C-1. "Praise of Venus" ( Before our lady came on earth/ Little there was of joy or mirth )

Book of Verse, 1870

[p. 49]
           Praise of Venus

BEFORE our lady came on earth
Little there was of joy or mirth.

About the borders of the sea
The sea-folk wandered wearily,
About the wintry river-side
The weary fishers would abide

Alone within the weaving room
The girls would sit before the loom
And sing no song and play no play

Alone from dawn to hot mid-day
From mid-day into evening
The men afield would work, nor sing
Mid weary thoughts of man and God
Before thy feet the wet ways trod

Unkissed the merchant bore his care
Unkissed the knights went out to war,
Unkissed the mariner came home,
Unkissed the minstrel men must roam

Or in the stream the maids would stare
Nor know why they were shapen fair
[p. 50]
Then yellow locks, their bosoms hite
Their libms well wroguth for all delight
Seemed fruitless things that waited death
As hopeless as the lowers beneath
The weariness of unkissed feet

THEREFORE O Venus well may we
Praise the green ridges of the sea
Oer which upon a happy day
Thou cams’t to take our shame away
Well may we praise the curdling foam
Amidst the which thy feet did bloom,
Flowers of the Gods; the yellow sand
They kissed betwixt the sea and land
The bee-beset ripe seeded grass
Though which thy find limbs first did pass;
The purple dusted butterfly
First blown against thy quivering thigh;
The first red rose that touched thy side
And overblown and fainting died;

The flickering of the orange shade
Where first in sleep thy limbs were laid
The happy day’s sweet life and death
Whose air first caught thy balmy breath:--
[p. 51]
Yea all these things well praised may be
But with what words shall we praise thee
O VENUS O thou love alive
Born to give peace to souls that strive.

C-2. “Dorothea”

Unused Earthly Paradise tale, B. L. Ms. 45,309, f. 50-81; an earlier draft is in the Fitzwilliam. Described with long quotations in K. L. Goodwin, “An Unpublished Tale from The Earthly Paradise,” Victorian Poetry 13, nos. 3 and 4: 91-102. “...it is clear that she [May Morris] felt a need to hide the poem from view, but her action was dictated, I believe, by considerations of a social and moral kind that were purely personal and local. The literary quality of the work justifies the removal of the supression it has suffered.” K. L. Goodwin. Published in F. Boos, The Design of William Morris’ ‘The Earthly Paradise’ (New York: Mellen, 1991), 400-45.

C-3. “O fair gold goddess”

William Morris Gallery, A. Ms. J150 [pdf] fair copy. Printed with notes by R. C. Ellison, English, 15 (1964): 100-102. Ellison assigns 1873 as the date of composition. The poem is signed “Vilhjálmar Vandraedaskáld,” Icelandic for “William the Troubled Skald." Another autograph is in B. L. Add. Ms. 45,318, f. 92 and 92v, on blue ruled paper.

[WMG J150]

O fair gold goddess,
As fain as thou mayest be
That gone I were
To the white seas-roof land,* [Iceland]
Yet fainer were I
To leap on the wave-swine,
If God for me
The ghosts would quicken
Of Odin’s fellows,
The old abiders
In the land of Naddod. [Iceland]
To live a life there
Too short for sorrow,
Too loud with sword-clash
For any weeping.

Might the world go backward
Then, Roses’ Freyia,
Soon were I faring
Along the way
That leads to Valhall,
Long rest before me,
And my right hand holding
A glory maybe
To give to Odin

For foul is waxen
That world the Gods made,
And I help nought
Nor holpen am I.

But all are gone by,
And the edge play is over
And the long frost is fallen upon them.
There the wind wails ever
Without a story;
No whither the sea’s way leadeth.

The deeds they did
Are as hopes foredone
Cumbering the heart with curses.
Have ye not heard
How hard they wrought?
And lo, the world ever worseneth.

Yet these are they
I must turn to now,
The dead—yea the dead forgotten.
Fair friends were they
Were they alive;
And now for me meet friends it may be.

O Rhine-fires Goddess
This wretched trickle
Of Kvasir’s mead,
(The last it may be )
Thy skald now poureth;
Still praying pardon
For fainting heart
And tongue grown feeble,
Since nought he helpeth
Nor holpen is he.
Vílhjálmr Vandrađaskáld

B. L. Add. Ms. 45,318, ff. 92 and 92v

[f. 92]
O fair gold goddess
As fain as thou mayst be
That gone I were
To the white seas-roof land
Yet fainer were I
To leap on the wave-swine
If God for me
The ghosts would quicken
Of Odin’s fellows,
The old abiders
In the land of Naddod.
To live a life there
Too short for sorrow
Too loud with sword-clash
For any weeping.
Then, roses’ Freyia,
Soon were I faring
Along the way
That leads to Valhall
Long rest before me,
And my right hand holding
Maybe a glory
To give to Odin
For foul is waxen
That world the Gods made,
And I help nought
Nor holpen am I.

But all are gone by,
And the edge-play is over
And the long frost is fallen upon them.
There the wind wails ever
Without a story;
No whither the sea’s way leadeth.

[f. 92v]
The deeds they did
Are as hopes foredone
     Cumbering the world with curses.
Have ye not heard
How hard they wrought?
     And [yet] the world ever worseneth?

Yet these are they
I must turn to now,
     The dead—yea the dead forgtotten.
Fair friends were they
Were they alive--
     And now for me meet friends it may be.

O Rhine-fire’s Goddess
This wretched trickling
Of Kvasir’s mead,
The last it may be
Thy skald now poureth;
Still praying pardon
For fainting heart
And tongue grown feeble,
Sinice nought he helpeth
Nor holpen is he.

C-4. “What All Men Long For and What None Shall Have” ( Bare is the world and waste and wide )

Published AWS, I, 539-40. Ms. in Troxell Collection, Princeton University Library. See Benjamin Fisher IV, “William Morris’s ‘What all men long for and what none shall have,’” Library Chronicle 43 (1976): 47-54.

AWS, I, 539-40

[p. 539]

What All Men Long For and None Shall Have

Bare is the world and waste and wide
Where many an evil doth betide
And men have lived and men have died
Mingling their love with pride and rage

Their foolish joy with fear and age:
     What thing shall save? Be strong and brave,
How better shall it crush thy cage?

A little space of fruitless ruth,
Of acted lies and spoken truth,
[p. 540]
Of gainless eld, and restless youth,
Of love well trusted turned to shame;
And then the change we may not name;
The change the end, And thou dost wend
Unto the dark whence all things came.

Go cry aloud, ‘A little rest
Before the end, is all the best.’
How shall thou gain it and be blessed
Wit aught of joy, e’en for a space?
Harden thine eyes, make smooth thy face!
Wear the mask still, Lie down with ill!
Rest wearily from hope and praise.’

Is it enough, forgetfulness
That may forget the sharp distress,
But not that it forgetteth bliss?
The words a shame that once we spake
‘For love and truth and honour’s sake,’
The worst well known, All longing flown
But longing that our hearts might ache.

Lo the world’s rest, lo the world’s choice!
Mad longing for forbidden joys,
Or babbling over hated toys
Beneath the scorn, beneath the smile
Of thine own face grown wise and vile:
No hope no God, No way untrod,
No curse, no blessing to beguile.

Choose, choose the best, the pain, but pray,
If thou hast breath to cast away
For somewhat of a better day;
A rest with something good to gain
More than dead love and wasted pain;
Cry bitterly, To drawn anigh
One heart at least, and cry in vain.

C-5. “Praise of Wine” (“The sun grows dim and the day waxes old”)

Published AWS, I, 541-43. Reprinted in small fine arts booklet, "William Morris and his Praise of Wine," The Ward Ritchie Press, September 21, 1958.

[p. 541]

Praise of Wine

The sun grows dim and the day waxes old
And the blossoms droop, for May is a-cold
And the nook in the street the wind doth hold,
And the night lies dark before us.

But come if ye are wearied and sad
Or think too much of the days ye have had,

For here is yet what shall make you glad
     Though the night lies dark before us.

Shut up in a narrow prison it is
That weaver of the veil of bliss,
Across the face of all memories
     When the night lies dark before us.

How shall we name it better than Wine,
That glorious hope, that deathless sign
That the heavens yet to the earth decline
     Though the night lie dark before us?

Think how while we sorrow and slept
Higher and higher the hearth’s flame crept,
Till out of the press the red stream leapt
     And the dark night lies before us.

How did we yearn in our misery
Till across the land and across the sea
It came to the land where the chill winds be
     And the night lies dark before us.

Come then and wrath this dark flask fair
With the flowers our heads no more may bear
Lest we scorch them black with the first of care,
     For the dark night lies before us.

[p. 542]
Yea, lightly lay your hand thereon,
For therein lies hid the life of the sun
Whereby are sorrow and joy made one
     When the dark night lies before us.

Sweet, sweet as the primrose beds,
As the summer wind o’er the lily-heads,
As the clover field the night dew weds
      When the dark night lies before us.

Heart O heart, now growest thou bold
And hope long dead and a love long cold
For a little minute thou yet mayst hold
      Ere the night lies dark before us.

And this hard world that we kept at bay,
The panting struggles of yesterday
We gaze on now like an idle play
      For the dark night lies before us.

Clear grow our eyes and we see how vain
Were hope and fear of pleasure and pain:
How shall it be when it comes again?
     Yet the night lies dark before us.

Loath to depart, yet weak to abide,
Praying to see yet fain to hide,
Bringing together that we may divide,
     While the dark night lies before us.

Such were we once, but now through thee
We share but the woes of divinity;
Better or worse we cannot be
      And the night lies dark before us.

With happy/pensive years hast thou filled our eyes
As musically now, and overwise,
We talk of the curse that over us lies
     And the dark night stretched before us.

[p. 543]
And if to-morrow but short and vain
We call this space betwixt pain and pain,
Yet life is long, it shall hap again,
     Ere the dark night closes o’er us.

C-6. “Hapless Love” (Haec: Why do you sadly go alone / O fair friend?)

Published Good Words, April, 1869, and privately printed 1876. Included in CW, XXIV, 347-51. According to May Morris, taken from an early draft of “Cupid and Psyche” (CW, IX, xxix-xxx). This doesn’t fit the poem, however, which is another instance of a love trilogy with two speakers (Hic and Ille) in which the speaker laments that his loved one has chosen another.

[p. 347]

HIC
Why do you sadly go alone,
O fair friend? Are your pigeons flown,
Or has the thunder killed your bees,
Or he-goats barked your apple-trees?
Or has the red-eared bull gone mad,
Or the mead turned from good to bad?
Or did you find the merchant lied
About the gay cloth scarlet-dyed?
And did he sell you brass for gold,
Or is there murrain in the fold?

ILLE
Nay, no such thing has come to me.
In bird and beast and field and tree,
And all the things that make my store,
Am I as rich as e’er before;
And no beguilers have I known
But Love and Death; and Love is gone,
Therefore am I far more than sad,
And no more know good things from bad.

HIC
Woe worth the while! Yet coming days
May bring another, good to praise.

ILLE
Nay, never will I love again,
For loving is but joyful pain
If all be at its very best;
A rose-hung bower of all unrest;
But when at last things go awry,
What tongue can tell its misery?
And soon or late shall this befall –
The Gods send death upon us all.

[p. 348]

HIC
Nay, then, but tell me how she died,
And how it did to thee betide
To love her; for the wise men say
To talk of grief drives grief away.

ILLE
Alas, O friend, it happed to me
To see her passing daintily
Before my homestead day by day –
Would she had gone some other way!
For one day, as she rested there
Beneath the long-leaved chestnuts fair,
In very midst of mid-day heat,
I cast myself before her feet,
And prayed for pity and for love.
How could I dream that words could move
A woman? Soft she looked at me:
“Thou sayest that I a queen should be,”
She answered with a gathering smile;
“Well, I will wait a little while;
Perchance the Gods thy will have heard.”

And even with that latest word,
The clash of arms we heard anigh;
And from the wood rode presently
A fair knight well apparelled.
And even as she turned her head,
He shortened rein, and cried aloud:
“O beautiful, among the crowd
Of queens thou art the queen of all!”

But when she let her eyelids fall,
And blushed for pleasure and for shame,
Then quickly to her feet he came,
And said, “Thou shalt be queen indeed;
For many a man this day shall bleed
[p. 349] Because of me, and leave me king
Ere noontide fall to evening.”

Then on his horse he set the maid
Before him, and no word she said
Clear unto me, but murmuring
Beneath her breath some gentle thing,
She clung unto him lovingly;
Nor took they any heed of me.

Through shade and sunlight on they rode
But ‘neath the green boughs I abode,
Nor noted aught that might betide.
The sun waned and the shade spread wide;
The birds came twittering overhead;
But there I lay as one long dead.

But ere the sunset, came a rout
Of men-at-arms with song and shout,
And bands of lusty archers tall,
And spearmen marching like a wall,
Their banners hanging heavily,
That no man might their blazon see;
And ere their last noise died away,
I heard the clamour of the fray
That swelled and died and rose again;
Yet still I brooded o’er my pain
Until the red sun nigh was set,
And then methought I e’en might get
The rest I sought, nor wake forlorn
Midst fellow-men the morrow morn;
So forth I went unto the field,
One man without a sword or shield.
But none was there to give me rest,
Tried was it who was worst and best,
And slain men lay on every side;
For flight and chase were turned aside,
[p. 350] And all men got on toward the sea.
But as I went right heavily
I saw how close beside the way
Over a knight a woman lay
Lamenting, and I knew in sooth
My love, and drew a-near for ruth.

There lay the knight who would be king
Dead slain before the evening,
And ever my love cried out and said,
“O sweet, in one hour art thou dead
And I am but a maiden still!
The Gods this day have had their will
Of thee and me; whom all these years
They kept apart: that now with tears
And blood and bitter misery
Our parting and our death might be.”

Then did she rise and look around,
And took his drawn sword from the ground
And on its bitter point she fell –
No more, no more, O friend, to tell!
No more about my life, O friend!
One course it shall have to the end.

O Love, come from the shadowy shore,
And by my homestead as before
Go by with sunlight on thy feet!
Come back, if but to mock me, sweet!

HIC
O fool! what love of thine was this,
Who never gave thee any kiss,
Nor would have wept if thou hadst died?
Go now, behold the world is wide:
Soon shalt thou find some dainty maid
To sit with in thy chestnut shade,
[f. 351] To rear fair children up for thee,
As those few days pass silently,
Uncounted, that may yet remain
‘Twixt thee and that last certain pain.

ILLE
Art thou a God? Nay, if thou wert,
Wouldst thou belike know of my hurt,
And what might sting and what might heal?
The world goes by 'twixt woe and weal
And heeds me not; I sit apart
Amid old memories. To my heart
My love and sorrow must I press;
It knoweth its own bitterness.

C-7. Love Is Enough

Published 1872: Ellis and White. Included in CW, IX 1-89. Several autograph drafts are in HM 6422.

C-8. French Noel: Masters in This Hall (Masters in this Hall /Hear ye news today)

Published AWS, I 532-34. Printed in Collection of Ancient Christmas Carols, arr. Edmund Spedding, 1860, where it was titled, “French Noel: Masters in this Hall.” Probably a translation.

Masters in this Hall

Hear ye news to-day
Brought from over sea,
And ever I you pray:
Nowell! Nowell! Nowell! Nowell sing we clear
Holpen are all folk on earth, Born is God's Son so dear:
Nowell! Nowell! Nowell! Nowell sing we loud!
God to-day hath poor folk rais'd, And cast down the proud.

Going over the hills,
Though the milk-white snow,
Heard I ewes bleat
While the wind did blow.

    Nowell! etc.

Shepherds many an one
Sat among the sheep,
No man spake more word
Than they had been asleep.

    Nowell! etc.

Quoth I, 'Fellows mine,
Why this guise sit ye?
Making but dull cheer,
Shepherds though ye be?'

    Nowell! etc.

'Shepherds should of right
Leap and dance and sing;
Thus to see ye sit
Is a right strange thing.'

    Nowell! etc.

Quote these fellows then,
'To Bethlem Town we go,
To see a mighty Lord
Lie in manger low.'

    Nowell! etc.

'How name ye this Lord
Shepherds' then said I,
'Very God,' they said,
'Come from heaven high.'

    Nowell! etc.

Then to Bethlem Town
We went two and two
And in a sorry place
Heard the oxen low.

    Nowell! etc.

Therein did we see
A sweet and goodly May
And a fair old man,
Upon the straw she lay.

    Nowell! etc.

And a little Child
On Her arm had She
'Wot yet Who this is?'
Said the hinds to me.

    Nowell! etc.

Ox and ass Him know
Kneeling on their knee,
Wondrous joy had I
This little Babe to see,

    Nowell! etc.

That is Christ the Lord,
Masters be ye glad!
Christmas is come in,
And no folk should be sad.

    Nowell! etc.

C-9. Song for Orpheus: “O love, love, love, folk told me thou wert dead”

Published AWS, I, 534-35. Copyist’s version in B. L. Add. Ms. 45,298B, ff. 47-48.

B. L. Add. Ms. 45,298B [ff. 46-48]

Song for Orpheus
O Love, love, love, folk told me thou were dead
And O my folly! I believed their tale,
And I have gone about with hanging head
And found no place in hill, or wood, or dale
Lonely enough that thee I might bewail;
All dead things heard my breath and gazed& moved
And cried, O sorrow, sorrow unbeloved!
The wood laid hand upon me when I screamed[,]
The grass clung round about my heavy feet,
The cruel sun upon my hot head streamed[,]
The heavy circling air my face did meet[,]
In measured cadence did the world’s pulse beat
About my ears and wheresoe’er I moved
Cried[,] Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow unbeloved.

I knew not what I said, for “dead” I cried
And when shall I forget and all things cease?
Ah fool! for rather nothing at that tide
Did I remember and no dream brought ease.
No dream of all the kisses and the peace[.]
Yea, I was dead, though on the earth I moved[.]
O Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow unbeloved.

[f. 48] But now perchance, perchance, O Love[,] I live,
For all around me is the world dead now;
All unregarded now and meet to give
Pleasure or pain from out its painted show;
And clearer now the dreams of thee do grow
When o’er thy face[,] my love, my loved lips moved,
O Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow unbeloved.

Perhchance[,] I live, and certainly thou livest
And must I ever then be left alone
While thou new joy to unseen people givest[?]
O strange, O strange if thou so hard art grown
That thou mayst sit apart and hear my moan[:]
Once was thine heart not all so hardly moved[.]
O Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow unbeloved--
Sweet solace, lovely sorrow well-beloved.

AWS, I

[p. 534]

Song for Orpheus
O LOVE, love, love, folk told me thou were dead
And O my folly! I believed their tale,
And I have gone about with hanging head
And found no place in hill, or wood, or vale
Lonely enough that thee I might bewail;
All dead things heard my breath and gazed and moved
And cried, O sorrow, sorrow unbeloved!

The wood laid hand upon me when I screamed,
The grass clung round about my heavy feet,
The cruel sun upon my hot head streamed,
The heavy circling air my face did meet,

In measured cadence did the world’s pulse beat
About my ears and wheresoe’er I moved
Cried sorrow, sorrow, sorrow unbeloved.

I knew not what I said, for “dead” I cried
And when shall I forget and all things cease?
Ah fool! for rather nothing at that tide
Did I remember and no dream brought ease.
No dream of all the kisses and the peace
Yea, I was dead, though on the earth I moved
O sorrow, sorrow, sorrow unbeloved.

[p. 535] But now perchance, perchance, O Love, I live,
For all around me in the world dead now;
All unregarded [now] and meet to give
Pleasure or pain from out its painted show,
And clearer now the dreams of thee do grow
When o’er thy face, my love, my loved lips moved:
O sorrow, sorrow, sorrow unbeloved.

Perhchance I live, and certainly thou livest
And must I ever then be left alone
While thou new joy to unseen people givest?
O strange, O strange if thou so hard art grown
That thou mayst sit apart and hear my moan:
Once was thine heart not all so hardly moved.
O sorrow, sorrow, sorrow unbeloved:
Sweet solace, lovely sorrow well-beloved.

