RICHARD WATSON DIXON

Born 1833

SONG

The feathers of the willow
Are half of them grown yellow
Above the swelling stream;
And ragged are the bushes,
And rusty now the rushes,

And wild the clouded gleam.

The thistle now is older,
His stalks begin to moulder,

His head is white as snow;
The branches all are barer,
The linnet's song is rarer,

The robin pipeth now.

FROM "CHRIST'S COMPANY"

THE HOLY MOTHER AT THE CROSS

Of Mary's pains may now learn whoso will,

When she stood underneath the groaning tree Round which the true Vine clung: three hours the mill Of hours rolled round; she saw in visions three The shadows walking underneath the sun, And these seemed all so very faint to be, That she could scarcely tell how each begun, And went its way, minuting each degree That it existed on the dial stone:

For drop by drop of wine unfalteringly,

Not stroke by stroke in blood, the three hours gone
She seemed to see.

Three hours she stood beneath the cross; it seemed
To be a wondrous dial stone, for while
Upon the two long arms the sunbeams teemed,
So was the head-piece like a centre stile;
Like to the dial where the judges sat

Upon the grades, and the king crowned the pile,

In Zion town, that most miraculous plat

On which the shadow backward did defile; And now towards the third hour the sun enorme Dressed up all shadow to a bickering smile

I' the heat, and in its midst the form of form
Lay like an isle.

Because that time so heavily beat and slow

That fancy in each beat was come and gone; Because that light went singing to and fro,

A blissful song in every beam that shone; Because that on the flesh a little tongue

Instantly played, and spake in lurid tone; Because that saintly shapes with harp and gong Told the three hours, whose telling made them one; Half hid, involved in alternating beams,

Half mute, they held the plectrum to the zone, Therefore, as God her senses shield, it seems

A dial stone.

Three hours she stood beside the cross; it seemed A splendid flower; for red dews on the edge Stood dropping; petals doubly four she deemed Shot out like steel knives from the central wedge, Which quadranted their perfect circle so

As if four anthers should a vast flower hedge Into four parts, and in its bosom, lo,

The form lay, as the seed-heart holding pledge Of future flowers; yea, in the midst was borne The head low drooped upon the swollen ledge Of the torn breast; there was the ring of thorn This flower was fledge.

Because her woe stood all about her now,

No longer like a stream as ran the hour; Because her cleft heart parted into two,

No more a mill-wheel spinning to time's power; Because all motion seemed to be suspense;

Because one ray did other rays devour; Because the sum of things rose o'er her sense,

She standing 'neath its dome as in a bower; Because from one thing all things seemed to spume, As from one mouth the fountain's hollow shower; Therefore it seemed His and her own heart's bloom, A splendid flower.

Now it was finished; shrivelled were the leaves
Of that pain-flower, and wasted all its bloom,
She felt what she had felt then; as receives,
When heaven is capable, the cloudy stroom
The edge of the white garment of the moon ;
So felt she that she had received that doom;
And as an outer circle spins in tune,

Born of the inner on the sky's wide room,
Thinner and wider, that doom's memories,
Broken and thin and wild, began to come
As soon as this: St. John unwrapt his eyes,
And led her home.

WILLIAM MORRIS

Born 1834

THE CHAPEL IN LYONESS

SIR OZANA LE CURE HARDY. SIR GALAHAD. SIR BORS

DE GANYS

SIR OZANA

All day long and every day,

From Christmas-Eve to Whit-Sunday,
Within that Chapel-aisle I lay,

And no man came a-near.

Naked to the waist was I,

And deep within my breast did lie,
Though no man any blood could spy,
The truncheon of a spear.

No meat did ever pass my lips.

Those days (Alas! the sunlight slips
From off the gilded parclose, dips,
And night comes on apace.)