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HUMANITY

THERE is a soul above the soul of each,

A mightier soul, which yet to each belongs:

There is a sound made of all human speech,

And numerous as the concourse of all songs:

And in that soul lives each, in each that soul,

Though all the ages are its lifetime vast; Each soul that dies, in its most sacred whole

Receiveth life that shall forever last.
And thus forever with a wider span
Humanity o'erarches time and death;
Man can elect the universal man,

And live in life that ends not with his breath:

And gather glory that increases still Till Time his glass with Death's last dust shall fill.

FROM "MANO: A POETICAL HISTORY"

THE SKYLARK

THOU only bird that singest as thou flyest, Heaven-mounting lark, that measurest

with thy wing

The airy zones, till thou art lost in highest ! Upon the branch the laughing thrushes cling,

About her home the humble linnet wheels, Around the tower the gather'd starlings swing;

These mix their songs and weave their figur'd reels:

Thou risest in thy lonely joy away, From the first rapturous note that from thee steals,

Quick, quick, and quicker, till the exalted lay

Is steadied in the golden breadths of light, 'Mid mildest clouds that bid thy pinions stay.

The heavens that give would yet sustain thy flight,

And o'er the earth for ever cast thy voice, If but to gain were still to keep the height. But soon thou sinkest on the fluttering poise

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Of calm and quiet mien, was leading him In friendly converse and society:

But whom he wist not: neither could he trim

Memory's spent torch to know what things were said,

Nor about what, in that long way and

dim.

But as the valley still before him spread, He saw a line, that did the same divide Across in halves which made him feel great dread.

For he beheld fire burning on one side Unto the mountains from the midmost vale;

On the other, ice the empire did discide, Fed from the opposing hill with snow and hail.

So dreary was that haunt of fire and cold,

That nought on earth to equal might avail.

Fire ended where began the frozen mould;

Both in extreme at their conjunction: So close were they, no severance might be told :

No thinnest line of separation, Like that which is by painter drawn to part

One color in his piece from other one,

So fine as that which held these realms

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Now while his mind was fill'd with ruth and fear,

And with great horror stood his eyeballs steep,

Deeming that hell before him did ap

pear,

And souls in torment toss'd from brink to brink :

Upon him look'd the one who set him there,

And said: "This is not hell, as thou dost think,

Neither those torments of the cold and heat

Are those wherewith the damned wail and shrink."

And therewith from that place he turn'd his feet;

And sometime on they walk'd, the while this man

In anguish shuddering did the effect repeat:

Such spasms of horror through his body

ran,

Walking with stumbling, and with glazed eyes

Whither he knew not led, ghastly and wan. Then said the other: "In those agonies No more than hell's beginning know: behold,

The doom of hell itself is otherwise."

Therewith he drew aside his vesture's fold,

And show'd his heart: than fire more hot it burn'd

One half the rest was ice than ice more cold.

A moment show'd he this: and then he turn'd,

And in his going all the vision went : And he, who in his mind these things discern'd,

Came to himself with long astonishment.

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Aught of his heart's desires, in plenty❘ They burst in tumults, swollen with bloody

nurs'd:

For evil things he knows not to resist :
And, aiding their assault, himself is

worst

Against himself, with self-destructive

rage.

But states are with another evil curs'd, For, falling into luxury with age,

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William Morris

THE GILLYFLOWER OF GOLD

A GOLDEN gillyflower to-day
I wore upon my helm alway,
And won the prize of this tourney.
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

However well Sir Giles might sit,
His sun was weak to wither it,
Lord Miles's blood was dew on it:
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

Although my spear in splinters flew
From John's steel-coat, my eye was true;
I wheel'd about, and cried for you,

Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

Yea, do not doubt my heart was good, Though my sword flew like rotten wood, To shout, although I scarcely stood,

Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

My hand was steady, too, to take
My axe from round my neck, and break
John's steel-coat up for my love's sake.
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

When I stood in my tent again,
Arming afresh, I felt a pain
Take hold of me, I was so fain

Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée —

To hear: "Honneur aux fils des preux!"
Right in my ears again, and shew
The gillyflower blossom'd new.

Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

The Sieur Guillaume against me came, His tabard bore three points of flame

From a red heart with little blame -
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée —

Our tough spears crackled up like straw;
He was the first to turn and draw
His sword, that had nor speck nor flaw, -
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

But I felt weaker than a maid,
And my brain, dizzied and afraid,
Within my helm a fierce tune play'd, -
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

Until I thought of your dear head,
Bow'd to the gillyflower bed,
The yellow flowers stain'd with red;
Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

Crash! how the swords met, "giroflée!" The fierce tune in my helm would play, "La belle! la belle jaune giroflée!"