C-10. Song for Orpheus: “O hollow image of the very death”

Published AWS, I, 535-36. Copyist’s version in B. L. Add. Ms. 45,28B, f. 49.

B. L. 45,298B [f. 49]

O hollow image of the very death!
Despite of what the dull void threateneth
Despite the dull curse that thy silence saith
     My feet are on the way to meet my love.

O eyeless thing! the night is dark about[,]
The hounds of hard-lipped fear are loosed and out[,]
Low hangs the sky above the dull earth’s doubt.
     I tremble too, but hope my heart doth move.

I know thee! when the clover-field did pine,
They set thee here[,] cold thing[,] to be a sign.
Beneath thee lay all life that once was mine.
     O tired feet, long is the way to meet my love.

They lied. Tomb of my love, and made thee lie.
Harken, hearken strings, clear voice her sweet name cry,
"Come Eurydice"--and no reply
     Unto the heart of hope my heart to move.

Nay, nay, thou art not God’s abiding place,
And with none else but God now dwells that face
That gave me once clear nights and shadowy days.
     Be patient, feet, scarce time to meet my love.

AWS

[p. 535]

Song for Orpheus
O hollow image of the very death!
Despite of what the dull void threateneth
Despite the dull curse that thy silence saith
My feet are on the way to meet my love!

O eyeless thing! the night is dark about,
The hounds of hard-lipped fear are loosed and out,
Low hangs the sky above the dull earth’s doubt.
I tremble too, but hope my heart doth move.

I know thee! when the clover flowers did pine,
They set thee here, cold thing to be a sign;
Beneath thee lay all life that once was mine:
O tired feet, long is the way to meet my love.

They lied, tomb of my love, and made thee lie.
Harken, harp-strings’ clear voice her sweet name cry,
O me Eurydice: and no reply
Unto the heart of hope my heart to move.

[p. 536]
Nay, nay, thou art not God’s abiding place,
And with none else but God now dwells that face
That gave me once clear nights and shadowy days.

Be patient, feet, scarce time to meet my love.

And yet strangely, O thou lie, thou holdest me,
And with strained eyes I stare as though to see
Through thy dull void the lips once laid on me
Speak midst the silence, love, my heart to move.

C-11. Song for Cupid and Psyche (two voices, Haec and Ille) (Haec: O love, in songs thou lovest me,)

Published AWS, I, 537-38.

[p. 537]

Song for Cupid and Psyche

HAEC

O love, in songs thou lovest me,
For love of me brave knight do flee
Before the peril of thy spear;
Why doest thou leave me sighing here?

ILLE

The last time that I saw thee, love,
Across the throne-room didst thou move
Following the footsteps of the Queen,
In dainty clinging gown of green
Girt up above your gold-shod feet:
Alas so quick you vanished, sweet,
I scarce had time to cry, before
The King had called me from the door.

And where then shall I seek thou [thee] now?
Sitting with crown upon thy brow;
Beside some mighty conquering King,
Or, with Diana wandering
Through many an untrodden glade,
Or naked by a river laid?

Where never any man has been,
By Naiads is thy body seen,
Or in some garden of a town,
[p. 537] Where the bewildered thrushes brown
Sing doubtfully between the walls
And drowsily the fountain falls,
There, crowned with flowers sittest thou,
Blushing with love from chin to brow,
Whilst thy fair lover sings a song
Of joy and passion, death and wrong.

Alas wherever thou mayst be
A long way off thou art from me;
Unknown, unmeasured is the way
That leads to thee, O Love, to-day.

HAEC

Alas! I would I saw thee, sweet,
Here am I helpless in the street,
Weeping for what has past away;
And now to-morrow will they say
When by some tree they find me dead,
'Behold now, if her lips were red
And if she were in seemly weed
A lovely things she were indeed.'

ILLE

O who art thou that standest there,
In rent gown but so passing fair,
Unshod, but with such lovely feet,
O art thou not my only sweet?

HAEC

Alas I am a wretch to-day,
Not her who in thine arms once lay,
For ill dawn followed that sweet night
And I was shamed in all men's sight;
Yet in thine arms now let me lie
Since now is come the time to die.

ILLE

Lie there and weep, O Love, awhile,
But soon lift up thy head and smile
Nor weep when mine own eyes are dry,
For neither is it time to die.

HAEC

Then canst thou find some lonely isle
Where we may live a little while
Where I may soon forget my wrong
And all these evil folk and strong?

ILLE

Yes such a place indeed there is
Where we may live long time in bliss;
Thitherward when the sun gets low
Adown the river will we go
Until we come unto the sea
That shall be kind to thee and me,
Until unto a land we come
That is indeed my very home
Where dwells my father the great King
Having no need of anything
But thee and me that we may sit
Before his face and gladden it.

C-12. “The Wanderers,” first version. (Oho! Oho! Whence come ye, Sirs, /Drifted to usward in such guise,)

Published CW, XXIV, 87-170. Autograph early version in British Library Add. MS 45,305, ff. 9-73. Later version autograph is in British Library Add. MS 37,499, f. 2v-118. See also List of Earthly Paradise drafts.

C-13. “The Story of Aristomenes” (Nigh twenty years had the Messenian folk / Striven to free them from the Spartan yoke)

A portion, “The First Foray of Aristomenes,” was published in the Athenaeum, May 13th, 1876. Published CW, XXIV, 171-238. B. L. Add. Ms. 45,308, ff. 58-79 first draft, begun on June 25th, 1870; ff. 80-154 typed version with very few corrections. A partial draft is in the Humanities Research Center, University of Texas (Ms. File, [Morris, W.], Works B). An unused Earthly Paradise tale. See alsoThe Story of Aristomenes and the checklist for Earthly Paradise drafts.

C-14. “The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice” ( Down in the south Laconian country-side / About mount Tenarus, a wood spreads wide )

Published in CW, XXIV, 239-80. An early autograph draft is in B. L. Add. Ms. 45,308, ff. 1- 11; ff. 12-55 contains a good draft with a few corrections. Copyist’s versions of several songs appear in B. L. Add. Ms. 45,298b, ff. 31-49. See also The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice.

C-15. “Meeting in Winter” (Winter in the world it is / Round about the unhoped kiss)

A song from Orpheus, included in The Book of Verse, 1870, 28. It was published in The English Illustrated Magazine, March, 1884, 339-40 and in CW, IX, Poems by the Way, 93, as the first poem. HM 6427, f. 57 is a copy of the English Illustrated Magazine version, prepared for the printer of Poems By the Way, with no verbal changes marked.

See also songs from Orpheus, B3-7 and C9-10.

Images of the English Illustrated Magazine version

Book of Verse, 1870

[p. 28]

Meeting in Winter

Winter in the world it is
Round about the unhoped kiss
Whose shadow I have long moaned oer
Round about the longing sore,
That the touch of thee shall turn
Into joy too deep to burn.

Round thine eyes and round thy mouth
Passeth no murmur of the south
When my lips a little while
Leave thy quivering tender smile,
As we twain, hand touching hand,
Once again together stand.

Sweet is that as all is sweet,
For the white drift shalt thou meet
Kind and cold-cheeked, and mine own,
Wrapped about with deep-furred gown
In the broad-wheeled chariot;

Then the north shall spare us not,
The wide-reaching waste of snow
Wilder, lonelier yet shall grow
As the reddened sun falls down.

[p. 29]
But the warders of the town,
When they flash the torches out
Oe’r the snow amid their doubt,
And their eyes at last behold
Thy red-litten hair of gold,
Shall they open, or in fear
Cry; Alas, what cometh here?
Whence hath come this heavenly one,
To tell of all the world undone?

They shall open and we shall see
The long street litten scantily
By the stream of light before
The guest-halls half open door,
And our horses bells shall cease
As we gain the place of peace:
Thou shalt tremble, as at last
The worn threshold is o’erpast,
And the fire-light blindeth thee;
Trembling shalt thou cling to me
As the sleepy merchants stare
At thy cold hands, slim and fair,

Thy soft eyes and happy lips
Worth all lading of all ships

[p. 30]
O my love, how oversweet
That first kissing of thy feet,
When the fire is sunk alow,
And the hall made empty now
Groweth solmn dim and vast!

O my love, the night shall last
Longer than men tell thereof
Laden with our lonely love!

C-16. “The Wooing of Swanhild” (A king of the Goths there was as tells my tale / Men called Hermenaric, a man of might)

Published CW, vol. 24, 281-315. B. L. Add. Ms. 45,308, ff. 156-78, rough draft and better copy; Morris autograph. Another unpublished Earthly Paradise tale, which May Morris believed contemporaneous with the later Earthly Paradise stories (CW, vol 9, 149). See also The Wooing of Swanhild and the checklist of Earthly Paradise drafts.

C-17. A Garden By the Sea” (I know a little garden-close / Set thick with lily and red rose,)

Copied by Georgiana Burne-Jones in HM 6427, ff. 75-76; her handwriting is characterized by the older form of the double s, in pencil on white ruled paper.

Originally included in The Life and Death of Jason, Bk. 4, CW, II, 69-70, with change in the 3rd verse. Also included separately in the Book of Verse, 1870, 31-32, and published in Poems By the Way (CW, IX, 149).

HM 6427 [f. 75]

          A Garden by the Sea.
I know a little garden-close,
Set thick with lily and red rose,
Where I would wander if I might
From dewy morn to dewy night
And have one with me wandering

And though within it no birds sing,
And though no pillared house is there,
And though the apple-boughs are bare
Of fruit and blossom, would to God
Her feet upon the green grass trod
And I beheld them as before

There comes a murmur from the shore,
And in the close two fair streams are,
Drawn from the purple hills afar.
Drawn down unto the restless sea:
Dark hills whose heath-bloom feeds no bee,
Dark shore no ship has ever seen,
Tormented by the billows green
Whose murmur comes unceasingly
Unto the place for which I cry.

For which I cry both day and night,
For which I let slip all delight,
Whereby I grow both deaf and blind,
[f. 76]
Careless to win, unskilled to find,
And quick to lose what all men seek.

Yet tottering as I am and weak,
Still have I left a little breath
To seek within the jaws of death
An entrance to that happy place.
To seek the unforgotten face,
Once seen once kissed, once reft from me
Anigh the murmuring of the sea.

[in Charles Fairfax Murray's handwriting] Copied by Lady Burne Jones.

Book of Verse, 1870

[p. 31]

    A Garden by the Sea

I know a little garden close,
Set thick with lily and red rose
Where I would wander if I might
From dewy morn to dewy night
And have one with me wandering

And though within it no birds sing,
And though no pillared house is there
And though the apple-boughs are bare
Of fruit and blossom, would to God
Her feet upon the green grass trod
And I beheld them as before.

There comes a murmur from the shore,
And in the close two fair streams are,
Drawn from the purple hills afar
Drawn down unto the restless sea:
Dark hills whose heath-boom feeds no bee,
Dark shore no ship has ever seen,
Tormented by the billows green
Whose murmur comes unceasingly
Unto the place for which I cry

For which I cry both day and night,
[p. 32]
For which I let slip all delight,
Whereby I grow both deaf and blind,
Careless to win, unskilled to find,
And quick to lose what all men seek.

Yet tottering as I am and weak
Still have I left a little breath
To seek within the jaws of death
An entrance to that happy place,
To seek the unforgotten face,
Once seen once kissed, once reft from me
Anigh the murmuring of the sea.

C-18. “In Arthur’s House” ( In Arthur’s house whilome was I / When happily the time went by)

Published CW, XXIV, 316-28.B. L. Add, Ms. 45,308, ff. 180-94, autograph drafts. Folio 180 is a single page fragment; ff. 181-86 is another draft; ff. 187-94 a third.
Unfinished, written about 1865. Published in CW, XXIV, 316-28.

See Karl Litzenberg, “Tyrfing Into Excalibur? A Note on William Morris’ Unfinished Poem, ‘In Arthur’s House’,” Scandinavian Studies, 15 (1938-1939): 81-83. May Morris feels this may have been a fragment of one of the projected Earthly Paradise stories (CW, XXIV, xxxi).

For a critical discussion, see Karl Anderson, "Scandinavian Elements in the Works of William Morris," discussion of "In Arthur's House,"142-43 [follows the discussion of "The Wooing of Swanhild"]

In Arthur’s House [ff. 180-94]

[f. 180] In Arthur’s house whilome was I
When merrily the time went by
In midmost glory of his days.
He held his court then in a place
Whereof ye shall not find the name
In any story of his fame[.]
Caerliel good sooth men called it not[,]
Nor London Town, nor Camelot[;]
Yet therein was there bliss enow.
–Ah, far off was the overthrow
Of all that Britain praised and loved;
And, though among us lightly moved
A love that could but lead to death[,]
Smooth-skinned he seemed, of rosy breath,
That could but wound a lady’s lip,
No ruin of goodly fellowship.
No shame and death of all things good.

     Forgive the old carle’s babbling mood;
As here I sit grey[-]haired and old,
My life gone as a story told[,]
Ye bid me tell a story too[;]
And then the evil days and few,
That yet were overlong for me
Rise up so clear I may not see
The pictures of my minstrel lore[.]
Well hearken: in those days of yore
From prime of morn the court did ride

[f. 181] [omitted opening corresponds to ff. 188-89
As one who thinks no harm he smiled,
And cried out: “Well met in the wild,
Fair King and Queen; and ye withal
Sweet dames and damsels! Well befal
This day, whereon I see thee nigh,
O Lancelot, before I die!
And surely shall my heart rejoice
Sir Gawain, when I hear thy voice!”

Then Lancelot laughed: “Thou knowest us then
Full well among a many men?”

“As quoth the lion to the mouse,”
The man said, “in King Arthur’s House
Men are not names of men alone,
But coffers rather of deeds done.”

The Queen smiled blithe at heart, and spake:
“Hast thou done deeds for ladies’ sake?”

“Nay dame,” he said, “I am but young;
A little have I lived and sung
And seen thy face this happy noon.”

The King said: “May we hearken soon
Some merry tale of thee? for I
Am skilled to know men low and high
And deem thee neither churl nor fool.”

Said he, “My fathers went to school
Where folk are taught a many things,
But not by bliss: men called them kings
In days when kings were near to seek;
But as a long thread waxeth weak,
So is it with our house; and now
I wend me home from oaken bough
Unto a stead where roof and wall
Shall not have over far to fall
When their last day comes.”
          As he spake
He reddened: “Nathless for their sake,
[f. 181v] Whom the world loved once, mock not me
O King, if thence I bring to thee
A morsel and a draught of wine,
Though nothing King-like here thou dine.”

Of some kind word King Arthur thought,
But ere he spake the woodman caught
His forest-nag and leapt thereon,
And through the tangled brake was gone.
Then leapt the King down, glad at heart,
Thinking, This day shall not depart
Without some voice from days that were;
And lightly leapt down Guenevere,
And man and maid lay presently
Neath the bee-laden branches high,
And sweet the scent of trodden grass
Amid the blossoms’ perfume was.

There long they lay, and little spake,
[f. 181v] As folk right loth the calm to break;
Till lo upon the forest-breeze
A noise of folk, and from the trees
They came: the first-seen forester,
A grizzled carle in such-like gear,
And then two maidens poorly clad
Though each a silver chaplet had
And round her neck a golden chain:
And last two varlets led a wain
Drawn by white oxen well bedight
With oaken boughs and lilies white;
Therein there lay a cask of wine
And baskets piled with bread full fine,
And flesh of hart and roe and hare;
And in the midst upon a chair
Done over with a cloth of gold
There sat a man exceeding old
[f. 182] With long white locks: and clad was he
No other than his company
Save that a golden crown he bore
Full fairly fashioned as of yore,
And with a sword was girt about
Such as few folk will see I doubt.
Right great it was: the scabbard thin
Was fashioned of a serpent’s skin,
In every scale a stone of worth:
Of tooth of sea-lion of the north
The cross was, and the blood-boot stone
That heals the hurt of the blade hath done
Hung down therefrom in silken purse:
The ruddy kin of Niblung’s curse
O’er tresses of a sea-wife’s hair
Was wrapped about the handle fair;
And last a marvellous sapphire stone
Amidst of the great pommel shone,
A blue flame in the forest green.
And Arthur deemed he ne’er had seen
So fair a sword: nay not when he
The wonder of the land-locked sea
Drew from the stone that Christmas-tide.

Now forth the forest youth did ride,
Leapt down beside the King, and spake:
[“]King Arthur for thy greatness[’] sake
My grandsire comes to look on thee;
My father standeth here by me;
These maidens are my sisters twain;
My brethren draw out from the wain
Somewhat thy woodland cheer to mend.”

Thereat his sire the knee did bend
[f. 182v] Before the King, who o’er the brown
Rough sleeve of the man’s homespun gown
Beheld a goodly golden ring:
And fell to greater marvelling
When he beheld how fine and fair
The woodman’s kneeling sisters were.
And all folk thereby deemed in sooth
That (save indeed the first seen youth)
These folk were nobler e’en than those
Of Arthur’s wonder of a house.

But now the elder drew anigh,
By half a head was he more high
Than Arthur or than Lancelot,
Nor had eld bent him: he kneeled not
Before the King, but smiling took
His hands in hands that nowise shook;
And the King joyed as he who sees
One of his fathers’ images
Stand glad before him in a dream.
Then down beside the bubbling stream
They sat together, and the King
Was loth to fall a questioning;
So first the elder spake and said:

“It joys me of thy goodlihead
O great king of our land; and though
Our blood within thee doth not flow,
And I, who was a king of yore
May scarcely kneel thy feet before,
Yet do I deem thy right the best
Of all the kings who rule the West.
I love thy name and fame: behold,
King Arthur, I am grown so old
In guilelessness, the Gods have sent,
Be I content or uncontent,

That I may see as through a haze
The lives and deeds of days to come:
I laugh for some, I weep for some –
I neither laugh nor weep, for thee,
But trembling through the clouds I see
Thy life and glory to the end;
And how the sweet and bitter blend
[f. 183] Within the cup that thou must drink.
Good is it that thou shalt not shrink
From either: that the afterdays
Shall still win glory from thy praise
And scarce believe thee laid asleep
When o’er thy deeds the days lie deep.”

He ceased but his old lips moved still,
As though they would the tale fulfil
His heart kept secret: Arthur’s eyes
Gleamed with the pride that needs would rise
Up from his heart, and low he said:
“I know the living by the dead
I know the future by the past.”
Wise eyes and kind the elder cast
Upon him; while a nameless fear
Smote to the heart of Guenevere,
And, fainting there, was turned to love:
And thence a nameless pain did move
The noble heart of Lancelot[,]
The store of longings unforgot.
–And west a little moved the sun
And noon began, and noon was done.

But as the elder’s grey eyes turned
On Guenevere’s, her sweet face burned
With a sweet shame; as though she knew
He read her story through and through.
Kindly he looked on her and said:
“O Queen, the chief of goodlihead,
Be blithe and glad this day at least
When in my fathers’ house ye feast:
For surely in their ancient hall
Ye sit now: look, there went the wall
Where yon turf ridge runs west-away:
Time was I heard my grand-dame say
She saw this stream run bubbling down
The hall-floor shut in trench of stone;
[f. 183v] Therein she washed her father’s cup
That last ever e’er the fire went up
O’er ridge and rafter she passed
Betwixt the foemen’s spears the last
Of all the women, wrapping round
This sword the gift of Odin’s ground.”

He shook the weapon o’er his knee,
Thereon gazed Arthur eagerly.
“Draw it, my lord,” quoth Guenevere,
“Of such things have we little fear
In Arthur’s house.” And Lancelot rose
To look upon the treasure close.
But grimly smiled the ancient man:
“E’en as the sun arising wan
In the black sky when Heimdall’s horn
Screams out and the last day is born,
This blade to eyes of men shall be
On that dread day I shall not see–”
Fierce was his old face for a while:
But once again he ‘gan to smile
And took the Queen’s slim lily hand
And set it on the deadly brand
Then laughed and said: “Hold this, O Queen,
Thine hand is where God’s hands have been,
For this is Tyrfing: who knows when
His blade was forged? Belike ere men
Had dwelling on the middle-earth.
At least a man’s life is it worth
To draw it out once: so behold
These peace-strings wrought of pearl and gold
The scabbard to the cross that bind
Lest a rash hand and heart made blind
Should draw it forth unwittingly.”

