,
But the crying would not stop.
The widow lifted the latch
And strained her eyes to see,
And opened the door on the bitter shore
To let the soul go free.
There was neither glimmer nor ghost,
There was neither spirit nor spark,
And "Heard ye nothing, mother?" she said,
"'Tis crying for me in the dark."
And the nodding mother sighed:
"'Tis sorrow makes ye dull;


Have ye yet to learn the cry of the tern,
Or the wail of the wind-blown gull?"
"The terns are blown inland,
The gray gull follows the plough.
'Twas never a bird, the voice I heard,
O mother, I hear it now!"
"Lie still, dear lamb, lie still;
The child is passed from harm,
'Tis the ache in your breast that broke your rest,
And the feel of an empty arm."
She put her mother aside,
"In Mary's name let be!
For the peace of my soul I must go," she said,
And she went to the calling sea.
In the heel of the wind-bit pier,
Where the twisted weed was piled,
She came to the life she had missed by an hour,
For she came to a little child.
She laid it into her breast,
And back to her mother she came,
But it would not feed and it would not heed,
Though she gave it her own child's name.
And the dead child dripped on her breast,
And her own in the shroud lay stark;
And "God forgive us, mother," she said,
"We let it die in the dark!"

Whate'er is Born of Mortal Birth
Must be consumed with the Earth
To rise from Generation free:
Then what have I to do with thee?
The Sexes sprung from Shame & Pride,
Blow'd in the morn, in evening died;
But Mercy chang'd Death into Sleep;
The Sexes rose to work & weep.
Thou, Mother of my Mortal part,
With cruelty didst mould my Heart,
And with false self-deceiving tears
Didst bind my Nostrils, Eyes, & Ears:
Didst close my Tongue in senseless clay,
And me to Mortal Life betray.
The Death of Jesus set me free:
Then what have I to do with thee?

Know this, my brethren, Heaven is clear
And all the clouds are gone--
The Proper Sort shall flourish now,
Good times are coming on"--
The evil that was threatened late
To all of our degree
Hath passed in discord and debate,
And,Hey then up go we!
A common people strove in vain
To shame us unto toil,
But they are spent and we remain,
And we shall share the spoil
According to our several needs
As Beauty shall decree,
As Age ordains or Birth concedes,
And, Hey then up go we!
And they that with accursed zeal
Our Service would amend,
Shall own the odds and come to heel
Ere worse befall their end:
For though no naked word be wrote
Yet plainly shall they see
What pinneth Orders on their coat,
And, Hey then up go we!
Our doorways that, in time of fear,
We opened overwide
Shall softly close from year to year
Till all be purified;
For though no fluttering fan be heard .
Nor chaff be seen to flee--
The Lord shall winnow the Lord's Preferred--
And, Hey then up go we!
Our altars which the heathen brake
Shall rankly smoke anew,
And anise, mint and cummin take
Their dread and sovereign due,
Whereby the buttons of our trade
Shall soon restored be
With curious work in gilt and braid,
And, Hey then up go we!
Then come, my brethren, and prepare
The candlesticks and bells,
The scarlet, brass, and badger's hair
Wherein our Honour dwells,
And straitly fence and strictly keep
The Ark's integrity
Till Armageddon break our sleep . . .


And, Hey then go we!

This is the world's stupendous hour-
The supreme moment for the race
To see the emptiness of power,
The worthlessness of wealth and place,
To see the purpose and the plan
Conceived by God for growing man.


And they who see and comprehend
That ultimate and lofty aim
Will wait in patience for the end,
Knowing injustice cannot claim
One lasting victory, or control
Laws that bar progress for the whole.


This is an epoch-making time;
God thunders through the universe
A message glorious and sublime,
At once a blessing and a curse.
Blessings for those who seek His light,
Curses for those whose law is might.


Ephemeral as the sunset glow
Is human grandeur. Mortal life
Was given that souls might seek and know
Immortal truths; and through the strife
That shakes the earth from land to land
The wise shall hear and understand.


Out of the awful holocaust,
Out of the whirlwind and the flood,
Out of old creeds to Bedlam tossed,
Shall rise a new earth washed in blood-
A new race filled with spirit power,
This is the world's stupendous hour.

I called to the wind of the Winter,
As he sped like a steed on his way,
'Oh! rest for awhile on thy journey,
And answer these questions, I pray.