Hah! hah! la belle jaune giroflée.

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SHAMEFUL DEATH

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.

He did not die in the night,

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

When neither sun nor moon was bright, And the trees were merely gray.

He was not slain with the sword,
Knight's axe, or the knightly spear,

Yet spoke he never a word
After he came in here;

I cut away the cord

From the neck of my brother dear.

He did not strike one blow,

For the recreants came behind, In a place where the hornbeams grow, A path right hard to find, For the hornbeam boughs swing so That the twilight makes it blind.

They lighted a great torch then ; When his arms were pinion'd fast, Sir John the knight of the Fen,

Sir Guy of the Dolorous Blast, With knights threescore and ten, Hung brave Lord Hugh at last.

I am threescore and ten,

And my hair is all turn'd gray, But I met Sir John of the Fen

Long ago on a summer day,

And am glad to think of the moment when I took his life away.

I am threescore and ten,

And my strength is mostly past,

But long ago I and my men,
When the sky was overcast,

And the smoke roll'd over the reeds of the fen,

Slew Guy of the Dolorous Blast.

And now, knights all of you,
I pray you pray for Sir Hugh,
A good knight and a true,

And for Alice, his wife, pray too.

THE BLUE CLOSET

The Damozels

LADY ALICE, Lady Louise,
Between the wash of the tumbling seas
We are ready to sing, if so ye please :
So lay your long hands on the keys;
Sing "Laudate pueri.”

And ever the great bell overhead
Boom'd in the wind a knell for the dead,
Though no one toll'd it, a knell for the dead.

Lady Louise

Sister, let the measure swell

Not too loud; for you sing not well
If
you drown the faint boom of the bell;
He is weary, so am I.

And ever the chevron overhead Flapp'd on the banner of the dead; (Was he asleep, or was he dead?)

Lady Alice

Alice the Queen, and Louise the Queen,
Two damozels wearing purple and green,
Four lone ladies dwelling here
From day to day and year to year :
And there is none to let us go;

To break the locks of the doors below,
Or shovel away the heap'd-up snow;
And when we die no man will know
That we are dead; but they give us leave,
Once every year on Christmas-eve,
To sing in the Closet Blue one song:
And we should be so long, so long,
If we dar'd, in singing; for, dream on dream,
They float on in a happy stream;

Float from the gold strings, float from the

keys,

Float from the open'd lips of Louise:
But, alas! the sea-salt oozes through
The chinks of the tiles of the Closet Blue ;

And ever the great bell overhead
Booms in the wind a knell for the dead,
The wind plays on it a knell for the dead.

(They sing all together:)

How long ago was it, how long ago,

He came to this tower with hands full of

snow?

"Kneel down, O love Louise, kneel down," he said,

And sprinkled the dusty snow over my head.

He watch'd the snow melting, it ran through my hair,

Ran over my shoulders, white shoulders and bare.

"I cannot weep for thee, poor love Louise, For my tears are all hidden deep under the

seas

"In a gold and blue casket she keeps all my tears,

But my eyes are no longer blue, as in old

years;

"Yea, they grow gray with time, grow small and dry,

I am so feeble now, would I might die."

And in truth the great bell overhead Left off his pealing for the dead, Perchance because the wind was dead.

Will he come back again, or is he dead?
O! is he sleeping, my scarf round his head?

Or did they strangle him as he lay there,
With the long scarlet scarf I used to wear?
Only I pray thee, Lord, let him come here!
Both his soul and his body to me are most
dear.

Dear Lord, that loves me, I wait to receive

Either body or spirit this wild Christmas

eve.

Through the floor shot up a lily red,

With a patch of earth from the land of the dead,

For he was strong in the land of the dead.

What matter that his cheeks were pale,
His kind kiss'd lips all gray?
"O, love Louise, have you waited long?"
"O, my lord Arthur, yea."

What if his hair that brush'd her cheek
Was stiff with frozen rime?
His eyes were grown quite blue again,
As in the happy time.

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tears,

Or hope again for aught that I can say,
The idle singer of an empty day.

But rather, when aweary of your mirth
From full hearts still unsatisfied ye sigh,
And, feeling kindly unto all the earth,
Grudge every minute as it passes by,
Made the more mindful that the sweet days
die.

Remember me a little then, I pray,
The idle singer of an empty day.

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 me sing of names remembered, Because they, living not, can ne'er be dead, Or long time take their memory quite

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