Blithe laughed King Arthur: “Sir,” said he,
“We well may deem in days by gone
[f. 184] This sword, the blade of such an one
As thou hast been, would seldom slide
Back to its sheath unsatisfied.
Lo now how fair a feast thy kin
Have dight for us and might we win
Some tale of thee in Tyrfing’s praise,
Some deed he wrought in greener days,
This were a blithesome hour indeed.”

“Sir,” said the elder, “little need
To pray me hereof. Please ye dine
And drink a cup of woodman’s wine,
Surely meantime some tale shall stir
Within my heart of days that were.”

Then to their meat they gat and there
Feasted amid the woodland fair
The fairest folk of all the land.
Ah me when first the Queen’s fair hand
Drew near the kneeling forest youth
New-wrought the whole world seemed in sooth
And nothing left therein of ill.
So at the last the Queen did fill
A cup of wine, and drank and said:
“In memory of thy fathers dead
I drink, fair lord, drink now with me
And then bethink thee presently
Of deeds that once won prize and praise
The glory of thy fathers’ days.”

He drank and laughed and said, “Nay, nay,
Keep we the peace-strings whole today.
This draught from where thy lips have been
Within mine old heart maketh green
The memory of a love full true,
The first recorded deed that drew
My fathers’ house from dark to light.

If thus my grandame told aright,
[f. 184] A rougher place our land was then,
Quoth she, than with us living men,
And other trees were in the wood
And folk of somewhat other blood
Than ours: then were the small-eyed bears
More plenty in the woodland lairs
Than badgers now: no holiday
It was to chase the wolves away,
Yea there were folk who had to tell
Of lyngworms lying on the fell,
And fearful things by lake and fen,
And manlike shapes that were not men.
Then fay-folk roamed the woods at noon,
And on the grave-mound in the moon
Faint gleamed the flickering treasure-flame.
Days of the world that won no fame,
Yet now, quoth she, folk looking back
Across the tumult and the wrack
And swelling up of windy lies
And dull fool-fashioned cruelties,
Deem that in those days Gods abode
On earth and shared ill times and good
And right and wrong with that same folk
Their hands had fashioned for the yoke.
Quoth she, of such nought tells my tale,
Yet saith that such as should prevail
In those days o’er the fears of earth
Must needs have been some deal of worth,
And saith that had ye seen a kin
Who dwelt these very woods within
Them at the least ye would have told
For cousins of the Gods of old.
Amongst all these it tells of one,
The goodman’s last-begotten son,
Some twenty summers old: as fair
As any flower that blossomed there
[185] In sun and rain, and strong therewith
And lissome as a willow with.
Now through these woods amidst of June
This youngling went until at noon
From out the thicket his fair face
Peered forth upon this very place;
For he had been a-hunting nigh
And wearied thought a while to lie
Beside the freshness of a stream.
But lo as in a morning dream
The place was changed, for there was dight
A fair pavilion blue and white
E’en where we play, and all around
Was talk of men and diverse sound,
Tinkling of bit and neigh of steed,
Clashing of arms and iron weed.
For round about the painted tent
Armed folk a many came or went,
Or on the fresh grass lay about.
Surely our youth at first had doubt
If ‘twere not better to be gone
Than meet these stranger folk alone–
But wot ye well such things as these
Were new to him born mid the trees
And wild things: and he thought, Maybe
The household of the Gods I see:
Who for as many tales as I
Have heard of them, I ne’er saw nigh.
If they be men, I wotted not
That such fair raiment men had got;
They will be glad to show them then.

For one thing taught these woodland men
Whatever wisdom they let fall
Men since have won Fear nought at all.

[185v] So from the holly brake he strode
Shouldering the while his hunter’s load,
A new slain roe; but there arose
To meet him half a score of those
Whom in fair words he greeted well.

Now was he clad in a sheep’s fell
And at his back his quiver hung,
His woodknife on his thigh: unstrung
His bow he held in a staff’s stead.
An oaken wreath was round his head
From whence his crispy locks of brown
Well nigh unto his belt hung down,
And howso frank his eyes might be
A half-frown smoothly might you see
As these men handled sword or spear
And cried out, “Hold, what dost thou here?”
“Ah,” said he, “then no Gods ye are.
Fear not, I shall not make you war.”
Therewith his hunting-knife he drew
And the long blade before them threw.
Then loud they laughed; one sheathed his sword:
“Thanks, army-leader, for that word!
We are not Gods e’en as thou say’st,
Nor thou a devil of the waste
But e’en a devil’s friend belike.”
Something [of] hate hereat did strike
Unto the woodman’s unused heart,
Yet he spake softly for his part:
“What men are ye and where dwell ye?
What is the wondrous house I see?”
“In the fair southland is our home
Yet from the north as now we come,”
Said one: then with a mocking smile,
“And in our house there dwells awhile
A very Goddess of the north.
But lo you, take a thing of worth
[186] For that thy quarry, and begone.”

But as he spake another one
Spake softly in his ear: and so
The word from this to that did go,
With laughing that seemed nowise good
Unto the dweller of the wood,
Who saying nought moved toward the tent.
But they came round him as he went
And said: “Nay, pagan, stay thy feet;
Thou art not one our dame to greet

3rd draft, B. L. Add. MS. 45,308, [ff. 187-194]

In Arthur’s House

In Arthur’s house whilome was I
When happily the time went by
In midmost glory of his days.
He held his court then in a place
Whereof ye shall not find the name
In any story of his fame:
Caerliel good sooth men called it not,
Nor London Town, nor Camelot;
Yet therein was there bliss enow.
–Ah, far off was the overthrow
Of all that Britain praised and loved;
And, though among us lightly moved
A love that could but lead to death,
Smooth-skinned he seemed, of rosy breath,
That could but wound a lady’s lip,
No ruin of goodly fellowship[.]
No shame and death of all things good.
     Forgive the old carle’s babbling mood;
As here I sit grey-haired and old,
My life gone as a story told[.]
Ye bid me tell a story too;
And then the evil days and few,
That yet were overlong for me
Rise up so clear I may not see
The pictures of my minstrel lore.

Well hearken! in those days of yore
From prime of morn the court did ride
[f. 188] Amidmost of the summertide
To search the dwellings of the deer
Until the heat of noon was near;
Then slackening speed awhile they went
Adown a ragged thorn-bushed bent
At whose feet grew a tangled wood
Of oak and holly nowise good:
But therethrough with some pain indeed
And rending of the ladies[’] weed
They won at last, and after found
A space of green-sward grown around
By oak and holly set full close;
And in the midst of it arose
Two goodly sycamores that made
A wide and little sun-pierced shade
About their high boles straight and green:
A fount was newborn there-between,
And running on as clear as glass,
[F]lowed winding on amid the grass
Until the thick wood swallowed it.
     A place for happy folk to sit
While the hot day grew hotter still
Till eve began to work his will.
–So might those happy people think
Who grudged to see the red sun sink
And end another day of bliss
Although no joy of bliss should miss–
They laughed for joy as they drew nigh
The shade and fount: but lo, thereby
A man beside the fountain laid
The while his horse 'twixt sun and shade
Cropped the sweet grass: but little care
Had these of guile or giant[’]s lair,
And scarce a foot before the Queen
[f. 189] Rode Gawain o[’]er the daisied green
To see what man his pleasure took;
Who rose up in meanwhile and shook
His tangled hair aback, as one
Who e[’]en but now his sleep hath done.
Rough-head, and yellow-haired was he
Great-eyed[,] as folk have told to me,
And big and stout enow of limb:
As one who thinks no harm he smiled,
And cried out: “Well met in the wild,
Fair King and Queen; and ye withal
Sweet dames and damsels! Well befal
This day, whereon I see thee nigh,
O Lancelot, before I die!
And surely shall my heart rejoice
Sir Gawain, when I hear thy voice!”

Then Lancelot laughed: “Thou knowest us then
Full well among a many men?”

“As quoth the lion to the mouse,”
The man said, “in King Arthur’s House
Men are not names of men alone,
But coffers rather of deeds done.”

The Queen smiled blithe at heart, and spake;
“Hast thou done deeds for ladies’ sake?”

“Nay dame,” he said, [“]I am but young;
A little have I lived and sung
And seen thy face this happy noon.”

The King said: “May we hearken soon
Some merry tale of thee? for I
[f. 190] Am skilled to know men low and high
And deem thee neither churl nor fool.”

Said he, “My fathers went to school
Where folk are taught a many things,
But not by bliss: men called them kings
In days when kings were near to seek;
But as a long thread waxeth weak,
So is it with our house; and now
I wend me home from oaken bough
Unto a stead where roof and wall
Shall not have over far to fall
When their last day comes.”
As he spake
He reddened: “Nathless for their sake,
Whom the world loved once, mock not me
O King, if thence I bring to thee
A morsel and a draught of wine,
Though nothing King-like here thou dine.”

Of some kind word King Arthur thought,
But ere he spake the woodman caught
His forest-nag and leapt thereon,
And through the tangled brake was gone.
Then leapt the King down, glad at heart,
Thinking, This day shall not depart
Without some voice from days that were;
And lightly leapt down Guenevere,
And man and maid lay presently
Neath the bee-laden branches high,
And sweet the scent of trodden grass
Amid the blossoms’ perfume was.

There long they lay, and little spake,
As folk right loth the calm to break;
[f. 191] Till lo upon the forest-breeze
A noise of folk, and from the trees
They came: the first-seen forester,
A grizzled carle in such-like gear;
And then two maidens poorly clad
Though each a silver chaplet had
And round her neck a golden chain:
And last two varlets led a wain
Drawn by white oxen well bedight
With oaken boughs and lilies white;
Therein there lay a cask of wine
And baskets piled with bread full fine,
And flesh of hart and roe and hare;
And in the midst upon a chair
Done over with a cloth of gold
There sat a man exceeding old
With long white locks: and clad was he
No other than his company
Save that a golden crown he bore
Full fairly fashioned as of yore;
And with a sword was girt about
Such as few folk shall see I doubt.
Right great it was: the scabbard thin
Was fashioned of a serpent’s skin,
In every scale a stone of worth:
Of tooth of sea-lion of the north
The cross was, and the blood-boot stone
That heals the hurt of the blade hath done
Hung down therefrom in silken purse:
The ruddy kin of Niblung’s curse
O[’]er tresses of a sea-wife’s hair
Was wrapped about the handle fair;
And last a marvellous sapphire stone
Amidst of the great pommel shone,
A blue flame in the forest green.
[f. 192] And Arthur deemed he ne[’]er had seen
So fair a sword: nay not when he
The wonder of the land-locked sea
Drew from the stone that Christmas-tide.

Now forth the forest youth did ride,
Leapt down beside the King, and spake:
[“]King Arthur for thy greatness sake
My grandsire comes to look on thee;
My father standeth here by me;
These maidens are my sisters twain;
My brethren draw out from the wain
Somewhat thy woodland cheer to mend.”

Thereat his sire the knee did bend
Before the King, who o[’]er the brown
Rough sleeve of the man’s homespun gown
Beheld a goodly golden ring:
And fell to greater marvelling
When he beheld how fine and fair
The woodman’s kneeling sisters were.
And all folk thereby deemed in sooth
That[,] (save e[']en the first seen youth)
These folk were nobler e’en than those
Of Arthur’s wonder of a house.

But now the elder drew anigh,
By half a head was he more high
Than Arthur or than Lancelot,
Nor had eld bent him: he kneeled not
Before the King, but smiling took
His hands in hands that nowise shook;
And the King joyed as he who sees
One of his fathers’ images
Stand glad before him in a dream.
[f. 193] Then down beside the bubbling stream
They sat together, and the King
Was loth to fall a questioning;
So first the elder spake and said;

“It joys me of thy goodlihead
O great King of our land; and though
Our blood within thee doth not flow,
And I, who was a king of yore
May scarcely kneel thy feet before,
Yet do I deem thy right the best
Of all the kings who rule the West.
I love thy name and fame: behold,
King Arthur, I am grown so old
In guilelessness, the Gods have sent,
Be I content or uncontent,

This gift unto my latter days
That I may see as through a haze
The lives and deeds of days to come:
I laugh for some, I weep for some[–]
I neither laugh nor weep, for thee,
But trembling through the clouds I see
Thy life and glory to the end;
And how the sweet and bitter blend
Within the cup that thou must drink:
Good is it that thou shalt not shrink
From either: that the afterdays
Shall still win glory from thy praise
And scarce believe thee laid asleep
When o’er thy deeds the days lie deep.”

He ceased but his old lips moved still,
As though they would the tale fulfill
His heart kept secret: Arthur’s eyes
[f. 194] Gleamed with the pride that needs would rise
Up from his heart, and low he said:
“I know the living by the dead
I know the future by the past.”
Wise eyes and kind the elder cast
Upon him; while a nameless fear
Smote to the heart of Guenevere,
And, fainting there, was turned to love:
And thence a nameless pain did move
The noble heart of Lancelot[,]
The store of longings unforgot.
–And west a little moved the sun
And noon began, and noon was done. But as the elder’s grey eyes turned
On Guenevere’s, her sweet face burned
With a sweet shame; as though she knew
He read her story through and through.
Kindly he looked on her and said:

“O Queen, the chief of goodlihead,
Be blithe and glad this day at least
When in my fathers’ house ye feast:
For surely in their ancient hall
Ye sit now: look, there went the wall
Where yon turf ridge runs west-away:
Time was I heard my grand-dame say
She saw this stream run bubbling down
The hall-floor shut in trench of stone[.]
[breaks off, no f. 195]

C-19. [Anthony] ( On board ship off the coast of Norway . . . . SHIPMASTER: Well, master merchant, you slept late this morn )

Published CW, 24, 329-42. Autograph in B. L. Add. Ms. 45,308, ff. 197-201 (seems rough draft).

[f. 197]

On board ship off the coast of Norway: Anthony, Shipmaster & Sailors.

SHIPMASTER--

Well[,] master merchant, you slept late this morn
Despite our drawing nigh our journey’s end –
Well, you did well perchance being among friends[,]
For one day at the least a steady wind,
A cloudless sky and all things going well.

ANTHONY
Why[,] but to hear you things go not so well
Since now I go ashore – among unfriends
You seem to say--Yet was your word before
That this lord Rolf the Red was a good lord
To those who dealt in peaceful wise with him;
And in no warlike wise I come, meseems.

ANTHONY
A place to be forgotten in[,] it seems
The hil-sides like a wall, the deep green sea
The pine-trees all above it – so there dwells
The man who tears his gold from out the fire--

S[HIP]M[ASTER]
Yea[,] fire full hot enow – lo there the hall
Big enough for a king, the water deep
Up to the garth-gate; there on the round hill
Thor[’]s temple[–]may Christ curse it--the shipstocks[,]
One[,] two[,] three cutters[,] one great merchant-ship
Just newly pitched – the long-ships neither there;
If I had not a sort of name of friend
With him and his, that would not like me well[;]
I would not care to meet him in the main--

ANTHONY
What then[,] the lord is gone away belike--

SH[IPMASTER]
Most like[,] but since the winter comes apace
Tis but a matter of ten days at most
Ere he comes back unless his friends[,] his Gods
Have got his soul at last.

A[NTHONY]
Nay[,] God forbid--

S[HIP]M[ASTER]
Why thou art eager[!] wouldst thou see him live?

ANTHONY
Nay by the saints--I would see him die.
Tell him my name first!

S[HIP]M[ASTER]
There it all comes out[.]
I doubted this, fair merchant[,] God to aid
Thou hadst a look of Jonah in the face
E[’]en from the first[;] well, full certainly
There gapes the whale for thee stranded ashore[,]
But a dark cavern of ill hap.

A[NTHONY]
Goodsooth[,]
Ill luck enow is still on my tongue’s end[,]
And in the corners of my eyes--what need
To say bewray me not[,] thou knowst not much –

A[NTHONY]
                                                            What then[?]

S[HIP]M[ASTER]
Is thy neck iron[,] he could cut it through,
E’en so I think; is thy sword as swift
As July lightning--three swords seem aloft--
When his sword leaves the scabbard and he plays[,]
So say his own men, and our English folk
Have e[’]en such tales to tell of him at York
And Scarborough & Dunwich--

A[NTHONY]
                                                Come thy ways
Below deck[,] shipmate[,] somewhat more away
From these long[-]eared east countrymen, and then
You will soon learn the reasons from my mouth
Why the mere killing him or being killed
Will not mend all for me--green unburnt slopes
Under the soft sun[-]smooth green waveless sea[,]
Too kind a world thou art for such as I[,]
When shall I bid farewell and learn what place
For such a restless[,] helpless loveless man
Twixt lowest hell and highest heaven there is
Since earth is all at strife with all I am--

The Hall at Earlscrag.
Thora[,] Margaret[,] Bower Maidens.

She [MAIDEN]
But ill, Goodwife[,] they said they deemed the shoal
Had shifted and the sea was e[’]en too deep[.]

THORA
Thou sittest silent[,] Margaret, car[e]st not
For hate or love of mine?

M[ARGARET]
     Nay, if I could
Well would I love thee, if I needs must speak[–]
What say I[?] for I love thee well indeed
As slaves durst love: and thou art worthy love[.]

T[HORA]
A many loves twixt a few common words,
And no man by to take one of them all--
But hearken[,] as for thee[,] I think, I fear
Thy smooth soft speech, thy voice so seldom raised
That dealeth not with great words, thy great eyes
That fall asleep and dream of far off things
E’en midst thy speech – thou shalt be dangerous
In love belike unto thyself and all
Who come across thee[.]

M[ARGARET]
                                    Lady[,] fear me not[.]
I do thy will [–] thou hast been kind of me,
And for the rest day comes and day goes by
And leaves me with nought done and nought to hope
And nought to fear even when all is said
That I have said e[’]en now--
This have I shown today in letting thee [see]
The shame and trouble that above me hung.

T[HORA]
                                    As from a man[’]s
That came from out thy lips, and well I deem
That if thou hadst a brother he and I
Might be fair friends a while--Hearken, the horn
Sounds at the garth-gate[;] is my lord come back?

Enter a Servant[.]

[SERVANT]
Mistress[,] Wulfstan the English ship-master
Has anchored in the haven, and is here
Some 6 in company and prayeth thee
For harbourage for him & his awhile[.]

T[HORA]
We shall have tidings then[;] go bid them in[.]
Well now the day shall go nowise so ill[;]
We shall have merry talk, news of our earl
And his last dealings with the English king.
Five years ago he sat a gold[-]haired youth
At the great wedding[-]feast where Rolf was God
And I was goddess, and he kissed me then
The new wed wife of that same fostersire
Who bade me love him for the most of hope
Of all the men then waxing in the north[.]
He kissed me, and my heart felt soft to him
At first, I thought when sixteen years are gone
Shall I have such a son to win the world[?]
[f. 199] Then something chilled my heart as I beheld
My husband’s eager eye on him and me,
The youth he loved[,] the wife he had just won
And deemed a fair thing doubtless[.]
              Southland may,
Almost would he have moved thy solemn heart;
Baldur come back to life again he seemed[,]
A sun to light the dim hall[’]s glimmering dusk[–]
What[,] sighest thou then[?] – I am babbling on
Before thy wisdom – Ah here come the guest[s.]

Enter Wulfstan, the Shipmaster, Anthony and Shipmen.

Welcome[,] my masters[,] and thou Wulfstan[,] first,
Good hast thou done to ours across the sea
And once again somewhat we pay thee back[.]
Lord Rolf had been right glad to see thee here
And hearken to thy tidings[.]

T[HORA]
Nay Wulfstan, we shall get to verses soon[;]
Content thee[,] man, two Icelanders we have
To set the big words going--verily
I am right glad to see thee and thy friend[;]
The winter shall be merrier for his words
I doubt me not: [T]hou lookest round[,] fair Sir
As if thou wonderest whither thou art come:
Thou hast seen Southland kings and all their state
And deemest us of small account belike[,]
Yet are we merry at whiles.

