William Morris

What cometh here from west to east awending? And who are these, the marchers stern and slow? We bear the message that the rich are sending

What cometh here from west to east awending? And who are these, the marchers stern and slow? We bear the message that the rich are sending

I know a little garden-close, Set thick with lily and red rose, Where I would wander if I might

SIR GUY, being in the court of a Pagan castle. This castle where I dwell, it stands A long way off from Christian lands,

Agnes went through the meadows a-weeping, Fowl are a-singing. There stood the hill-man heed thereof keeping.

Hear a word, a word in season, for the day is drawing nigh, When the Cause shall call upon us, some to live, and some to die! He that dies shall not die lonely, many an one hath gone before;

Hear a word, a word in season, for the day is drawing nigh, When the Cause shall call upon us,

O treacherous scent, O thorny sight, O tangle of world's wrong and right, What art thou 'gainst my armour's gleam

And if you meet the Canon of Chimay, As going to Ortaise you well may do, Greet him from John of Castel Neuf, and say

Come, comrades, come, your glasses clink; Up with your hands a health to drink, The health of all that workers be,

Lo, when we wade the tangled wood, In haste and hurry to be there, Nought seem its leaves and blossoms good,

So swift the hours are moving Unto the time un-proved: Farewell my love unloving,

Love gives every gift whereby we long to live "Love takes every gift, and nothing back doth give." Love unlocks the lips that else were ever dumb:

Upon an eve I sat me down and wept, Because the world to me seemed nowise good; Still autumn was it, & the meadows slept,

THE REAPERS. So many reapers, Father John, So many reapers and no little son,

I am the handmaid of the earth, I broider fair her glorious gown, And deck her on her days of mirth

The Briarwood. The fateful slumber floats and flows About the tangle of the rose;

Shall we wake one morn of spring, Glad at heart of everything, Yet pensive with the thought of eve?

Midways of a wall'd garden, In the happy poplar land, Did an ancient castle stand,

It was Goldilocks woke up in the morn At the first of the shearing of the corn. There stood his mother on the hearth

Ye who have come o'er the sea to behold this grey minster of lands, Whose floor is the tomb of time past,

King Hafbur & King Siward They needs must stir up strife, All about the sweetling Signy

Hellelil sitteth in bower there, None knows my grief but God alone, And seweth at the seam so fair,

Strong are thine arms, O love, & strong Thine heart to live, and love, and long; But thou art wed to grief and wrong:

Lo from our loitering ship a new land at last to be seen; Toothed rocks down the side of the firth

Wearily, drearily, Half the day long, Flap the great banners

Hot August noon: already on that day Since sunrise through the Wiltshire downs, most sad Of mouth and eye, he had gone leagues of way;

It was the fair knight Aagen To an isle he went his way, And plighted troth to Else,

Hast thou longed through weary days For the sight of one loved face? Mast thou cried aloud for rest,

DRAMATIS PERSONAE GILES,                                }                Peasant-folk. JOAN, his Wife,        }

Draw not away thy hands, my love, With wind alone the branches move, And though the leaves be scant above

It was a knight of the southern land Rode forth upon the way When the birds sang sweet on either hand

THE WORKERS. O Earth, once again cometh Spring to deliver Thy winter-worn heart, O thou friend of the Sun;

Clad is the year in all her best, The land is sweet and sheen; Now Spring with Summer at her breast,

Winter in the world it is, Round about the unhoped kiss Whose dream I long have sorrowed o'er;

Two words about the world we see, And nought but Mine and Thine they be. Ah! might we drive them forth and wide

Now sleeps the land of houses, and dead night holds the street, And there thou liest, my baby,

A ship with shields before the sun, Six maidens round the mast, A red-gold crown on every one,

Saith man to man, We've heard and known That we no master need To live upon this earth, our own,

There met three knights on the woodland way, And the first was clad in silk array: The second was dight in iron and steel,

At Deildar-Tongue in the autumn-tide, So many times over comes summer again, Stood Odd of Tongue his door beside.

You must be very old, Sir Giles, I said; he said: Yea, very old! Whereat the mournfullest of smiles

Puellae. Whence comest thou, and whither goest thou? Abide! abide! longer the shadows grow;

What part of the dread eternity Are those strange minutes that I gain, Mazed with the doubt of love and pain,

I am the ancient Apple-Queen, As once I was so am I now. For evermore a hope unseen,

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

THE PRINCE, being in the wood near the tower, in the evening. I could not even think What made me weep that day,

For many, many days together The wind blew steady from the East; For many days hot grew the weather,

There were four of us about that bed; The mass-priest knelt at the side, I and his mother stood at the head,

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,

Ho! is there any will ride with me, Sir Giles, le bon des barri'res? The clink of arms is good to hear,

In an English Castle in Poictou. Sir Peter Harpdon, a Gascon knight in the English service, and John Curzon, his lieutenant. JOHN CURZON.