'Who is the foe to all virtue,
Who is the chieftain of crime?
Who blackens the forehead of beauty,
And cheateth the finger of time?
Who maketh the heart to be aged,
In the beautiful morning of youth?
Who is the herald of sorrow,
And who the assassin of Truth?
Who is the help-meet of Satan,
The agent of regions below?
Who the promoter of vices?
Who loadeth the bosom with woe?
Who stealeth the strength of the mighty?
Who stealeth the wits of the wise?
Who maketh the good and the noble
A thing that the meanest despise?'


And the wind of the wild Winter answered,
In a voice like a clarion call:
''Tis a beast legion-headed, a demon
Whom men christened 'King Alcohol.'
This is the help-meet that Satan
Sends out from the kingdom of hell,
A many-faced demon, who doeth
The work of the master right well;
For he weaveth his web round the noble,
And slayeth the soul with his breath.
Ah! this is the foe to all virtue,
And this is the agent of death.'

In France I saw a hill-a gentle slope
Rising above old tombs to greet the gleam
From soft spring skies. Beyond these skies dwells hope,
But those green graves bespeak a broken dream.


There was a row of narrow beds, new-made;
Each bore a starry banner and a cross.
And each the name of one who, ere he played
His rôle of warrior, met earth's final loss.


They were so young, so eager for the fray!
And thoughts of glory filled each boyish heart,
When over dangerous seas they sailed away
To face the foe and play some splendid part.


But in the tedious toil, the dull routine
Which must precede achievement on the field,
Disease, that secret enemy with mean
Sly tactics, forced them to disarm and yield.


So they were buried on that hill in France,
Before their ears had heard the battle din;
Before life gave them its dramatic chance-
A lasting fame, or glorious death to win.


Yet, looking up beyond their graves of green,
I seem to see them wearing band and star;
Men are rewarded in the Worlds Unseen
Not for the way they die, but what they are.

There is a courage, a majestic thing
That springs forth from the brow of pain, full-grown,
Minerva-like, and dares all dangers known,
And all the threatening future yet may bring;
Crowned with the helmet of great suffering;
Serene with that grand strength by martyrs shown,
When at the stake they die and make no moan,
And even as the flames leap up are heard to sing:
A courage so sublime and unafraid,
It wears its sorrows like a coat of mail;
And Fate, the archer, passes by dismayed,
Knowing his best barbed arrows needs must fail
To pierce a soul so armored and arrayed
That Death himself might look on it and quail.

You say, but with no touch of scorn,
Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes
Are tender over drowning flies,


You tell me, doubt is Devil-born.

I know not: one indeed I knew
In many a subtle question versed,
Who touch'd a jarring lyre at first,


But ever strove to make it true:

Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
At last he beat his music out.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,


Believe me, than in half the creeds.

He fought his doubts and gather'd strength,
He would not make his judgment blind,
He faced the spectres of the mind


And laid them: thus he came at length

To find a stronger faith his own;
And Power was with him in the night,
Which makes the darkness and the light,


And dwells not in the light alone,

But in the darkness and the cloud,
As over Sinaï's peaks of old,
While Israel made their gods of gold,


Altho' the trumpet blew so loud.

If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street.
Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark --
Brandy for the Parson,
'Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Running round the woodlump if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine,
Don't you shout to come and look, nor use 'em for your play.
Put the brishwood back again -- and they'll be gone next day!
If you see the stable-door setting open wide;
If you see a tired horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining's wet and warm -- don't you ask no more!
If you meet King George's men, dressed in blue and red,
You be carefull what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you "pretty maid," and chuck you 'neath the chin,
Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been!
Knocks and footsteps round the house -- whistles after dark --
You've no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.
Trusty's here, and Pincher's here, and see how dumb they lie --
They don't fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by!
If you do as you've been told, 'likely there's a chance,
You'll be given a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood --
A present from the Gentlemen, along o' being good!
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark --
Brandy for the Parson,
'Baccy for the Clerk;
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie --
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