T[HORA]
                                    And yet[,] fair Sir[,]
Your soft speech well said[,] merely on the ground
Your eyes are fixed--well, some unburied grief
Perchance you left behind you in your land
And think you are a long way off from it[,]
And deem our coming winter but a sign
Of mortal separation from all love[,]
As I have done at whiles--

W[ULFSTAN]
Well lady[,] if you could turn to me
From this fair Southlander[,] then might your ears
Hear tidings from the west that touch on you[.]

T[HORA]
What tidings?

W[ULFSTAN]
These, that Sigurd your young earl[,]
My lord Rolf[']s fosterson[,] when spring comes round
Saileth for home, bearing the good word
Of all men, and great fame that shall endure[,]
And gold enow for anyone but him
Who deems himself Lord God to give away
What e[’]er he has[,] yet never to grow less--

T[HORA]
Great tidings, Wulfstan. (Aside.) How the bondmaid stares
Upon the guest--a fair man but a proud[;]
He looks as though he somewhat hated me
Already – Who shall love me?--O fair Sir
Sawest thou Earl Sigurd at the English King[’]s--

A[NTHONY]
Nay[,] lady[.]

W[ULFSTAN]
Now by all the saints of heaven
Thy wits are gathering wool upon the downs[!]
When first I saw thee thou didst stand three feet
From the Earl’s nose, wert telling him long tales
Of Sicily and the isles, the day I came
To pray for his good word in Norway here.

T[HORA]
Well, if [thou] wakedst then[,] fair guest[,] say now
How thou deemest of him--

A[NTHONY]
A tall man was he,
Bright cheeked & fair haired[,] glib enow of speech;
Men called him a good swordsman.

T[HORA]
Friends & guests, come forth
Unto the great hall, for the boards by now
Should be well laid. Yea now the horns blow up[;]
Come[,] whatso things tomorrow’s sun may bring,
Tonight at least shall see us somewhat glad
Drinking the grave ales of our joys bygone,
Our hopes too bright to bear three noonday suns.

A Wood near the House.
Anthony[,] Margaret.

M[ARGARET]
Thanks to the beech-boughs we are deep enough
Amongst them now to turn eyes each to each[–]
O brother with the eyes of the old days
Kiss me and bring the old hope back again
And half forgotten scents of southland things[!]

A[NTHONY]
Or bring thou back unto the lonely man
Foiled[,] unloved and unloveable[,] that tide
A month belike or our last parting day[,]
That morning of the south wherein we sat
Anigh the tideless sea beneath the wall
Whereon the rose-laurel grew.

M[ARGARET]
          I was twelve then,
I had known no sorrow – yet as children use
To be saddened by the sound of bells or song
And try to shake from them the first sweet pain[,]
That as time wears is all the joy belike
That they may hope for, so there hung on me
A vague disquiet that day long ago.

A[NTHONY]
It showed not in thee[,] rather joy in life[,]
Sweet[,] healthful[,] strong, burned in thee as I deemed[,]
The gift we waste[,] the seed of the longings vain
That poison all when at the last we know
That God has made each one of us as lone
As he himself sits, crying out for love
Through mouths of loveless prophets[,] unwed priests[,]
Through all his judgments on the dreadful word[,]
Yet if we meet in hell[,] tis good to meet –
Thou lookest hard: a vile sour face it is[,]
Thy brother’s face--but shows not all the worst--
Yet I am glad thou lovest me.

M[ARGARET]
                                                No face
Here have I seen as dear a long, long while[;]
Help in a helpless place it bringeth me[.]
Thou art great-hearted.

M[ARGARET]
               Brother, let us talk
Of how the world goes, and thou first, & all
That thou hast dealt with since our parting day[.]

A[NTHONY]
Nay first of thee, si[nce] a free [man] thou seest me
And rich, while thou[–]while thou[-]
How shall I say it[?] art a bondmaid here--
Tell me about thy life.

M[ARGARET]
               Little to tell
After that first time when my young heart found
The misery undreamed of and I saw
As in a picture of the very hell
The red flame blazing strong against the sky[,]
The cloudless sunny sky, and all about
Betwixt the hot deck and the flapping sail
The great-limbed fearful sailors stained with blood[,]
Redfaced hoarse-voiced & restless[,] mad with blood
And gain of gold and joy of their lives gained
After the battle, deeming the earth made
For them alone[. S]mall wonder that the men
The Duke sent for our father[’]s guard & help
Shrank back before them, being what well you know[,]
Door[-]keepers[,] varlets[,] full[-]fed, purblind knaves
Taking their ease as the world takes sunrise[,]
A thing that God has made once to endure--
These rather were like dreadful Gods – the fight?
I saw it not--a lad of fifteen years
With a great axe all bloody dragged us down[,]
Me and my nurse, into the Castle[-]yard –
O what a dreadful place it seemed that day
Filled with the clamour of the barbarous tongue
And clash of arms and crash of things thrown down
From out the window groans of dying men
And sobs & wails, and now and then a scream
Of sudden pain.[B]y their chief there lay
A dead man well nigh covered with a cloth[,]
But from beneath it was a hand thrust forth[,]
The dead hand of my father; on the ground
Without a wound but [with] their hands bound sat
Some thirty men[,] the Duke’s folk, waiting death
Or so they thought, and calm enow indeed
Now no more was to do--The women stood
Huddled together each in her own way[,]
As I belike[,] deeming that now she knew
What the world will be on that day of days
When o[’]er hushed town, and useless fruitful fields
The [J]udge’s face shows dreadful –well, the chief
[f. 201] When I was brought before him stared a while
Into my wan face[,] then in grave voice said[,]
[“]A great man’s child[;] had there been twenty such
As she and he a nobler tune belike
Our fiddles might have played[”]--then he cried out,
[“]Eric the skald[,] good skill thou deemst thou hast
In ways of women[,] choose thou ten of these--
That like thee best besides this noble may[”]--
Then forth there stood a huge red-headed man
And grinning went up to the trembling band
And drew forth 9 of all the fairest there[,]
But therewithal a palsied withered crone
Our porter’s grand[-]dame. Then a huge laugh burst
From out the seafarers who stood round[,] and the chief
Said[, “]Tell us, Eric, why must we bear forth
This great[-]mouthed toothless porridge[-]eater then?”
[“]Nay[,”] said he[, “]I have chosen her for thee[,]
For she looked old and wise to teach thee well
How big a fool thou art to give such choice
Unto another[.”] Midst the laugh I heard
The lord say[: “]Nay, for this Valkyria here
Shall be my darling some 4 summers hence [breaks off]

Published CW, 24, 329-42.

On board ship off the coast of Norway: Anthony, Wulfstan the Shipmaster, and Sailors.

SHIPMASTER

Well, master merchant, you slept late this morn
Despite our drawing nigh our journey’s end –
Well, you did well perchance being among friends:
For one day at the least a steady wind,
A cloudless sky and all things going well.

ANTHONY
Why, but to hear you things go not so well
Since now I go ashore – among unfriends
You seem to say. Yet was your word before
That this Lord Rolf the Red was a good lord
To those who dealt in peaceful wise with him;
And in no warlike wise I come, meseems.

SHIPMASTER
There now again I note you – looking round
As though to find a man or two to smite –
That’s still your way, and sooth it seems to me
The nigher you come to land the hotter grows
Your blood. I warn you this good lord withal
His sword-blade nowise grows unto its sheath
And he is one of many, lord or thrall
Tis much the same – life is cheap enow
And one man’s blow is like another’s still.
A second warning: try your mocks on them,
They will not laugh belike or say a word
Though the hall roars around them: you shall think
Them dull and go on piling jeer and jeer;
But two hours thence, two hours or days or months,
As time serves, you shall find they understood.
Warning the third: some things here shall be bought –
[330] Most things – a sword, a house, a horse, a wife:
You may want all these things except the last,
And certes you are rich enough to deal.
– Take this by the way that they may well deal thus,
Sell you a sword and thrust you through therewith,
Sell you a house and burn it o’er your head,
Sell you a horse and steal it the next morn,
Sell you a wife and bid her loose her tongue
Until you make a red mark on her face –
And then the district-court and her tall kin
And point and edge, or clink of the King’s sweet face
Outside your purse – Well all that by the way,
But this I mean by the third: all women here –
Yea how you start – are marked and known and named
Daughter of this Goodman, sister of that
Nor will gold buy them save in open wise,
As wives I mean – though you indeed may deal
In wares that please them, if to help your face,
Your song, your story of old time, your dance,
You therewithal could play well with the sword,
Or throw your hair back in the face of death
To show your cheeks no paler for the sight –
Eh! do I make too long a tale; you scowl:
Why don’t you ask me then to make an end?
Turn round and look, we’ve weathered the last ness.
Off half a point, you helmsman! There it is
The stead we were to bring you to – though why
You were so eager after this man’s fame
I know not. Does it like you well or ill?

ANTHONY
A place to be forgotten in, it seems
The hill-sides like a wall, the deep green sea
The pine-trees all above it – so there dwells
The man who tears his gold from out the fire.

[331] SHIPMASTER
Yea, fire full hot enow – lo there the hall
Big enough for a king, the water deep
Up to the garth-gate; there on the round hill
Thor’s temple – may Christ curse it! the ship-stocks,
One, two, three cutters, one great merchant-ship
Just newly pithed – the long-ships neither there;
If I had not a sort of name of friend
With him and his, that would not like me well;
I would not care to meet him in the main.

ANTHONY
What then, the lord is gone away belike?

SHIPMASTER
Most like, but since the winter comes apace
Tis but a matter of ten days at most
Ere he comes back unless his fiends, his Gods
Have got his soul at last.

ANTHONY
Nay, God forbid!

SHIPMASTER
Why art thou eager? wouldst thou see him live?

ANTHONY
Nay by the saints, but I would see him die –
Tell him my name first!

SHIPMASTER
There it all comes out.
I doubted this, fair merchant, God to aid
Thou hadst a look of Jonah in the face
E’en from the first; well, full certainly
There gapes the whale for thee stranded ashore,
But a dark cavern of ill hap.

[332] ANTHONY
Good sooth,
Ill luck enow is still on my tongue’s end
And in the corners of my eyes; what need
To say bewray me not, thou knowst not much –

SHIPMASTER
Why, [had] I said to Rolf thou wishedst him dead
He would laugh somewhat – drink nightlong with thee
And call thee to the ring of hazel wands
Wherein they fight next morn and then –

ANTHONY
                                                            What then?

SHIPMASTER
Is thy neck iron, he could cut it through,
E’en so I think; is thy sword as swift
As July lightning, three swords seem aloft
When his sword leaves the scabbard and he plays;
So say his own men, and our English folk
Have e’en such tales to tell of him at York
And Scarborough and Dunwich.

ANTHONY
                                                Come thy ways
Below deck, shipmate, somewhat more away
From these long-eared east-countrymen, and then
You will soon learn the reasons from my mouth
Why the mere killing him or being killed
Will not mend all for me.
Green unburnt slopes
Under the soft sun, smooth green waveless sea,
Too kind a world thou art for such as I.
When shall I bid farewell and learn what place
For such a restless helpless loveless man
Twixt lowest hell and highest heaven there is
Since earth is all at strife with all I am?

[333] The Hall at Earlscrag.
Thora, Margaret, Bower Maidens.

THORA
Well, maiden, such a tale as thou hast told
Two years agone I thought I could foresee
When first thine eyes ‘gan look to woman’s years,
And thou wouldst redden at a tale of love.
Trust me, I knew that when my lord had time
And thou wert riper, he would reach his hand
To take the fair fruit to him; day by day,
For a year past, I thought of sending thee
Unto my mother’s brother in the North
Or out to Iceland to my father’s kin:
But time passed, neither thee nor my lord Rolf
Seemed worth the pains, though neither him nor thee
Do I hate or could hate: nor for him methinks
We sit together in the hall nor know
Each of the other what is in our hearts
About us, and for thee the dull days here
Will drag from out me what had better lie
Quiet within my heart for thee – nay, nay,
I will not speak. I note thee ready now
To take my whole speech rash and lay it up
In that deep storehouse of thy mind.
Thorgerd,
Come hither, tell me how the fishing sped
Our folk came back from at the dawn.

MAIDEN
But ill,
Goodwife; they said they deemed the shoal
Had shifted and the sea was e’en too deep.

THORA
Thou sittest silent, Margaret, car’st not
For hate or love of mine?

[334] MARGARET
Nay, if I could
Well would I love thee, if I needs must speak –
What say I? for I love thee well indeed
As slaves durst love: and thou art worthy love.

THORA
A many loves ‘twixt a few common words,
And no man by to take one of them all.
But hearken, as for thee, I think, I fear
Thy smooth soft speech, thy voice so seldom raised
That dealeth not with great words, thy great eyes
That fall asleep and dream of far off things
E’en midst thy speech – thou shalt be dangerous
In love belike unto thyself and all
Who come across thee.

MARGARET
                                    Lady, fear me not.
I do thy will – thou hast been kind of me,
And for the rest day comes and day goes by
And leaves me with nought done and nought to hope
And nought to fear even when all is said
That I have said e’en now.

THORA
                                    As from a man’s
That came from out thy lips, and well I deem
That if thou hadst a brother he and I
Might be fair friends a while.
Hearken, the horn
Sounds at the garth-gate; is my lord come back?

Enter a Servant.

SERVANT
Mistress, Wulfstan the English ship-master
Has anchored in the haven, and is here
[335] Some six in company and prayeth thee
For harbourage for him and his awhile.

THORA
We shall have tidings then; go bid them in.
Well now the day shall go nowise so ill;
We shall have merry talk, news of our earl
And his last dealings with the English king.
Five years ago he sat a gold-haired youth
At the great wedding-feast where Rolf was God
And I was Goddess, and he kissed me then
The new wed wife of that same fostersire
Who bade me love him for the most of hope
Of all the men then waxing in the North.
He kissed me, and my heart felt soft to him
At first; I thought, when sixteen years are gone
Shall I have such a son to win the world?
Then something chilled my heart as I beheld
My husband’s eager eye on him and me,
The youth he loved, the wife he had just won
And deemed a fair thing doubtless.
Southland may,
Almost would he have moved thy solemn heart;
Baldur come back to life again he seemed
A sun to light the dim hall’s glimmering dusk –
What, sighest thou then? – I am babbling on
Before thy wisdom – Ah here come the guests.

Enter Wulfstan the Shipmaster, Anthony and Shipmen.

Welcome, my masters, and thou Wulfstan, first,
Good hast thou done to ours across the sea
And once again somewhat we pay thee back.
Lord Rolf had been right glad to see thee here
And hearken to thy tidings.

WULFSTAN
                                                None the worse
[336] We think to fare at thy hands than at his:
Be merry, for two gifts I bring today,
A bale of English linen for thy beds
And a fair winter-guest to make thy board
The merriest in Norway. Greet him well
For he is worthy of it, a rich man
Of noble Southland kin and yet withal
A merchant of all merchants – and thou, friend,
Behold a woman noble as she seems,
Kind, wise and open-handed, craving still
For honour and for knowledge: greet her well.

THORA
Nay Wulfstan, we shall get to verses soon;
Content thee, man, two Icelanders we have
To set the big words going. Verily
I am right glad to see thee and thy friend;
The winter shall be merrier for his words
I doubt me not. Thou lookest round, fair Sir
As if thou wonderest whither thou art come.
Thou hast seen Southland kings and all their state
And deemest us of small account belike,
Yet are we merry at whiles.

ANTHONY
                                                Hail, most fair dame!
Kings’ courts hold men and women gaily clad,
Soft words of priests and bitter lies and change,
But few names more redoubted than thy lord’s,
And few – no eyes methinks as bright as thine.
Yea, this fair hall should be a happy place.
Aside. The Welshman lied not: she is changed indeed
From the slim joyous maiden of twelve years
And looks my mother of fifteen summers back
Come from the dead to gaze with mournful eyes
Upon the ashes of her house. Yet strange
She doth not seem to know me – Would that I
[337] Had come upon this torment of the seas,
Whose death is my desire, amid his men
Flushed with his wealth and wine; for certainly
Peace seems about the place: these red-lipped girls,
Shock-headed herds not all too full of work,
That song without, the smiles here, that soft hand
And ready welcome – Would that we were gone
And they at peace as now.

THORA
                                    And yet, fair Sir,
Your soft speech well said, merely on the ground
Your eyes are fixed. Well, some unburied grief
Perchance you left behind you in your land
And think you are a long way off from it,
And deem our coming winter but a sign
Of mortal separation from all love,
As I have done at whiles.

ANTHONY
In kindly wise
Thou speakest to me. Thirty-five years past
I first saw light, and in our land God wot
That is a long time to be free from grief –
But all shall go well now. Aside. A kind soft place
For me to ruin like my father’s house
The soft-winged owl will through to-night!

WULFSTAN
Well lady, if you could turn to me
From this fair Southlander, then might your ears
Hear tidings from the West that touch on you.

THORA
What tidings?

WULFSTAN
These, that Sigurd your young earl,
[338] My lord Rolf’s fosterson, when spring comes round
Saileth for home bearing the good word
Of all men, and great fame that shall endure
And gold enow for anyone but him
Who deems himself Lord God to give away
Whate’er he has, yet never to grow less.

THORA
Great tidings, Wulfstan. Aside. How the bondmaid stares
Upon the guest! a fine man but a proud;
He looks as though he somewhat hated me
Already – Who shall love me? O fair Sir
Sawest thou Earl Sigurd at the English King’s?

ANTHONY
Nay, lady.

WULFSTAN
Now by all the saints of heaven
Thy wits are gathering wool upon the downs!
When first I saw thee thou didst stand three feet
From the Earl’s nose, wert telling him long tales
Of Sicily and the isles, the day I came
To pray for his good word in Norway here.

THORA
Well, if [thou] wakedst then, fair guest, say now
How thou deemest of him?

ANTHONY
A tall man was he,
Bright cheeked and fair haired, glib enow of speech;
Men called him a good swordsman.

WULFSTAN
O my merchant-friend,
No need to cheapen him so eagerly,
We sell no earls here.

[339] THORA
Friends and guests, come forth
Unto the great hall, for the boards by now
Should be well laid. Yea now the horns blow up;
Come, whatso things tomorrow’s sun may bring,
Tonight at least shall see us somewhat glad
Drinking the grave-ales of our joys bygone,
Our hopes too bright to bear three noonday suns.

A Wood near the House.
Anthony, Margaret.

MARGARET
Thanks to the beech-boughs we are deep enough
Amongst them now to turn eyes each to each –
O brother with the eyes of the old days
Kiss me and bring the old hope back again
And half forgotten scents of Southland things!

ANTHONY
Or bring thou back unto the lonely man
Foiled, unloved and unloveable, that tide
A month belike or our last parting day,
That morning of the South wherein we sat
Anigh the tideless sea beneath the wall
Whereon the rose-laurel grew.

MARGARET
I was twelve then,
I had known no sorrow – yet as children use
To be saddened by the sound of bells or song
And try to shake from them the first sweet pain,
That as time wears is all the joy belike
That they may hope for, so there hung on me
A vague disquiet that day long ago.

[340] ANTHONY
It showed not in thee, rather joy in life,
Sweet, healthful, strong, burned in thee as I deemed,
The gift we waste, the seed of the longings vain
That poison all when at the last we know
That God has made each one of us as lone
As he himself sits, crying out for love
Through mouths of loveless prophets, unwed priests,
Through all his judgments on the dreadful word,
Yet if we meet in hell ‘tis good to meet –
Thou lookest hard: a vile sour face it is,
Thy brother’s face, but shows not all the worst.
Yet I am glad thou lovest me.

MARGARET
                                                No face
Here have I seen as dear a long, long while;
Help in a helpless place it bringeth me.
Thou art great-hearted.

ANTHONY
Ah, if it were so
And the world might go its ways while I abode
Embraced by some great love, not heeding pain
Or fearing change. With thee it might be so.
Thou art grown wondrous fair, calm are thine eyes,
Strong seemest thou all grief well to endure
And grow the fairer –

MARGARET
Brother, let us talk
Of how the world goes, and thou first, and all
That thou hast dealt with since our parting day.