How weary is it none can tell, How dismally the days go by! I hear the tinkling of the bell,

Spring went about the woods to-day, The soft-foot winter-thief, And found where idle sorrow lay

Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips; Think but one thought of me up in the stars. The summer night waneth, the morning light slips,

Oak. I am the Roof-tree and the Keel; I bridge the seas for woe and weal.

THE DAMOZELS. Lady Alice, lady Louise, Between the wash of the tumbling seas

Thick rise the spear-shafts o'er the land That erst the harvest bore; The sword is heavy in the hand,

SIR OZANA LE CURE HARDY. SIR GALAHAD. SIR BORS DE GANYS. SIR OZANA. All day long and every day,

Come hither, lads, and hearken, for a tale there is to tell, Of the wonderful days a-coming, when all shall be better than well. And the tale shall be told of a country, a land in the midst of the sea,

Come hither lads and hearken, for a tale there is to tell, Of the wonderful days a-coming, when all

Each eve earth falleth down the dark, As though its hope were o'er; Yet lurks the sun when day is done

But, knowing now that they would have her speak, She threw her wet hair backward from her brow, Her hand close to her mouth touching her cheek,

How the wind howls this morn About the end of May, And drives June on apace

Gold on her head, and gold on her feet, And gold where the hems of her kirtle meet, And a golden girdle round my sweet;

Silk Embroidery. Lo silken my garden, and silken my sky,

It was up in the morn we rose betimes From the hall-floor hard by the row of limes. It was but John the Red and I,

Pear-tree. By woodman's edge I faint and fail; By craftsman's edge I tell the tale.

A golden gilliflower to-day I wore upon my helm alway, And won the prize of this tourney.

There was a lord that hight Maltete, Among great lords he was right great, On poor folk trod he like the dirt,

The days have slain the days, and the seasons have gone by And brought me the summer again;

'Twas in the water-dwindling tide When July days were done, Sir Rafe of Greenhowes, 'gan to ride

Had she come all the way for this, To part at last without a kiss? Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain

Swerve to the left, son Roger, he said, When you catch his eyes through the helmet-slit, Swerve to the left, then out at his head,

In Denmark gone is many a year, So fair upriseth the rim of the sun, Two sons of Gorm the King there were,

Of silk my gear was shapen, Scarlet they did on me, Then to the sea-strand was I borne

The Beasts that be In wood and waste, Now sit and see,

Up and away through the drifting rain! Let us ride to the Little Tower again, Up and away from the council board!

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?

Fair now is the springtide, now earth lies beholding With the eyes of a lover the face of the sun; Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding

Fair now is the springtide, now earth lies beholding With the eyes of a lover, the face of the sun; Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding

Midst bitten mead and acre shorn, The world without is waste and worn, But here within our orchard-close,

King's daughter sitting in tower so high, Fair summer is on many a shield. Why weepest thou as the clouds go by?

Across the empty garden-beds, When the Sword went out to sea, I scarcely saw my sisters' heads

The King has asked of his son so good, "Why art thou hushed and heavy of mood? O fair it is to ride abroad.

No one goes there now: For what is left to fetch away From the desolate battlements all arow,

The Youths. O Winter, O white winter, wert thou gone No more within the wilds were I alone

I heard men saying, Leave hope and praying, All days shall be as all have been; To-day and to-morrow bring fear and sorrow,

I heard men saying, Leave hope and praying, All days shall be as all have been; To-day and to-morrow bring fear and sorrow,

Ah! no, no, it is nothing, surely nothing at all, Only the wild-going wind round by the garden-wall, For the dawn just now is breaking, the wind beginning to fall.

I once a King and chief Now am the tree-bark's thief, Ever 'twixt trunk and leaf

When the boughs of the garden hang heavy with rain And the blackbird reneweth his song, And the thunder departing yet rolleth again,

O muse that swayest the sad Northern Song, Thy right hand full of smiting & of wrong, Thy left hand holding pity; & thy breast

There was a lady lived in a hall, Large of her eyes, and slim and tall; And ever she sung from noon to noon,

Day. I am Day; I bring again Life and glory, Love and pain:

Fair Ellayne she walk'd by Welland river, Across the lily lee: O, gentle Sir Robert, ye are not kind