These are they who build thy houses, weave thy raiment, win thy wheat,

Smooth the rugged, fill the barren, turn the bitter into sweet.

All for thee this day-and ever. What reward for them is meet?

Till the host comes marching on.

Hark the rolling of the thunder!
Lo the sun! and lo thereunder

Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder,

And the host comes marching on.

Many a hundred years passed over have they laboured deaf and blind;

Never tidings reached their sorrow, never hope their toil might find.

Now at last they've heard and hear it, and the cry comes down the wind,

And their feet are marching on.

O ye rich men hear and tremble! for with words the sound is rife :

"Once for you and death we laboured; changed henceforward is the strife.

We are men, and we shall battle for the world of men and life;

And our host is marching on."

Hark the rolling of the thunder!
Lo the sun! and lo thereunder

Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder,

And the host comes marching on.

"Is it war, then? Will ye perish as the dry wood in the fire?

Is it peace? Then be ye of us, let your hope be our desire.

Come and live! for life awaketh, and the world shall never tire;

And hope is marching on."

"On we march then, we the workers, and the rumour that ye hear

Is the blended sound of battle and deliv'rance drawing

near;

For the hope of every creature is the banner that we

bear,

And the world is marching on.

Hark the rolling of the thunder!
Lo the sun! and lo thereunder

Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder,

And the host comes marching on.

A DEATH SONG.

1887.

WILLIAM MORRIS.

HAT cometh here from west to east a-wending?

WHAT

And who are these, the marchers stern and slow? We bear the message that the rich are sending Aback to those who bade them wake and know. Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay But one and all if they would dusk the day.

We asked them for a life of toilsome earning,
They bade us bide their leisure for our bread,
We craved to speak to tell our woeful learning,
We come back speechless, bearing back our dead.
Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay,
But one and all if they would dusk the day.

They will not learn; they have no ears to hearken ;
They turn their faces from the eyes of fate;
Their gay-lit halls shut out the skies that darken.
But, lo! this dead man knocking at the gate.
Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay,
But one and all if they would dusk the day.

Here lies the sign that we shall break our prison; Amidst the storm he won a prisoner's rest:

But in the cloudy dawn the sun arisen

Brings us our day of work to win the best.
Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay
But one and all if they would dusk the day.

THE HOUSE OF THE WOLFINGS.

1889.

WILLIAM MORRIS.

THE TALE OF THE HAUBERK.

(FROM CHAPTER XXVI.)

"HEAR then the tale of the Hauberk and the truth there is to tell :

There was a maid of the God-kin, and she loved a man right well,

Who unto the battle was wending; and she of her wisdom knew

That thence to the folk-hall threshold should come

back but a very few;

And she feared for her love, for she doubted that of these he should not be;

So she wended the wilds lamenting, as I have lamented for thee;

And many wise she pondered, how to bring her will

to pass

(E'en as I for thee have pondered), as her feet led over the grass,

Till she lifted her eyes in the wild-wood, and lo! she stood before

The Hall of the Hollow-places; and the Dwarf-lord stood in the door

And held in his hand the Hauberk, whereon the hammer's blow

The last of all had been smitten, and the sword should be hammer now.

3*

Then the Dwarf beheld her fairness, and the wildwood many-leaved

Before his eyes was reeling at the hope his heart conceived;

So sorely he longed for her body; and he laughed before her and cried,

'O Lady of the Disir, thou farest wandering wide Lamenting thy beloved and the folkmote of the spear, But if amidst of the battle this child of the hammer

he bear

He shall laugh at the foemen's edges and come back to thy lily breast

And of all the days of his life-time shall his coming years be best.'

Then she bowed adown her godhead and sore for the Hauberk she prayed;

But his greedy eyes devoured her as he stood in the door and said;

'Come, lie in mine arms!

twain the night to wake!

Come hither, and we

And then as a gift of the morning the Hauberk shall ye take.'

So she humbled herself before him, and entered into

the cave,

The dusky, the deep-gleaming, the gem-strewn golden grave.

But he saw not her girdle loosened or her bosom gleam on his love,

For she set the sleep-thorn in him, that he saw, but might not move,

Though the bitter salt tears burned him for the

anguish of his greed;

And she took the hammer's offspring, her unearned morning meed,