ANTHONY
Nay first of thee, since a free [man] thou seest me
And rich, while thou – while thou –
[341] How shall I say it? art a bondmaid here.
Tell me about thy life.

C-20. Written in a copy of The Earthly Paradise, December 25, 1870 ( So many stories written here / And none among them but doth bear ) [pdf]

Published CW, XXIV, 343-44.

[p. 343]

So many stories written here
And none among them but doth bear
Its weight of trouble and of woe!
Well may you ask why it is so;
Fore surely neither sour or dull
In such a world, of fair things full,
Should folk be.
                        Ah, my dears, indeed
My wisdom fails me at my need
To tell why tales that move the earth
Are seldom of content and mirth.
Yet think if it may come of this—
That lives fulfilled of ease and bliss
Crave not for aught that we can give,
And scorn the broken lives we live;
Unlike to us they pass us by,
A dying laugh their history.
But those that struggled sore, and failed
Had one thing left them, that availed
When all things else were nought—
                        E’en Love—
Whose sweet voice, crying as they strove,
Begat sweet pity, and more love still,
Waste places with sweet tales to fill;
Whereby we, living here, may learn
Our eyes toward very Love to turn,
And all the pain it bringeth meet

As nothing strange amid the sweet:
Where by we too may hope to be
Grains in the great world’s memory
Of pain endured, and nobleness
That life ill-understood doth bless.
[p. 344]
Words over-grave and sad for you
Maybe: but rime will still be true
Unto my heart—most true herein
In wishing, dear hearts, you may win
A life of every ill so clear,
That little tale for folk to hear
It may be: yet so full of love,
That e’en these words your hearts may move,
Years and years hence, when unto me
Life is a waste and windless sea.

C-21. Verses for the Months, The Earthly Paradise, March and April

Published CW, XXIV, 345-46. Draft March, April B. L. Add. Ms. 37, 499.

CW 24, 345-46

[p. 345]

MARCH

In March, when the gold-bringing east wind blows
And bright and cloudless is the pale blue sky,
And day by day the sunset later grows,
And on red hedges green buds you may spy,
On such a day of March, when eve was nigh,
In a fair hall, those old men sat talking
With people of the land; and many a thing

Of ancient stories, each to other told;
Till for sweet youth and unforgotten land
The strangers sighed, and longings manifold
Possessed the strong ripe men that there did stand
Half shamefaced; and young lovers hand in hand
Sat silent, feeling the sweet tears arise
Into their happy, longing, youthful eyes.

[p. 345]
APRIL

Soft is the air in the sweet April-tide,
When all day long the small brown thrushes sing
And sings the blackbird in the coppice side
And ever is the cuckoo on the wing.
Then were these old folk fain to welcome spring
And [in] an open southern chamber sat
One April morn and talked of this and that.

And in that morn to make their old hearts glad
With people of the land they drank well there,
Yet none the less, distraught they seemed and sad,
Although the promise of the spring was fair
And soft the April wind blew in their hair.
There in low voices these old tales they told
Remembered but in songs and ballads old.

C-22. Verses for the Months, The Earthly Paradise, January, February, March.

Published CW, VI, xxviii-xix. The March lyric is different from the one in C21.

JANUARY

The year is gone and now another year
Begins again amid half frozen rain
From its strange hand scattering both hope and fear,
Idle forebodings, longings sore and vain,
Uncertain joys and certain toil and pain.
What thing is there but one can still the strife:
The end of labour is the end of life.

Let us leave hopes because we doubt them all,
Let us leave fear at least a little while,
Let us forget ourselves the while we call
Old names before us, let us now beguile
These sorry days with thoughts of Helen’s smile,
And let our eyes dim looking through the wine
Behold once more the prow of Argo shine.

Then in our memory and forgetfulness
May we [be] like to men upon the sea
Laid fast asleep in midst of their distress,
But dreaming how the stream runs pleasantly
By summer meadows where the mowers be,
Are they not happy though they wake no more
Until they reach the unknown shadowy shore.

[pp. xix-xx]

FEBRUARY
Look out of door to-day and see the streets
Swept by the cold unkindly north-east wind,
And how the rain upon the window beats
Putting all though of summer from the mind.
So on this even what solace can we find
But watching how the wine runs bright and clear;
Yet, would the summer and its sun were here.

Nay, silence, and get ready for the spring
And meet her with your heart all free from care
For in the woods wolfsbane is blossoming
And faintly shows the primrose here and there,
And there is scent of new things in the air,
And by the south wind blown from place to place
Northward the longed-for Spring draws on apace.

Yea, so things come and go and come again,
And if one root within the hazelwood
Dies off for ever, then with little pain
Another grows up where the lost one stood.
And so in April all seems fair and good
And with the sight thereof our eyes we please:
Now unto someone may we be as these.

[pp. xxx-xxi]

MARCH
Lo last night winter died, although to-day
Unwillingly we leave the fireside
And shiver as the sunlight fades away
From off the southern wall at eventide,
Yet none the less I say that winter died
Last evening with the rising of the moon.
And many a change will be upon us soon.

For many a day henceforth the cheerless sun
Shall shine upon the furrows cheerlessly,
Along the straight road shall the dust cloud run
Before the East wind, till a day shall be
When with the west shall rain come from the sea,
Then look to see full many a lovely thing
And feel the quickening power of the spring.

Behold the year lies spread before you now,
Spring, summer, autumn and the end of all,
And if therein some sorrow you may know
Bear not about with you your dusky pall
But make the best of what may chance to fall:
Then thou diest like others, yet be glad
That ere thy death some joyance thou hast had.

C-23. “The Mother Under the Mould” (Svend Dyring rode on the island-way / Yea have not I myself been young)

Published CW XXIV, 352-55. B. L. Add. Ms. 4,318, ff. 89-90v. autograph copy with corrections. Also copyist’s version in B. L. Add. Ms. 45,298B, ff. 18-22. See List of Morris' Translations, no. 6, which transcribes the draft.

C-24. “Error and Loss” ( Upon an eve I sat me down and wept, / Because the world to me seemed nowise good; )

In the Book of Verse, 1870, belonging to Georgiana Burne-Jones, it was labelled “Missing” ( p. 15) . It was published in the Fortnightly Review, February 1, 1871, 219-220, under the title “The Dark Wood”; Included Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 108. Some Rossettian images; also compare “The Sun’s Shame” (1869).

Book of Verse, 1870

[p. 15]

          Missing

Upon an eve I sat me down and wept,
Because the world to me seemed nowise good
Still autumn was it, and the meadows slept
The misty hills dreamed, and the silent wood
Seemed listening to the sorrow of my mood
I knew not if the earth with me did grieve
Or if it mocked my grief that bitter eve.

Then twixt my tears a maiden did I see
Who drew anigh me o’er the leaf-strewn grass
Then stood and gazed upon me pityfully
With grief-worn eyes, until my woe did pass
From me to her, and tearless now I was,
And she mid tears was asking me of one
She long had sought unaided and alone

I knew not of him, and she turned away
Into the dark wood, and my own great pain
Still held me there, till dark had slain the day,
And perished at the grey dawn’s hand again
Then from the wood a voice cried: “Ah, in vain
In vain I seek thee, O thou bitter sweet;
In what lone land are set thy longed-for feet?

[p. 16]

Then I looked up, and lo, a man there came
From midst the trees, and stood regarding me
Until my tears were dried from very shame;
Then he cried out, “O mourner, where is she
Whom I have sought oer every land and sea?
“I love her, and she loveth me, and still
We meet no more than green hill meeteth hill

With that he passed on sadly, and I knew,
That these had met, and missed in the dark night,
Blinded by blindness of the world untrue,
That hideth love, and maketh wrong of right.
Then midst my pity for their lost delight
Yet more with barren longing I grew weak
Yet more I mourned that I had none to seek

C-25. “Of The Three Seekers” ( There met three knights on the woodland way, / And the first was clad in silk array: )

Published in To-Day, January, 1884, 25-29. Included in Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 117-19. HM 6427, ff. 38-42, Morris autograph on white ruled paper, signed "William Morris"; in an early draft with variations this was called “Three Houses.” Copy in WMG J148, A. Ms, titled The Three Seekers,” signed W. M., August 5th, 1872.

HM 6427, f. 38

The Three Seekers

There met three knights on the woodland way,
And the first was clad in silk array:

The second was dight in iron & steel,
But the third was rags from head to heel.

“Lo, now is the year and the day come round
When we must tell what we have found.”

The first said: “I have found a King
Who grudgeth no gift of anything.”

The second said: “I have found a knight
Who hath never turned his back in fight.”

But the third said: “I have found a love
That Time and the World shall never move.”

Whither away to win good cheer?
“With me,” said the first, [“]for my King is anear.”

So to the King they went their ways;
But there was a change of times & days.

“What men are ye,” the great King said,
“That ye should eat my children’s bread?

My waste has fed full many a store,
And mocking & grudge have I gained therefore.

Whatever waneth as days wax old,
Full worthy to win are goods and gold.”

[f. 39]

Whither away to win good cheer?
“With me,” said the second, “my knight is anear.”

So to the knight they went their ways,
But there was a change of times and days.

He dwelt in castle sure & strong,
For fear lest aught should do him wrong.

Guards by gate & hall there were[,]
And folk went in and out in fear.

When he heard the mouse run in the wall,
“Hist!” he said, “what next shall befal?

"Draw not near, speak under your breath,
For all new-comers tell of death[.]

"Bring me no song nor minstrelsy,
Round death it babbleth still,” said he.

“And what is fame and the praise of men
When lost life cometh not again?”

Whither away to seek good cheer?
“Ah me!” said the third, “that my love were anear!

Were the world as little as it is wide,
In a happy house should ye abide.

Were the world as kind as it is hard,
Ye should behold a fair reward.”

[f. 40]

So far by high & low have they gone,
They have come to a waste was rock & stone.

But lo, from the waste a company
Full well bedight came riding by;

And in the midst a queen, so fair,
That God wrought well in making her.

The first and the second knights abode
To gaze upon her as she rode.

Forth passed the third with head down-bent,
And stumbling ever as he went.

His shoulder brushed her saddle-bow;
He trembled with his head hung low[.]

His hand brushed o’er her golden gown,
As on the waste he fell adown.

So swift to earth her feet she set,
It seemed that there her arms he met.

His lips that looked the stone to meet
Were on her trembling lips & sweet.

Softly she kissed him cheek & chin,
His mouth her many tears drank in.

“Where would[’]st thou wander, love,” she said,
“Now I have drawn thee from the dead?”

[f. 41]

“I go my ways,” he said, “and thine
Have nought to do with grief and pine.”

“All ways are one way now,” she said,
“Since I have drawn thee from the dead.”

Said he, “But I must seek again
Where first I met thee in thy pain:

"I am not clad so fair,” said he,
But yet the old hurts thou may’st see.

And thou, but for thy gown of gold,
A piteous tale of thee were told.”

“There is no pain on earth,” she said,
“Since I have drawn thee from the dead[.]”

“And parting waiteth for us there,”
Said he, “As it was yester-year.”

“Yet first a space of love,” she said,
“Since I have drawn thee from the dead.”

He laughed; said he, “Hast thou a home
Where I and these my friends may come?”

Laughing, “The world[’]s my home,” she said,
Now I have drawn thee from the dead.

"Yet somewhere is a space thereof
Where I may dwell beside my love.

"There clear the river grows for him
Till o’er its stones his keel shall swim.

[f. 42]

"There faint the thrushes in their song,
And deem he tarrieth overlong.

There summer-tide is waiting now
Until he bids the roses blow.

"Come, tell my flowery fields,” she said,
" How I have drawn thee from the dead.”

Whither away to win good cheer?
“With me,” he said, “for my love is here.

The wealth of my house it waneth not;
No gift it giveth is forgot.

"No fear my house may enter in[,]
For nought is there that death may win.

"Now life is little, and death is nought,
Since all is found that erst I sought[.]”

               William Morris

C-26. “Iceland First Seen” (Lo from our loitering ship a new land at last to be seen; / Toothed rocks on the side of the firth on the east guard a weary wide lea,)

Published Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 125-26. HM 6427, ff. 46-47, Morris autograph on blue paper, with corrections marked for printer, f. 49, partial draft. The corrections on ff. 46-47 are:

[f. 46] 

Where yet was mid the grey grassy dales changed to

But that there mid the grey grassy dales

Lives the story of Iceland of old, changed to
Lives the tale of the Northland of old

Is this as some cave by the sea, changed to
O Land as some cave by the sea

And here is the sword of a King that many things the turning of fight: changed to
The sword it may be of a King whose name was the turning of fight:

[f. 46v] Mid waning of realms & their riches and death of things changed to

Amid waning of realms and of riches and death of things . . .

[f. 47] Ah[,] when King Baldur comes back not changed to
Ah! when thy Balder comes back

What am I save the spouse of a God, changed to
I abide here the spouse of a God,

Turn back a while to thy travail that the Gods stood aloof to behold? changed to
Turn back a while to thy travail whence the Gods stood aloof to behold?

HM 6427 f. 49, partial earlier draft

No wheat and no wine grows above it, no orchard for blossom & shade.
The few ships that sail by its blackness but deem it the mouth of a grave
Yet here when the world shall awaken this too shall be mighty to save.

Or rather O land if a wonder it seemeth that men ever sought
Thy wastes that for a field and a garden fulfilled of all wonder I doubt--
And feasted amidst the winter with fight of the year had been fought
Whose plunder all gathered together was little to babble about
Cry aloud from thy wastes O thou land
Not for this nor for that was I wrought;
Mid waning of realms and their riches and many things worshipped and sure
I am nought but the spouse of a God and I made & I make and endure –

O Queen of the grief without knowledge of the courage that shall not avail
Of the longing that may not attain of the love that shall never forget
More joy than the gladness of laughter thy heart keeps amidst of its wail
More hope than of pleasure fulfilled amidst of thy blindness is set
More glorious than gain of all those unfaltering hands that shall fail
What is the mark on thy brow but the brand that thy Brynhild hath born
Love [Lone?] once & loved & undone & loving through the ages outworn--

Ah when thy Balder comes back & bears from the heart of the Sun
Peace and the healing of pain & the wisdom that waiteth no more
And the lilies are laid on thy brow mid the crown of the deeds thou hast done,
And the roses spring up by thy feet that the rocks of the wilderness wore
May we not dead & defeated rejoice in the past thou has won--
Turn in our graves to behold thee yet bless all the sorrow of old
That wrought through the toil and the tangle this glory for Gods to behold.

C-27. “Love’s Gleaning-Tide” (Draw not away thy hands, my love:)

Published Athenaeum, April 1874, 492. Included Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 120. HM 6427, f. 43, copy from Athenaeum sent to printer, no changes. Also autograph Ms. copy in the WMG, J145 [pdf], signed W. M. and dated August 28th, 1872. According to May Morris (CW, IX, xxxv), this was written as part of a dramatic poem. Morris seems to have started several dramatic pieces during this period, but this resembles other lyric poems of the period.

WMG J145

Draw not away thy hands, my love:
With wind alone the sere leaves move
And though the boughs be scant above
The Autumn shall not shame us.
Say: Let the world wax cold and drear,
What is the worst of all the year
But life – and what shall hurt us, dear,
-- Or death, and who shall blame us?
And, when the Summer comes again
Say: sure we have not sowed in vain;
The root was joy, the stem was pain,
The ear a nameless blending.
The root is dead and gone, my love;
The stem’s a rod our truth to prove
The ear is stored for nought to move
Till heaven and earth have ending.
               W. M.

HM 6427, f. 43

Draw not away thy hands, my love,
With wind alone the sere leaves move
And though the boughs be scant above
               The Autumn shall not shame us.

Say; Let the world wax cold and drear,
What is the worst of all the year
But life – and what shall hurt us, dear,
               Or death, and who shall blame us?

And, when the summer comes again
How shall we say, we sowed in vain!
The root was joy, the stem was pain,
               The ear a nameless blending.

The root is dead and gone, my love,
The stem’s a rod our truth to prove;
The ear is stored for nought to move
Till heaven and earth have ending.
               William Morris

C-28. “The Raven and the King’s Daughter” (King’s daughter sitting in a tower so high, / Fair summer is on many a shield.)

Published Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 127-31. HM 6427, ff. 48, 50-54; two partial drafts and a completed one prepared for the printer, ff. 51-54, and signed W. M. August 1872. Morris autograph on blue ruled paper, f. 48:

HM 6427, [f. 48]

King[']s daughter sitting in castle high
Why weepest thou as the clouds go by
The sun is fair on many a shield
Sweet sings the Swan twixt strand & field
Why weepest thou in the window seat
Till the tears run through thy fingers sweet
I weep because I sit alone
Betwixt these walls of lime & stone.
The gold upon the green I sew
Nor tidings of my love I know.
Fair folk are in my father’s hall
But for me he built this guarded wall[.]
King’s daughter, sitting above the sea,
I shall tell thee a tale shall gladden thee.
Yestreen I saw a ship go forth
When the wind blew merry from the north.
And by the tiller Steingrim sat,
And O, but my heart was glad thereat[!]
Twixt ashen plank and dark blue sea
His sword sang sweet of deeds to be.
O barren sea, thou bitter bird[,]
And a barren tale my ears have heard.
Thy father’s men were sitting there
In byrny bright and helmet fair[.]
O worser grew thy story far[,]
For these drew upon me bolt and bar[.]
Fly south[,] o fowl[,] to the field of death
For nothing sweet thy grey neb saith[.]
O[,] there was Olaf the lily-rose[,]
As fair as any oak that grows.
O sweet bird, what did he then
Among the spears of my father[’]s men[?]
[']Twixt ashen plank and dark blue sea[,]
He sang[:] My true love waiteth me--
As well as this dull floor knows my feet[,]
I am not weary yet, my sweet.
He sang across the web of war[,]
Her eyes gaze on me from afar[.]
[f. 48v]As once our fingers met[,] my love,
So shall our lips be glad thereo[f].
It may be midst the iron rain
I shall not gaze on thee in vain.
He sang[,] [A]s once her hand I had[,]
Her lips at last shall make me glad
As once our finers met[,] my love
So shall our lips be glad thereof[.]

He sang[:] Come wrack and steel & flame[,]
For what shall breach her wall but fame[?]
Be swift to rise and set[,] O Sun[,]
Lest life [’]twixt hope and death be done.
King’s daughter sitting in castle so high,
A gift for my tale ere forth I fly[,]
Fly forth[,] O fowl[,] across the sea
To win another gift of me.
Fly south to bring me tidings true[,]
Of the eve grown red with the battle[-]dew:
Fair sing the swans ’twixt firth and field.

King’s daughter sitting in castle so high,
Tidings to hearken ere thou die[,]
In the Frankish land the spear points met[,]
And wide about the fields were wet.
And high ere the cold moon quenched the sun[,]
Blew Steingrim[']s horn for battle won.
Fair fall thee fowl[!] Tell tidings true [ms. foul]
Of deeds that men therein did do.
Steingrim before his banner went[,]
And helms were broke and byrnies rent[.]
A doughty man & good at needs[:]
Tell men of any other’s deeds[?]
When Steingrim through the battle bore
Still Olaf went a foot before[.]
O fair with deeds the world doth grow--
Where is my true-love gotten now[?]
Upon the deck beside the mast
He lieth now, and sleepeth fast.
Heard[’]st thou before his sleep began
That he spake word of any man[?]

[at this point draft one stops; f. 49 is a first draft for "Iceland First Seen"; see no. 26. Another draft of "The Raven and the King's Daughter" begins, ff. 50 and 50v, which continues:]

[f. 50] Methought of thee he sang a song[,]
But nothing now he saith for long.
[The King's Daughter] And wottest thou where he will wend
With the world before him from end to end[?]
[The Raven.]
Before the battle joined that day
Steingrim a word to him did say:
[“]If we bring the banner back in peace[,]
In the King[’]s house much shall my fame increase[;]
Till therein no guarded door shall be
But it shall open straight to me.
Then to the bower we twain shall go
Where thy love the golden seam doth sew[.]
I shall bring thee in and lay thine hand
About the neck of that lily[-]wand.
And let the King be lief or loth
One bed that night shall hold you both.[”]
Now north meseems runs Steingrim’s prow[,]
And the rain & the wind from the south doth blow[.]
[The King’s Daughter.]
Lo[,] fowl of death[,] my golden ring,[ ms. foul]
But the bridal song I must learn to sing[.]
And fain were I for a space alone[,]
For O the wind[,] and the wind doth moan[.]
For O the rain[,] and the rain drifts red[!]
And I msut array the bridal bed.