So we settled it all when the storm was done
As comfy as comfy could be;
And I was to wait in the barn, my dears,
Because I was only three.
And Teddy would run to the rainbow's foot
Because he was five and a man--
And that's how it all began, my dears,
And that's how it all began!
Then we brought the lances down--then the trumpets blew--
When we went to Kandahar, ridin' two an' two.
Ridin'--ridin'--ridin' two an' two!
Ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-a!
All the way to Kandahar,
Ridin' two an' two.
The wolf-cub at even lay hid in the corn,
When the smoke of the cooking hung grey.
He knew where the doe made a couch for her fawn,
And he looked to his strength for his prey.
But the moon swept the smoke-wreaths away;
And he turned from his meal in the villager's close,
And he bayed to the moon as she rose.
"I have a thousand men," said he,
"To wait upon my will;
And towers nine upon the Tyne,
And three upon the Till."
"And what care I for your men? " said she,
"Or towers from Tyne to Till?
Sith you must go with me," said she,
"To wait upon my will.
And you may lead a thousand men
Nor ever draw the rein,
But before you lead the Fairy Queen
'Twill burst your heart in twain."
He has slipped his foot from the stirrup-bar,
The bridle from his hand,
And he is bound by hand and foot
To the Queen of Fairy Land.
"If I have taken the common clay
And wrought it cunningly
In the shape of a God that was digged a clod,
The greater honour to me."
"If thou hast taken the common clay,
And thy hands be not free
From the taint of the soil, thou hast made thy spoil


The greater shame to thee."
The lark will make her hymn to God,
The partridge call her brood,
While I forget the heath I trod,
The fields wherein I stood.
'Tis dule to know not night from morn,
But greater dule to know
I can but hear the hunter's horn
That once I used to blow.
There were three friends that buried the fourth,
The mould in his mouth and the dust in his eyes,
And they .went south and east and north--
The strong man fights but the sick man dies.
There were three friends that spoke of the dead--
The strong man fights but the sick man dies--
"And would he were here with us now," they said,
"The Sun in our face and the wind in our eyes."
Yet at the last ere our spearmen had found him,
Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save,
Yet at the last, with his masters around him,
He spoke of the Faith as a master to slave.
Yet at the last though the Kafirs had maimed him,
Broken by bondage and wrecked by the reiver,
Yet at the last, tho' the darkness had claimed him,
He colled on Allah and died a Believer!

Black milk of daybreak we drink it at nightfall

we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night

we drink it and drink it

we are digging a grave in the sky it is ample to lie there

A man in the house he plays with the serpents he writes

he writes when the night falls to Germany your golden
hair Margarete

he writes it and walks from the house the stars glitter he
whistles his dogs up

he whistles his Jews out and orders a grave to be dug in
the earth

he commands us strike up for the dance

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night

we drink you in the morning at noon we drink you at
nightfall

drink you and drink you

A man in the house he plays with the serpents he writes

he writes when the night falls to Germany your golden
hair Margarete

Your ashen hair Shulamith we are digging a grave in the
sky it is

ample to lie there

He shouts stab deeper in earth you there and you others
you sing and you play

he grabs at the iron in his belt and swings it and blue are
his eyes

stab deeper your spades you there and you others play on
for the dancing

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at nightfall

we drink you at noon in the mornings we drink you at
nightfall

drink you and drink you

a man in the house your golden hair Margarete

your ashen hair Shulamith he plays with the serpents

He shouts play sweeter death's music death comes as a
master from Germany

he shouts stroke darker the strings and as smoke you
shall climb to the sky

then you'll have a grave in the clouds it is ample to lie
there

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night

we drink you at noon death comes as a master from
Germany

we drink you at nightfall and morning we drink you and
drink you

a master from Germany death comes with eyes that are
blue


with a bullet of lead he will hit in the mark he will hit
you

a man in the house your golden hair Margarete

he hunts us down with his dogs in the sky he gives us a
grave

he plays with the serpents and dreams death comes as a
master from Germany

your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Shulamith.

When first I looked upon the face of Pain
I shrank repelled, as one shrinks from a foe
Who stands with dagger poised, as for a blow.
I was in search of Pleasure and of Gain;
I turned aside to let him pass: in vain;
He looked straight in my eyes and would not go.
'Shake hands,' he said; 'our paths are one, and so
We must be comrades on the way, 'tis plain.'
I felt the firm clasp of his hand on mine;
Through all my veins it sent a strengthening glow.
I straightway linked my arm in his, and lo!
He led me forth to joys almost divine;
With God's great truths enriched me in the end:
And now I hold him as my dearest friend.