Before the day from the night was born,
Fair summer is on many a shield.
She heard the blast of Steingrim[’]s horn[,]
Fair sing the swans ’twixt firth and field.
Before the day was waxen fair
Were Steingrim[’]s feet upon the stair[.]
[“]O bolt and bar they fall away[,]
But heavy are Steingrim’s feet to-day.[”]
“O heavy are feet of one who bears
The longing of days and the grief of years[!]
Lie down[,] lie down[,] thou lily-wand
That on thy neck I may lay his hand[.]
Whether the King be lief or loth
[f. 50v] To-day one bed shall hold you both.
O thou art still as he is still[,]
Though sore ye long to speak your fill.
And good it were that I depart[,]
Now heart is laid so close to heart.
Sure ye shall talk so left alone
Fair summer is on many a shield.
Of days to be beneath the stone.[”]

[f. 51]

The Raven and the King's Daughter.

[marked for printer with "red" marked for speakers and refrains]

The Raven.

King’s daughter sitting in tower so high,
      Fair summer is on many a shield[.]
Why weepest thou as the clouds go by?
      Fair sing the swans twixt firth and field.

Why weepest thou in the window-seat
Till the tears run through thy fingers sweet?

The King’s Daughter.

I weep because I sit alone
Betwixt these walls of lime and stone.

Fair folk are in my father’s hall,
But for me he built this guarded wall.

And here the gold on the green I sew
Nor tidings of my true-love know.

The Raven.

King’s daughter, sitting above the sea,
I shall tell thee a tale shall gladden thee.

Yes'treen I saw a ship go forth
When the wind blew merry from the north.

And by the tiller Steingrim sat,
And O, but my heart was glad thereat!

For ’twixt ashen plank and dark blue sea
His sword sang sweet of deeds to be.

The King’s Daughter.

O barren sea, thou bitter bird,
[f. 51v] And a barren tale my ears have heard.

The Raven.

Thy father’s men were hard thereby
In byrny bright and helmet high.

The King’s Daughter.

O worser waxeth thy story far,
For these drew upon me bolt and bar[.]

Fly south, O fowl, to the field of death
For nothing sweet thy grey neb saith.

The Raven.

O, there was Olaf the lily-rose,
As fair as any oak that grows.

The King’s Daughter.

O sweet bird, what did he then
Among the spears of my father’s men?

The Raven.

[']Twixt ashen plank and dark blue sea,
He sang, My true love waiteth me.

The King’s Daughter.

As well as this dull floor knows my feet[,]
I am not weary yet, my sweet.

The Raven.

He sang: As once her hand I had[,]
Her lips at last shall make me glad.

The King’s Daughter.

As once our fingers met, O love,
So shall our lips be fain thereof.

[f. 52] The Raven.

He sang[:] Come wrack and iron and flame,
For what shall breach the wall but fame[?]

The King’s Daughter.

Be swift to rise and set, O Sun,
Lest life [’]twixt hope and death be done.

The Raven.

King’s daughter sitting in tower so high,
A gift for my tale ere forth I fly[,]

The gold from thy finger fair and fine[,]
Thou hadst it from no love of thine.

The King’s Daughter.

By my father[’]s ring another there is,
I had it with my mother’s kiss[.]

Fly forth, O fowl, across the sea
To win another gift of me.

Fly south to bring me tidings true,
      Fair summer is on many a shield.
Of the eve grown red with the battle-dew[,]
      Fair sing the swans [’]twixt firth and field.

The Raven.

King’s daughter sitting in tower so high,
      Fair summer is on many a shield[.]
Tidings to hearken ere thou die[,]
      Fair sing the swans [’]twixt firth and field.
[f. 52] In the Frankish Land the spear points met[,]
And wide about the field was wet.

And high ere the cold moon quenched the sun,
Blew Steingrim’s horn for battle won.

The King’s Daughter.

Fair fall thee fowl! [T]ell tidings true
Of deeds that men that day did do.

The Raven.

Steingrim before his banner went,
And helms were broke and byrnies rent.

The King’s Daughter.

A doughty man and good at need;
Tell men of any other’s deed?

The Raven.

Where Steingrim through the battle bore
Still Olaf went a foot before.

The King’s Daughter.

O fair with deeds the world doth grow!
Where is my true-love gotten now?

The Raven.

Upon the deck beside the mast
He lieth now, and sleepeth fast.

The King’s Daughter.

Heard’st thou before his sleep began
That he spake word of any man?

The Raven.

Methought of thee he sang a song,
[f. 53] But nothing now he saith for long.

The King’s Daughter.

And wottest thou where he will wend
With the world before him from end to end?

The Raven.

Before the battle joined that day
Steingrim a word to him did say.

“If we bring the banner back in peace,
In the King’s house much shall my fame increase;

Till there no guarded door shall be
But it shall open straight to me.

Then to the bower we twain shall go
Where thy love the golden seam doth sew.

I shall bring thee in and lay thine hand
About the neck of that lily-wand.

And let the King be lief or loth
One bed that night shall hold you both.”

[p. 131] Now north belike runs Steingrim’s prow[,]
And the rain and the wind from the south do blow.

The King’s Daughter.

Lo, fowl of death, my mother’s ring[,]
But the bridal song I must learn to sing:

And fain were I for a space alone,
For O the wind, and the wind doth moan.

And I must array the bridal bed[,]
      Fair summer is on many a shield.

For O the rain, and the rain drifts red!
      Fair sing the swans ’twixt firth and field.

Before the day from the night was born,
      Fair summer is on many a shield.

She heard the blast of Steingrim’s horn;
      Fair sing the swans ’twixt firth and field.

Before the day was waxen fair
Were Steingrim’s feet upon the stair.

“O bolt and bar they fall away,
But heavy are Steingrim’s feet today.”

“O heavy the feet of one who bears
The longing of days and the grief of years!

Lie down[,] lie down[,] thou lily-wand
That on thy neck I may lay his hand.

Whether the King be lief or loth
Today one bed shall hold you both.

O thou art still as he is still,
So sore as ye longed to talk your fill.

And good it were that I depart,
Now heart is laid so close to heart.

For sure ye shall talk so left alone
      Fair summer is on many a shield.

[f. 54] Of days to be beneath the Stone.”
      Fair sing the swans [’]twixt firth and field.

W. M. August 1872

Poems by the Way, CW IX, 127-31.

THE RAVEN AND THE KING'S DAUGHTER.

King’s daughter sitting in tower so high,
Fair summer is on many a shield.
Why weepest thou as the clouds go by?
Fair sing the swans ’twixt firth and field.
Why weepest thou in the window-seat
Till the tears run through thy fingers sweet?

The King’s Daughter.

I weep because I sit alone
Betwixt these walls of lime and stone.
Fair folk are in my father’s hall,
But for me he built this guarded wall.
And here the gold on the green I sew
Nor tidings of my true-love know.

The Raven.

King’s daughter, sitting above the sea,
I shall tell thee a tale shall gladden thee.
Yestreen I saw a ship go forth
When the wind blew merry from the north.
And by the tiller Steingrim sat,
And O, but my heart was glad thereat!
For ’twixt ashen plank and dark blue sea
His sword sang sweet of deeds to be.

The King’s Daughter.

O barren sea, thou bitter bird,
And a barren tale my ears have heard.

Thy father’s men were hard thereby
In byrny bright and helmet high.

The King’s Daughter.

O worser waxeth thy story far,
For these drew upon me bolt and bar.
Fly south, O fowl, to the field of death
For nothing sweet thy grey neb saith.

The Raven.

O, there was Olaf the lily-rose,
As fair as any oak that grows.

The King’s Daughter.

O sweet bird, what did he then
Among the spears of my father’s men?

The Raven.

’Twixt ashen plank and dark blue sea,
He sang: My true love waiteth me.

The King’s Daughter.

As well as this dull floor knows my feet,
I am not weary yet, my sweet.

The Raven.

He sang: As once her hand I had,
Her lips at last shall make me glad.

The King’s Daughter.

As once our fingers met, O love,
So shall our lips be fain thereof.

The Raven.

He sang: Come wrack and iron and flame,
For what shall breach the wall but fame?

The King’s Daughter.

Be swift to rise and set, O Sun,
Lest life ’twixt hope and death be done.

King’s daughter sitting in tower so high,
A gift for my tale ere forth I fly,
The gold from thy finger fair and fine,
Thou hadst it from no love of thine.

The King’s Daughter.

By my father’s ring another there is,
I had it with my mother’s kiss.
Fly forth, O fowl, across the sea
To win another gift of me.
Fly south to bring me tidings true,
Fair summer is on many a shield.
Of the eve grown red with the battle-dew,
Fair sing the swans ’twixt firth and field.

The Raven.

King’s daughter sitting in tower so high,
Fair summer is on many a shield.
Tidings to hearken ere thou die,
Fair sing the swans ’twixt firth and field.
In the Frankish land the spear points met,
And wide about the field was wet.
And high ere the cold moon quenched the sun,
Blew Steingrim’s horn for battle won.

The King’s Daughter.

Fair fall thee fowl! Tell tidings true
Of deeds that men that day did do.

The Raven.

Steingrim before his banner went,
And helms were broke and byrnies rent.

The King’s Daughter.

A doughty man and good at need;
Tell men of any other’s deed?

Where Steingrim through the battle bore
Still Olaf went a foot before.

The King’s Daughter.

O fair with deeds the world doth grow!
Where is my true-love gotten now?

The Raven.

Upon the deck beside the mast
He lieth now, and sleepeth fast.

The King’s Daughter.

Heard’st thou before his sleep began
That he spake word of any man?

The Raven.

Methought of thee he sang a song,
But nothing now he saith for long.

The King’s Daughter.

And wottest thou where he will wend
With the world before him from end to end?

The Raven.

Before the battle joined that day
Steingrim a word to him did say:
“If we bring the banner back in peace,
In the King’s house much shall my fame increase;
Till there no guarded door shall be
But it shall open straight to me.
Then to the bower we twain shall go
Where thy love the golden seam doth sew.
I shall bring thee in and lay thine hand
About the neck of that lily-wand.
And let the King be lief or loth
One bed that night shall hold you both.”
[p. 131] Now north belike runs Steingrim’s prow,
And the rain and the wind from the south do blow.

The King’s Daughter.

Lo, fowl of death, my mother’s ring,
But the bridal song I must learn to sing.
And fain were I for a space alone,
For O the wind, and the wind doth moan.
And I must array the bridal bed,
Fair summer is on many a shield.
For O the rain, and the rain drifts red!
Fair sing the swans ’twixt firth and field.

Before the day from the night was born,
Fair summer is on many a shield.
She heard the blast of Steingrim’s horn,
Fair sing the swans ’twixt firth and field.
Before the day was waxen fair
Were Steingrim’s feet upon the stair.
“O bolt and bar they fall away,
But heavy are Steingrim’s feet to-day.”
“O heavy the feet of one who bears
The longing of days and the grief of years!
Lie down, lie down, thou lily-wand
That on thy neck I may lay his hand.
Whether the King be lief or loth
To-day one bed shall hold you both.
O thou art still as he is still,
So sore as ye longed to talk your fill.
And good it were that I depart,
Now heart is laid so close to heart.
For sure ye shall talk so left alone
Fair summer is on many a shield.
Of days to be below the stone.”
Fair sing the swans ’twixt firth and field.

C-29. “The God of the Poor” ( There was a lord that hight Maltete, / Among great lords he was right great, )

Published Fortnightly Review, August 1st, 1868, p. 145. Included in Poems by the Way, CW, IX, 156-63. HM 6427, ff. 82-92, copy in H. Sparling’s hand, who lists August 1878, p. 145 as the date and place of Fortnightly publication. According to May Morris (CW, IX, xxxv-xxxvi) written about the same time as the first draft of “The Wanderers,” published when Morris was asked for a contribution to the Fortnightly.

HM 6427, f. 82

THE GOD OF THE POOR.

There was a lord that hight Maltête,
Among great lords he was right great,
On poor folk trod he like the dirt,
None but God might do him hurt.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

With a grace of prayers sung loud and late
Many a widow’s house he ate,
Many a poor knight at his hands
Lost his house & narrow lands.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

He burnt the harvests many a time,
He made fair houses heaps of lime;
Whatso man loved wife or maid
Of Evil-head was sore afraid.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

He slew good men & spared the bad;
Too long a day the foul dog had,
As all dogs will have their day;
But God is e'en strong as man, I say.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

For a valiant knight, men called Boncoeur,
Had hope he should not long endure,
And gathered to him much good folk,
Hardy hearts to break the yoke.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

[f. 83]

But Boncoeur deemed it would be vain
To strive his guarded house to gain;
Therefore, within a little while,
He set himself to work by guile.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

He knew that Maltête loved right well
Red gold and heavy. If from hell
The Devil had cried, “Take this gold cup,”
Down had he gone to fetch it up.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

Twenty poor men’s lives were nought
To him, beside a ring well wrought.
The pommel of his hunting-knife
Was worth ten times a poor man’s life.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

A squire new-come from over-sea
Boncoeur called to him privily,
And when he knew his lord’s intent,
Clad like a churl therefrom he went.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

But when he came where dwelt Maltête,
With few words did he pass the gate,
For Maltête built him walls anew,
And, wageless, folk from field he drew.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

[f. 84]

Now passed the squire through this & that,
Till he came to where Sir Maltête sat,
And over red wine wagged his beard,
Then spoke the squire as one afeard.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Lord, give me grace, for privily
I have a little word for thee.”
“Speak out,” said Maltête, “have no fear,
For how can thy life to thee be dear?”
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Such an one I know,” he said,
“Who hideth store of money red.”
Maltête grinned at him cruelly.
“Thou florin-maker, come anigh.[”]
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

“E’en such as thou once preached of gold,
And showed me lies in books full old,
Nought gat I but evil brass,
Therefore came he to the worser pass.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Hast thou will to see his skin?
I keep my heaviest marks therein,
For since nought else of wealth had he,
I deemed full well he owed it me.”
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

[f. 85]

“Nought know I of philosophy,”
The other said, “nor do I lie.
Before the moon begins to shine,
May all this heap of gold be thine.”
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Ten leagues from this a man there is,
Who seemeth to know but little bliss,
And yet full many a pound of gold
A dry well nigh his house doth hold.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

“John-a-Wood is he called, fair lord,
Nor know I whence he hath this hoard.”
Then Maltête said, “As God made me,
A wizard over-bold is he!”
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

“It were a good deed, as I am a knight,
To burn him in a fire bright;
This John-a-Wood shall surely die,
And his gold in my strong chest shall lie.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

“This very night, I make mine avow,
The truth of this mine eyes shall know.”
Then spoke an old knight in the hall,
“Who knoweth what things may befall?[”]
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

[f. 86]

“I rede thee go with a great rout,
For thy foes ride thick about.”
“Thou & the devil may keep my foes,
Thou redest me this gold to lose.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.[”]

“I shall go with but some four or five,
So shall I take my thief alive.
For if a great rout he shall see,
Will he not hide his wealth from me[?”]
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

The old knight muttered under his breath,
“Then mayhap ye shall but ride to death.”
But Maltête turned him quickly round,
“Bind me this gray-beard under ground!
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Because ye are old, ye think to jape.
Take heed, ye shall not long escape.
When I come back safe, old carle, perdie,
Thine head shall brush the linden-tree.”
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

Therewith he rode with his five men,
And Boncoeur’s spy, for good leagues ten, [ms. spie]
Until they left the beaten way,
And dusk it grew at end of day.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

[f. 87]

There, in a clearing of the wood,
Was John’s house, neither fair nor good.
In a ragged plot his house anigh,
Thin coleworts grew but wretchedly.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

John-a-Wood in his doorway sat,
Turning over this & that,
And chiefly how he best might thrive,
For he had will enough to live.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

Green coleworts from a wooden bowl
He ate; but careful was his soul,
For if he saw another day,
Thenceforth was he in Boncoeur’s pay.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

So when he saw how Maltête came,
He said, “Beginneth now the game!”
And in the doorway did he stand
Trembling, with hand joined fast to hand.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

When Maltête did this carle behold
Somewhat he doubted of his gold,
But cried out, “Where is now thy store
Thou hast through books of wicked lore?”
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

[f. 88]

Then said the poor man, right humbly,
“Fair lord, this was not made by me,
I found it in mine own dry well,
And had a mind thy grace to tell.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Therefrom, my lord, a cup I took
This day, that thou thereon mightst look,
And know me to be leal & true,”
And from his coat the cup he drew.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

Then Maltête took it in his hand,
Nor knew he ought that it used to stand
On Boncoeur’s cupboard many a day.
“Go on,” he said, “& show the way.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Give me thy gold, and thou shalt live,
Yea, in my house thou well mayst thrive.”
John turned about & [’]gan to go
Unto the wood with footsteps slow.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

But as they passed by John’s woodstack[,]
Growled Maltête, “Nothing now doth lack
Wherewith to light a merry fire,
And give my wizard all his hire.”
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

[f. 89]

The western sky was red as blood,
Darker grew the oaken-wood;
“Thief & carle, where are ye gone?
Why are we in the wood alone?
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

“What is the sound of this mighty horn?
Ah, God! that ever I was born!
The basnets flash from tree to tree;
Show me, thou Christ, the way to flee!”
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

Boncoeur it was with fifty men,
Maltête was but one to ten,
And his own folk prayed for grace,
With empty hands in that lone place.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Grace shall ye have,” Boncoeur said,
“All of you but Evil-head.”
Lowly could that great lord be.
Who could pray so well as he?
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

Then could Maltête howl and cry,
Little will he had to die.
Soft was his speech, now it was late,
But who had will to save Maltête?
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

[f. 90]

They brought him to the house again,
And toward the road he looked in vain.
Lonely & bare was the great highway,
Under the gathering moonlight grey.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

They took off his gilt basnet,
That he should die there was no let;
They took off his coat of steel,
A damned man he well might feel.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Will ye all be rich as kings,
Lacking naught of all good things?”
“Nothing do we lack this eve;
When thou art dead, how can we grieve?”
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Let me drink water ere I die,
None henceforth comes my lips anigh.”
They brought it him in that bowl of wood.
He said, “This is but poor men’s blood!”
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

They brought it him in the cup of gold.
He said, “The women I have sold
Have wept it full of salt for me;
I shall die gaping thirstily.”
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

[f. 91]

On the threshold of that poor homestead
They smote off his Evil-head;
They set it high on a great spear,
And rode away with merry cheer.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

At the dawn, in lordly state,
They rode to Maltête’s castle-gate.
“Whoso willeth laud to win,
Make haste to let your masters in!”
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

Forthwith opened they the gate,
No man was sorry for Maltête.
Boncoeur conquered all his lands,
A good knight was he of his hands.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

Good men he loved, & hated bad;
Joyful days & sweet he had;
Good deeds did he plenteously;
Beneath him folk lived frank & free.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

He lived long, with merry days;
None said aught of him but praise.
God on him have full mercy;
A good knight merciful was he.
               Deus est Deus pauperum.

[Final two stanzas not in this draft were added in the published version.]

Poems by the Way, CW IX, pp. 156-63:

THE GOD OF THE POOR.

There was a lord that hight Maltete,
Among great lords he was right great,
On poor folk trod he like the dirt,
None but God might do him hurt.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

With a grace of prayers sung loud and late
Many a widow’s house he ate;
Many a poor knight at his hands
Lost his house and narrow lands.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

He burnt the harvests many a time,
He made fair houses heaps of lime;
Whatso man loved wife or maid
Of Evil-head was sore afraid.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

He slew good men and spared the bad;
Too long a day the foul dog had,
E’en as all dogs will have their day;
But God is as strong as man, I say.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

For a valiant knight, men called Boncoeur,
Had hope he should not long endure,
And gathered to him much good folk,
Hardy hearts to break the yoke.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

But Boncoeur deemed it would be vain
To strive his guarded house to gain;
Therefore, within a little while,
He set himself to work by guile.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

[p. 157] He knew that Maltete loved right well
Red gold and heavy. If from hell
The Devil had cried, “Take this gold cup,”
Down had he gone to fetch it up.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

Twenty poor men’s lives were nought
To him, beside a ring well wrought.
The pommel of his hunting-knife
Was worth ten times a poor man’s life.
                         Deus est Deus Pauperum.

A squire new-come from over-sea
Boncoeur called to him privily,
And when he knew his lord’s intent,
Clad like a churl therefrom he went.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

But when he came where dwelt Maltete,
With few words did he pass the gate,
For Maltete built him walls anew,
And, wageless, folk from field he drew.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

Now passed the squire through this and that,
Till he came to where Sir Maltete sat,
And over red wine wagged his beard:
Then spoke the squire as one afeard.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Lord, give me grace, for privily
I have a little word for thee.”
“Speak out,” said Maltete, “have no fear,
For how can thy life to thee be dear?”
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

[p. 158] “Such an one I know,” he said,
“Who hideth store of money red.”
Maltete grinned at him cruelly:
“Thou florin-maker, come anigh.”
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

“E’en such as thou once preached of gold,
And showed me lies in books full old,
Nought gat I but evil brass,
Therefore came he to the worser pass.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Hast thou will to see his skin?
I keep my heaviest marks therein,
For since nought else of wealth had he,
I deemed full well he owed it me.”
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Nought know I of philosophy,”
The other said, “nor do I lie.
Before the moon begins to shine,
May all this heap of gold be thine.”
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Ten leagues from this a man there is,
Who seemeth to know but little bliss,
And yet full many a pound of gold
A dry well nigh his house doth hold.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

“John-a-Wood is he called, fair lord,
Nor know I whence he hath this hoard.”
Then Maltete said, “As God made me,
A wizard over-bold is he!”
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

“It were a good deed, as I am a knight,
To burn him in a fire bright;
This John-a-Wood shall surely die,
And his gold in my strong chest shall lie.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

[p. 159] “This very night, I make mine avow,
The truth of this mine eyes shall know.”
Then spoke an old knight in the hall,
“Who knoweth what things may befall?”
                              Deus est Deus pauperum.

“I rede thee go with a great rout,
For thy foes they ride thick about.”
“Thou and the devil may keep my foes,
Thou redest me this gold to lose.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.”

“I shall go with but some four or five,
So shall I take my thief alive.
For if a great rout he shall see,
Will he not hide his wealth from me?”
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

The old knight muttered under his breath,
“Then mayhap ye shall but ride to death.”
But Maltete turned him quickly round,
“Bind me this gray-beard under ground!
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Because ye are old, ye think to jape.
Take heed, ye shall not long escape.
When I come back safe, old carle, perdie,
Thine head shall brush the linden-tree.”
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

Therewith he rode with his five men,
And Boncoeur’s spy, for good leagues ten,
Until they left the beaten way,
And dusk it grew at end of day.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

There, in a clearing of the wood,
Was John’s house, neither fair nor good.
In a ragged plot his house anigh,
Thin coleworts grew but wretchedly.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

[p. 160] John-a-Wood in his doorway sat,
Turning over this and that,
And chiefly how he best might thrive,
For he had will enough to live.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

Green coleworts from a wooden bowl
He ate; but careful was his soul,
For if he saw another day,
Thenceforth was he in Boncoeur’s pay.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

So when he saw how Maltete came,
He said, “Beginneth now the game!”
And in the doorway did he stand
Trembling, with hand joined fast to hand.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

When Maltete did this carle behold
Somewhat he doubted of his gold,
But cried out, “Where is now thy store
Thou hast through books of wicked lore?”
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

Then said the poor man, right humbly,
“Fair lord, this was not made by me,
I found it in mine own dry well,
And had a mind thy grace to tell.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Therefrom, my lord, a cup I took
This day, that thou thereon mightst look,
And know me to be leal and true,”
And from his coat the cup he drew.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

Then Maltete took it in his hand,
Nor knew he ought that it used to stand
On Boncoeur’s cupboard many a day.
“Go on,” he said, “and show the way.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

[p. 161] “Give me thy gold, and thou shalt live,
Yea, in my house thou well mayst thrive.”
John turned about and ’gan to go
Unto the wood with footsteps slow.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

But as they passed by John’s woodstack,
Growled Maltete, “Nothing now doth lack
Wherewith to light a merry fire,
And give my wizard all his hire.”
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

The western sky was red as blood,
Darker grew the oaken-wood;
“Thief and carle, where are ye gone?
Why are we in the wood alone?
                          Deus est Deus pauperum.

“What is the sound of this mighty horn?
Ah, God! that ever I was born!
The basnets flash from tree to tree;
Show me, thou Christ, the way to flee!”
                          Deus est Deus pauperum.

Boncoeur it was with fifty men;
Maltete was but one to ten,
And his own folk prayed for grace,
With empty hands in that lone place.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Grace shall ye have,” Boncoeur said,
“All of you but Evil-head.”
Lowly could that great lord be,
Who could pray so well as he?
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

[ p. 162] Then could Maltete howl and cry,
Little will he had to die.
Soft was his speech, now it was late,
But who had will to save Maltete?
                        Deus est Deus pauperum.

They brought him to the house again,
And toward the road he looked in vain.
Lonely and bare was the great highway,
Under the gathering moonlight grey.
                        Deus est Deus pauperum.

They took off his gilt basnet,
That he should die there was no let;
They took off his coat of steel,
A damned man he well might feel.
                        Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Will ye all be rich as kings,
Lacking naught of all good things?”
“Nothing do we lack this eve;
When thou art dead, how can we grieve?”
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

“Let me drink water ere I die,
None henceforth comes my lips anigh.”
They brought it him in that bowl of wood.
He said, “This is but poor men’s blood!”
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

They brought it him in the cup of gold.
He said, “The women I have sold
Have wept it full of salt for me;
I shall die gaping thirstily.”
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

On the threshold of that poor homestead
They smote off his evil head;
They set it high on a great spear,
And rode away with merry cheer.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

[p. 163] At the dawn, in lordly state,
They rode to Maltete’s castle-gate.
“Whoso willeth laud to win,
Make haste to let your masters in!”
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

Forthwith opened they the gate,
No man was sorry for Maltete.
Boncoeur conquered all his lands,
A good knight was he of his hands.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

Good men he loved, and hated bad;
Joyful days and sweet he had;
Good deeds did he plenteously;
Beneath him folk lived frank and free.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

He lived long, with merry days;
None said aught of him but praise.
God on him have full mercy;
A good knight merciful was he.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

The great lord, called Maltete, is dead;
Grass grows above his feet and head,
And a holly-bush grows up between
His rib-bones gotten white and clean.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

A carle’s sheep-dog certainly
Is a mightier thing than he.
Till London-bridge shall cross the Nen,
Take we heed of such-like men.
                         Deus est Deus pauperum.

C-30. “The Two Sides of the River” ( The Youths: O winter, O white winter wert thou gone / No more within the wilds were I alone )

Placed as the first poem in A Book of Verse, 1870, 1-6, and published in the Fortnightly Review, October, 1868, p. 379-82. Included in Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 135-39. HM 6478, ff. 58-63, copied by Georgiana Burne-Jones and marked by Morris for the printer.

According to May Morris (CW, IX, xxxvi), this was a rejected portion of “The Man Who Never Laughed Again.”

Book of Verse, 1870

[p. 1]

The Two Sides of the River

The Youths.
O winter, O white winter, wert thou gone
No more within the wilds were I alone
Leaping with bent bow over stock and stone!

No more alone my love the lamp should burn,

Watching the weary spindle twist and turn,
Or o’er the web hold back he r tears and years:
O winter, O white winter, wert thou gone!

The Maidens.
Sweet thoughts fly swiflier than the drifting snow,
And with the twisting thread sweet longings grow,
And o’er the web sweet pictures come and go
For no white winter are we long alone.

[p. 2]
The Youths.
O stream so changed, what hast thou done to me,
That I thy glittering ford no more can see
Wreathing with white her fair feet lovingly?

So in the rain she stands, and looking down
With frightened eyes upon thy whirlpools brown
Drops to her feet again her girded gown.
O hurrying turbid stream, what hast thou done?

The Maidens.
The clouds lift, telling of a happier day
When through the thin stream I shall take my way,
Girt round with gold, and garlanded with may
What rushing stream can keep us long alone?

The Youths.
O burning Sun, O master of unrest
Why must we, toiling, cast away the best,
Now when the bird sleeps by her empty nest?

See with my garland lying at her feet,
In lonely labour stands mine own my sweet
Above the quern half-filled with half-ground wheat.
O red taskmaster that thy flames were done!

[p. 3]
The Maidens.
O love, to-night across the halfshorn plain
Shall I not got to meet the yellow wain,
A look of love at end of toil to gain?
What flaming sun can keep us long alone?

The Youths.
Tomorrow said I is grape-gathering o’er
Tomorrow, and our loves are twinned no more—
Tomorrow came, to bring us woe and war.

What have I done, that I should stand with these
Hearkening the dread shouts borne upon the breeze
While she, far-off, sits weeping neath her trees?
Alas, O kings, what is it ye have done?

The Maidens.
Come love, delay not, come, and slay my dread!
Already is the banquet-table spread;
In the cool chamber flower-strewn is my bed:
Come love, what king shall keep us long alone?

The Youths.
O city city, open thou thy gate!
See, with life snatched from out the hand of fate,
How on thy glittering triumph I must wait!

Are not her hands stretched out to me? her eyes,
Grow they not weary as each new hope dies,
And lone before her still the long road lies
O golden city, fain would I be gone!

The Maidens.
Ah, thou art happy, amid shouts and songs
And all that unto conquering men belongs
Night hath no fear for me, and day no wrongs
What brazen city-gates can keep us lone?

The Youths.
O long long road, how bare thou art, and grey!
Hill after hill thou climbest, and the day
Is ended now, O moonlit endless way.

And she is standing where the rushes grow,
And still with white hand shades her anxious brow

Though neath the world the sun is fallen now
O dreary road, when will thy leagues be done?

The Maidens.
O tremblest thou grey road, or do my feet
Tremble with joy thy flinty face to meet?
Because my love’s eyes soon mine eyes shall greet
No heart thou hast to keep us long alone

[p. 5]
The Youths.
O wilt thou ne’er depart, thou heavy night?
When will thy slaying bring on the morning bright,
That leads my weary feet to my delight

Why lingerest thou, filling with wandering fears
My lone love’s tired heart; her eyes with tears
For thoughts like sorrow for the vanished years?
Weaver of ill thoughts, when wilt thou begone?

The Maidens.
Love, to the east are thin eyes turned as mine
In patient watching for the night’s decline?
And hast thou noted this grey widening line?
Can any darkness keep us long alone?

The Youths.
O day, O day, is it a little thing
That thou so long unto thy life must cling
Because I gave thee such a welcoming?

I called thee king of all felicity
I praised thee, that thou broughtest joy so nigh
Thine hours are turned to years, thou wilt not die
O day so longed for, would that thou wert gone

[p. 6]

The Maidens.
The light fails, love; the long day soon shall be
Nought but a pensive happy memory
Blessed for the tales it told to thee and me
How hard it was, O love, to be alone.

the end of the Two Sides of the River

HM6478, ff. 58-63

The Two Sides of the River.

               The Youths.
O Winter, O white winter, wert thou gone
No more within the wilds were I alone
Leaping with bent bow over stock and stone!

No more alone my love the lamp should burn,
Watching the weary spindle twist and turn,
Or o’er the web hold back her tears and yearn,
O winter, O white winter, wert thou gone!

               The Maidens.
Sweet thoughts fly swiftlier than the drifting snow,
And with the twisting thread sweet longings grow,
And o’er the web sweet pictures come and go,
For no white winter are we long alone.

               The Youths.
O stream so changed, what hast thou done to me,
That I thy glittering ford no more can see
Wreathing with white her fair feet lovingly?

See, in the rain she stands, and, looking down
With frightened eyes upon thy whirlpools brown,
Drops to her feet again her girded gown.
O hurrying turbid stream, what hast thou done?

[f. 59] The Maidens.
The clouds lift, telling of a happier day
When through the thin stream I shall take my way,
Girt round with gold, and garlanded with may[,]
What rushing stream can keep us long alone?

               The Youths.
O burning Sun, O master of unrest[,]
Why must we, toiling, cast away the best,
Now, when the bird sleeps by her empty nest?

See, with my garland lying at her feet,
In lonely labour stands mine own, my sweet[,]
Above the quern half-filled with half-ground wheat.
O red taskmaster[,] that thy flames were done!

               The Maidens.
O love, tonight across the half-shorn plain
Shall I not go to meet the yellow wain,
A look of love at end of toil to gain?
What flaming sun can keep us long alone?

             The Youths.

Tomorrow, said I, is grape gathering o’er[;]
Tomorrow, and our loves are twinned no more--
Tomorrow came, to bring us woe and war.

What have I done, that I should stand with these
Hearkening the dread shouts borne upon the breeze,
While she, far off, sits weeping ’neath her trees?
Alas, O kings, what is it ye have done?

[f. 60] The Maidens.
Come, love, delay not, come, and slay my dread!
Already is the banquet table spread;
In the cool chamber flower-strewn is my bed:
Come[,] love, what king shall keep us long alone?

             The Youths.
O city[,] city, open thou thy gate!
See, with life snatched from out the hand of fate,
How on thy glittering triumph I must wait!

Are not her hands stretched out to me? Her eyes,
Grow they not weary as each new hope dies,
And lone before her still the long road lies?
O golden city, fain would I be gone!

             The Maidens.
And thou art happy, amid shouts and songs[,]
And all that unto conquering men belongs.
Night hath no fear for me and day no wrongs[.]
What brazen city gates can keep us, lone?

             The Youths.
O long, long road, how bare thou art, and grey!
Hill after hill thou climbest, and the day
Is ended now, O moonlit endless way[!]

And she is standing where the rushes grow,
And still with white hand shades her anxious brow,
Though [’]neath the world the sun is fallen now[,]
O dreary road, when will thy leagues be done?

[f. 61]     The Maidens.
O tremblest thou, grey road, or do my feet
Tremble with joy, thy flinty face to meet?
Because my love’s eyes soon mine eyes shall greet[,]
No heart thou hast to keep us long alone.

             The Youths.
O wilt thou ne’er depart, thou heavy night?
When will thy slaying bring on the morning bright,
That leads my weary feet to my delight?

Why lingerest thou, filling with wandering fears [? in ms.]
My lone love’s tired heart; her eyes with tears
For thoughts like sorrow for the vanished years?
Weaver of ill thoughts, when wilt thou be gone?

             The Maidens.
Love, to the east are thine eyes turned as mine,
In patient watching for the night’s decline?
And hast thou noted this grey widening line?
Can any darkness keep us long alone?

             The Youths.
O day, O day, is it a little thing
That thou so long unto thy life must cling,
Because I gave thee such a welcoming?

I called thee king of all felicity,
I praised thee that thou broughtest joy so nigh[;]
Thine hours are turned to years, thou wilt not die,
O day so longed for, would that thou wert gone!

[f. 62]              The Maidens.
The light fails, love; the long day soon shall be
Nought but a pensive happy memory
Blessed for the tales it told to thee and me.
How hard it was, O love, to be alone.

C-31. “On the Edge of the Wilderness” (Puellae. Whence comest thou, and whither goest thou? / Abide! Abide! Longer the shadows grow;)

Published Fortnightly Review, April, 1869, 391-94. Included in Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 146-48. HM 6427, ff. 73-74, in C. F. Murray’s hand. Could also be a revised early poem; see checklist of “Surviving Early Morris Poems,” The Early Poems of William Morris, no. 35.

HM 6427, ff. 73-74

On the edge of the Wilderness.

Puellae

Whence comest thou, and whither goest thou?
Abide, abide! longer the shadows grow;
What hopest thou the dark to thee will show?

Abide, abide! for we are happy here.

Amans

Why should I name the land across the sea
Wherein I first took hold on misery?
Why should I name the land that flees from me?

Let me depart, since ye are happy here.

Puellae

What wilt thou do within the desert place
Whereto thou turnest now thy careful face?
Stay but a while to tell us of thy case.

Abide, abide! for we are happy here.

Amans

What, nigh the journey’s end shall I abide,
When in the waste mine own love wanders wide,
When from all men for me she still doth hide?

Let me depart, since ye are happy here.

Puellae

Nay, nay; but rather she forgetteth thee,
To sit upon the shore of some warm sea,
Or in green gardens where sweet fountains be.

Abide, abide! for we are happy here.

Amans

Will ye then keep me from the wilderness,
Where I at least, alone with my distress,
The quiet land of changing dreams may bless?

Let me depart, since ye are happy here.

[f. 73v]

Puellae

Forget the false forgetter, and be wise,
And ’mid these clinging hands and loving eyes,
Dream, not in vain, thou knowest paradise.

Abide, abide! for we are happy here.

Amans

Ah! with your sweet eyes shorten not the day,
Nor let your gentle hands my journey stay!
Perchance love is not wholly cast away.

Let me depart, since ye are happy here[.]

Puellae

Pluck love away as thou wouldst pluck a thorn
From out thy flesh; for why shouldst thou be born
To bear a life so wasted and forlorn?

Abide, abide! for we are happy here.

Amans

Yea, why then was I born, since hope is pain,
And life a lingering death, and faith but vain,
And love the loss of all I seemed to gain?

Let me depart, since ye are happy here.

Puellae

Dost thou believe that this shall ever be[,]
That in our land no face thou e’er shalt see,
No voice thou e’er shalt hear to gladden thee?

Abide, abide! for we are happy here.

Amans

No longer do I know of good or bad,
I have forgotten that I once was glad;
I do but chase a dream that I have had.

Let me depart, since ye are happy here.

[f. 74]

Puellae

Stay! take one image for thy dreamful night;
Come look at her, who in the world’s despite
Weeps for delaying love and lost delight.

Abide, abide! for we are happy here.

Amans

Mock me not till tomorrow. Mock the dead--
They will not heed it, or turn round the head,
To note who faithless are, and who are wed.

Let me depart, since ye are happy here.

Puellae

We mock thee not. Hast thou not heard of those
Whose faithful love the loved heart holds so close,
That death must wait till one word lets it loose.

Abide, abide! for we are happy here.

Amans

I hear you not: the wind from off the waste
Sighs like a song that bids me make good haste
The wave of sweet forgetfulness to taste.

Let me depart, since ye are happy here.

Puellae

Come back! like such a singer is the wind,
As to a sad tune sings fair words and kind[,]
That he with happy tears all eyes may blind!

Abide, abide! for we are happy here.

[f. 74v]

Amans

Did I not hear her sweet voice cry from far,
That o’er the lonely waste fair fields there are,
Fair days that know not any change or care?

Let me depart, since ye are happy here.

Puellae

Oh, no, not far thou heardest her, but nigh--
Nigh, ’twixt the waste’s edge and the darkling sky.
Turn back again, too soon it is to die.

Abide! a little while be happy here.

Amans

How with the lapse of lone years could I strive,
And can I die now that thou biddest live?
What joy this space ’twixt birth and death can give.

Can we depart, who are so happy here?

C-32. “Love Fulfilled” (Hast thou longed through weary days / For the sight of one loved face?)

Included as the sixth poem in A Book of Verse, 1870, 11-12, and published in Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 139. HM 6427, ff. 64-65, Morris autographs, draft and fair copy titled “At Last”; ff. 62-63 and 66, copies in Georgiana Burne-Jones’s hand, marked for the printer. In f. 62, she removes the careful indentation.

HM 6427, f. 62 [ck. indents]

               Love Fulfilled

Hast thou longed through weary days
For the sight of one loved face,
Hast thou cried aloud for rest,
Mid the pain of sundering hours,
Cried aloud for sleep and death
Since the sweet unhoped for best
Was a shadow and a breath--
O, long now, for no fear lowers
O’er these faint feet-kissing flowers[,]
O, rest now; and yet in sleep
All thy longing shalt thou keep.

Thou shalt rest and have no fear
Of a dull awaking near,
Of a life for ever blind,
Uncontent and waste and wide.
Thou shalt wake & think it sweet
That thy love is near and kind
[f.63]  Sweeter still for lips to meet;
Sweetest, that thy heart doth hide
Longing all unsatisfied
With all longing’s answering
Howsoever close ye cling[.]

Thou rememberest how of old
Ere thy very pain grew cold
How thou might'st not measure bliss
E'en when eyes and hands drew nigh.
Thou rememberest all regret
For the scarce remembered kiss,
The lost dream of how they met,
Mouths once parched with misery.
Then seemed love born but to die,
Now unrest, pain, bliss are one.
Love, unhidden and alone.

HM 6427, f. 64

               At Last

Hast thou longed through leaden days
For the sight of any face?
       Hast thou cried aloud for rest
              Mid the pain of sundering hours
                    Cried aloud for sleep and death
       Since the sweet scarce hoped-for best
              Was a shadow and a breath?
                    Oh[,] long now! for no fear lowers
                    O’er these faint feet-kissing flowers;
O rest now! and yet in sleep
All thy love and longing keep!

Thou shalt rest and have no fear
Of a dull awaking near,
        Of a life for ever blind[,]
              Uncontent and waste and wide!
                 Thou shalt wake & think it sweet
        That thy love is near and kind,
              Sweeter still for lips to meet,
                 Sweetest that thy heart doth hide
                 Longing all unsatisfied
With all longing’s answering
Howsoever close ye cling.

Thou rememberest, how of old
E'en thy very pain grew cold
       And thou mightst not measure bliss
                  Een when eyes and hands drew nigh.
                  Thou rememberest all regret
       For the scarce remembered kiss[,]
                  The lost dream of how they met,
                  Mouths once parched with misery.
                  Then love seemed but born to die[.]
Now, unrest, pain, bliss, are one
Love unhidden and alone.
                                 W. M.

Book of Verse, 1870

[p. 11]

Love Fulfilled

Hast thou longed through weary days
For the sight of one loved face,
Hast thou cried aloud for rest,
Mid the pain of sundering hours,
Cried aloud for sleep and death
Since the sweet unhoped for best
Was a shadow and a breath—
O, long now, for no fear lowers
O’er these fain feet-kissing flowers
O, rest now, and yet in sleep
All thy longing shalt thou keep.

Thou shalt rest, and have no fear
Of a dull awaking near,
Of a life for ever blind,
Uncontent and waste and wide.
Thou shalt wake, and think it sweet
That thy love is near and kind
Sweeter still for lips to meet;
Sweetest, that thine heart doth hide
Longing all unsatisfied
With all longing’s answering
Howsoever close ye cling

[p. 12]

Thou rememberest how of old
Een thy very pain grew cold
How thou might’st not measure bliss
Ee’n when eyes and hands draw nigh
Thou rememberest all regret
For the scarce remembered kiss,
The lost dream of how they met,
Mouths once parched with misery
Then seemed Love born but to die,
Now unrest, pain, bliss are one,
Love, unbidden and alone.

C-33. “Pain and Time Strive Not” (What part of the dread eternity / Are those strange minutes that I gain,)

Published Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 187. HM 6427, f. 126a, Morris autograph. According to May Morris (CW, IX, xxxvi), written about 1870.

HM 6427, f. 126a

Pain and Time Strive Not.

What part of the dread eternity
         Are those strange minutes that I gain,
         Mazed with the doubt of love and pain,
When I thy delicate face may see,
                   A little while before farewell?

What share of the world’s yearning-tide
         That flash, when new day bare and white,
          Blots out my half-dream’s faint delight[,]
And there is nothing by my side,
                      And well remembered is farewell?

What drop in the grey flood of tears
         That time, when the long day toiled through,
          Worn out, shows nought for me to do,
And nothing worth my labour bears
                     The longing of that last farewell?

What pity from the heavens above,
            What heed from out eternity,
            What word from the swift world for me?
Speak, heed, and pity, O tender love,
                     Who knew’st the days before farewell!

CW, IX, 187

PAIN AND TIME STRIVE NOT.

What part of the dread eternity
Are those strange minutes that I gain,
Mazed with the doubt of love and pain,
When I thy delicate face may see,
A little while before farewell?

What share of the world’s yearning-tide
That flash, when new day bare and white
Blots out my half-dream’s faint delight,
And there is nothing by my side,
And well remembered is farewell?

What drop in the grey flood of tears
That time, when the long day toiled through,
Worn out, shows nought for me to do,
And nothing worth my labour bears
The longing of that last farewell?

What pity from the heavens above,
What heed from out eternity,
What word from the swift world for me?
Speak, heed, and pity, O tender love,
Who knew’st the days before farewell!

C-34.“Love’s Reward” ( It was a knight of the southern land / Rode forth upon the way )

Published Poems by the Way, CW, IX, 164-68. HM 6427, ff. 93-107. Three drafts in Morris’ hand, a rough draft ff. 93-95; a fair copy on ff. 96-101, signed “Kelmscott April 21st 1871”; and another draft on ff. 102-107. According to May Morris (CW, IX, xxxviii), this was written 1871 or 1872.

HM 6427, f. 102

Love's Reward.

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

But when he came to the lily-close[,]
      Thereby so fair a maiden stood,
That neither the lily nor the rose
      Seemed any longer fair nor good.

“All hail, thou rose and lily-bough!
      What dost thou weeping here[,]
For the days of May are sweet enow[,]
       And the nights of May are dear?”

“Well may I weep and make my moan,
      Who am bond and captive here;
Well may I weep who lie alone,
      Though May be waxen dear[.]”

“And is there none shall ransom thee,
      Mayst thou no borrow find?”
“Nay, what man may my borrow be[,]
      When all my wealth is left behind."

“Perchance some ring is left with thee,
      Some belt that did thy body bind?”
“Nay[,] no man may my borrow be,
      My rings and belt are left behind.”

“The shoes that the May-blooms kissed on thee
      Might yet be things to some men’s mind.”
[f. 103] “Nay[,] no man may my borrow be[,]
      My golden shoes are left behind.”

“The milk-white sark that covered thee
      A dear-bought token some should find.”
“Nay[,] no man may my borrow be[,]
      My silken sark is left behind.”

“The kiss of thy mouth and the love of thee
      Better than world’s wealth should I find.”
“Nay[,] thou mayst not my borrow be[,]
      For all my love is left behind."

“A year agone come Midsummer-night
      I woke by the Northern sea;
I lay and dreamed of my delight
      Till love no more would let me be.

“Seaward I went by night and cloud
       To hear the white swans sing;
But though they sang both clear and loud[,]
      I hearkened a sweeter thing.

“O sweet and sweet as none may tell
      Was the speech so close twixt lip and lip:
But fast, unseen[,] the black oars fell
      That drave to shore the rover’s ship.

“My love lay bloody on the strand
      Ere stars were waxen wan:
Naught lacketh graves the Northern land
      If today it lack a lovelier man.

“I sat and wept beside the mast
      [f. 104] When the stars were gone away.
Naught lacketh the Northland joy gone past
      If it lack the night and day.”

“Is there no place in any land
      Where thou wouldst rather be than here?”
“Yea, a lone grave on a cold sea-strand
      My heart for a little holdeth dear.”

“Of all the deeds that women do
      Is there none shall bring thee some delight?”
“To lie down and die where lay we two
      Upon Midsummer night.”

“I will bring thee there where thou wouldst be[,]
       A borrow shalt thou find.”
“Wherewith shall I reward it thee
      For wealth and good-hap left behind?”

“A kiss from lips that love not me,
      A goodnight somewhat kind;
A narrow house to share with thee
      When we leave the world behind.”

They have taken ship and sailed away
      Across the Southland main;
They have sailed by hills were green and gay,
      A land of goods and gain.

[f. 105] They have sailed by sea-cliffs stark and white
      And hillsides fair enow;
They have sailed by lands of little night
      Where great the groves did grow.

They have sailed by islands in the sea
      That the clouds lay thick about;
And into a main where few ships be
      Amidst of dread, and doubt.

With broken mast and battered side
      They drave amidst the tempest[’]s heart;
But why should death to these betide
      Whom love did hold so well apart?

The flood it drave them toward the strand,
      The ebb it drew them fro;
The swallowing seas that tore the land
      Cast them ashore and let them go.

“Is this the land[?] is this the land
      Where life and I must part a-twain?”
“Yea, this is e’en the sea-washed strand
      That made me yoke-fellow of pain.

“The strand is this[,] the sea is this,
      The grey bent and the mountains grey;
But no mound here his grave-mound is[;]
      Where have they borne my love away?”

“What man is this with shield and spear
      Comes riding down the bent to us?
A goodly man forsooth he were
      But for his visage piteous.”

[f. 106] “Ghost of my love so kind of yore[,]
      Art thou not somewhat gladder grown
To feel my feet upon this shore?
      O love, thou shalt not long be lone.”

“Ghost of my love, each day I come
      To see where God first wrought us wrong:
Now kind thou com’st to call me home,
      Be sure I shall not tarry long.”

“Come here, my love; come here for rest,
      So sore as my body longs for thee!
My heart shall beat against thy breast
      As arms of thine shall comfort me.”

“Love, let thy lips depart no more
      From those same eyes they once did kiss,
The very bosom wounded sore
      When sorrow clave the heart of bliss!”

O was it day, or was it night[,]
      As there they told their love again?
The high-tide of the sun’s delight[,]
      Or whirl of wind and drift of rain?

“Speak[,] sweet my love[,] of how it fell[,]
      And how thou cam’st across the sea,
And what kind heart hath served thee well,
      And who thy borrow there might be?”

Naught but the wind and sea made moan
      As hastily she turned her round;
From light clouds wept the morn alone[,]
      Not the dead corpse upon the ground.

[f. 107] “O look[,] my love, for here is he
      Who once of all the world was kind,
And led my sad heart o’er the sea!
      And now must he be left behind.”

She kissed his lips that yet did smile,
      She kissed his eyes that were not sad:
“O thou who sorrow didst beguile,
      And now wouldst have me wholly glad!

“A little gift is this,” she said,
       “Thou once hadst deemed great gift enow;
Yet surely shalt thou rest thine head
      Where I one day shall lie alow.

“There shalt thou wake to think of me,
      And by thy face my face shall find--, [earlier; not crossed out]
And I shall then thy borrow be
      When all the world is left behind.”
                  Kelmscott April 21st 1871

CW, IX, [pp. 164-68]

LOVE’S REWARD.

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

But when he came to the lily-close,
Thereby so fair a maiden stood,
That neither the lily nor the rose
Seemed any longer fair nor good.

“All hail, thou rose and lily-bough!
What dost thou weeping here,
For the days of May are sweet enow,
And the nights of May are dear?”

“Well may I weep and make my moan,
Who am bond and captive here;
Well may I weep who lie alone,
Though May be waxen dear.”

“And is there none shall ransom thee;
Mayst thou no borrow find?”
“Nay, what man may my borrow be,
When all my wealth is left behind?

“Perchance some ring is left with thee,
Some belt that did thy body bind?”
“Nay, no man may my borrow be,
My rings and belt are left behind.”

“The shoes that the May-blooms kissed on thee
Might yet be things to some men’s mind.”
“Nay, no man may my borrow be,
My golden shoes are left behind.”

[p. 165] “The milk-white sark that covered thee
A dear-bought token some should find.”
“Nay, no man may my borrow be,
My silken sark is left behind.”

“The kiss of thy mouth and the love of thee
Better than world’s wealth should I find.”
“Nay, thou mayst not my borrow be,
For all my love is left behind.

“A year agone come Midsummer-night
I woke by the Northern sea;
I lay and dreamed of my delight
Till love no more would let me be.

“Seaward I went by night and cloud
To hear the white swans sing;
But though they sang both clear and loud,
I hearkened a sweeter thing.

“O sweet and sweet as none may tell
Was the speech so close ’twixt lip and lip:
But fast, unseen, the black oars fell
That drave to shore the rover’s ship.

“My love lay bloody on the strand
Ere stars were waxen wan:
Naught lacketh graves the Northern land
If to-day it lack a lovelier man.

“I sat and wept beside the mast
When the stars were gone away.
Naught lacketh the Northland joy gone past
If it lack the night and day.”

[p. 166] “Is there no place in any land
Where thou wouldst rather be than here?”
“Yea, a lone grave on a cold sea-strand
My heart for a little holdeth dear.”

“Of all the deeds that women do
Is there none shall bring thee some delight?”
“To lie down and die where lay we two
Upon Midsummer night.”

“I will bring thee there where thou wouldst be,
A borrow shalt thou find.”
“Wherewith shall I reward it thee
For wealth and good-hap left behind?”

“A kiss from lips that love not me,
A good-night somewhat kind;
A narrow house to share with thee
When we leave the world behind.”

They have taken ship and sailed away
Across the Southland main;
They have sailed by hills were green and gay,
A land of goods and gain.

They have sailed by sea-cliffs stark and white
And hillsides fair enow;
They have sailed by lands of little night
Where great the groves did grow.

They have sailed by islands in the sea
That the clouds lay thick about;
And into a main where few ships be
Amidst of dread, and doubt.

With broken mast and battered side
They drave amidst the tempest’s heart;
But why should death to these betide
Whom love did hold so well apart?

[p. 167] The flood it drave them toward the strand,
The ebb it drew them fro;
The swallowing seas that tore the land
Cast them ashore and let them go.

“Is this the land? is this the land,
Where life and I must part a-twain?”
“Yea, this is e’en the sea-washed strand
That made me yoke-fellow of pain.

“The strand is this, the sea is this,
The grey bent and the mountains grey;
But no mound here his grave-mound is;
Where have they borne my love away?”

“What man is this with shield and spear
Comes riding down the bent to us?
A goodly man forsooth he were
But for his visage piteous.”

“Ghost of my love, so kind of yore,
Art thou not somewhat gladder grown
To feel my feet upon this shore?
O love, thou shalt not long be lone.”

“Ghost of my love, each day I come
To see where God first wrought us wrong:
Now kind thou com’st to call me home,
Be sure I shall not tarry long.”

“Come here, my love; come here for rest,
So sore as my body longs for thee!
My heart shall beat against thy breast
As arms of thine shall comfort me.”

“Love, let thy lips depart no more
From those same eyes they once did kiss,
The very bosom wounded sore
When sorrow clave the heart of bliss!”

[p. 168] O was it day, or was it night,
As there they told their love again?
The high-tide of the sun’s delight,
Or whirl of wind and drift of rain?

“Speak sweet, my love, of how it fell,
And how thou cam’st across the sea,
And what kind heart hath served thee well,
And who thy borrow there might be?”

Naught but the wind and sea made moan
As hastily she turned her round;
From light clouds wept the morn alone,
Not the dead corpse upon the ground.

“O look, my love, for here is he
Who once of all the world was kind,
And led my sad heart o’er the sea!
And now must he be left behind.”

She kissed his lips that yet did smile,
She kissed his eyes that were not sad:
“O thou who sorrow didst beguile,
And now wouldst have me wholly glad!

“A little gift is this,” she said,
“Thou once hadst deemed great gift enow;
Yet surely shalt thou rest thine head
Where I one day shall lie alow.

“There shalt thou wake to think of me,
And by thy face my face shall find;
And I shall then thy borrow be
When all the world is left behind.”

C-35. “Verses for Pictures: The Seasons: Day. Spring. Summer. Autumn. Winter. Night )” (Day. I am Day; I bring again / Life and glory, Love and pain:)

Published Academy, February 1, 1871 (with variant stanza for winter, and change in autumn passage as well). Included in Poems By the Way, CW, IX, in “Verses for Pictures,” 189. Society of Antiquaries, Soc. of A. MS. 984/6 contains a draft for all four seasons, in calligraphic script with initials not yet inserted.

Spring am I too swift of heart

Much to speak ere I depart
Ask the summer tide to prove
The abundance of my love.

Summer looked for long am I,
Such shall change or e're I die,
Prithee take it not amiss
Though I weary them with bliss.

Laden Autumn here I stand,
Worn of heart and weak of hand:
Say the word that sets me free,
Nought but rest seem good to me.

Ah shall Winter mend your case?
Set your teeth the wind to face,
Beat the snow, tread down the frost:
All is gained now all is lost.

HM 6427, ff. 127-28

Morris's autograph on white ruled paper; and 36920, A. MS., 1 verse for winter, “I am Winter that doth keep.”

May Morris reproduces the Academy version:

Ah! Shall winter mend your case?
Set your teeth the wind to face;
Beat the snow, tred down the frost!
All is gained when all is lost.

A single stanza also appears in HM 36920.

HM 36920
Morris autograph in ink on white paper
I am Winter that doth keep
Longing safe amidst of sleep:
Who shall say if I were dead
What should be remembered?

[possibly written out for someone who asked for a copy of his handwriting]

HM 6427, ff. 127-28

[f. 127]

Verses for Pictures [red marked in pencil by each section]

            Day
I am Day; I bring again
Life and glory, Love and pain:
Awake, arise! – from death to death.
Through me the World’s tale quickeneth[.]

            Spring
Spring am I too soft of heart
Much to speak ere I depart:
Ask the Summer-tide to prove
The abundance of my love.

            Summer
Summer looked for long am I,
Much shall change or e’er I die.
Prithee take it not amiss
Though I weary thee with bliss.

            Autumn
Laden Autumn here I stand
Worn of heart, and weak of hand:
Nought but rest seems good to me,
Speak the word that sets me free.

            Winter
I am Winter, that do keep
Longing safe amidst of sleep:
Who shall say if I were dead
What should be remembered?

            Night
I am Night: I bring again
Hope of pleasure, rest from pain:
Thoughts unsaid ’twixt Life & Death
My fruitful silence quickeneth.

F. 128, a fair copy but without the title “Verses for Pictures,” seems an earlier copy than f. 127 because of the heavy corrections on “Night”; in the f. 128 Night, “My fruitful silence quickeneth” was corrected to “Sometimes my silence quickeneth,” and in f. 127 “Sometimes my silence quickeneth” is written out and corrected to “My fruitful silence quickeneth.”

  [f.128]

               Day
I am Day: I bring again
Life and Glory, Love and Pain.
Awake, arise! – from death to death
Still Through me the World’s tale quickeneth.

            Spring
Spring am I too soft of heart
Much to speak ere I depart:
Ask the summer-tide to prove
The abundance of my love!

            Summer
Summer looked for long am I[,]
Much shall change or e[’]er I die:
Prithee take it not amiss
Though I weary thee with bliss[-]-

            Autumn
Laden Autumn here I stand
Worn of heart, and weak of hand;
Nought but rest seems good to me[--]
Speak the word that sets me free!

            Winter
I am Winter, that doth keep
Longing safe amidst of sleep:
Who shall say if I were dead
What should be remembered?

            Night
I am Night, I bring again
Hope of pleasure[,] rest from pain[.]
Thoughts unsaid, ’twixt Life and Death
Sometimes my silence quickeneth[.]

[ In "Day," Still the World’s tale quickeneth. changed to Through me the World’s tale quickeneth. Night is also heavily corrected; Some times my silence quickeneth becomes
My fruitful silence quickeneth.]

Book of Verse, 1870

[p. 40]

SPRING am I, too soft of heart
Much to speak ere I depart
Ask the summer-tide to prove
The abundance of my love.

SUMMER looked for long am I
Much shall change or ere I die
Pritee take it not amiss
Though I weary thee with bliss!

Laden AUTUMN here I stand
Weak of heart and worn of hand;
Speak the word that sets me fre,
Nought but rest seems good to me

Ah, shall WINTER mend your case?
Set your teeth the wind to face,
Beat the snow down, tread the frost,
All is gained when all is lost.

C-36.“Echoes of Love’s House” (Love gives every gift whereby we long to live / Love takes every gift, and nothing back doth give)

Published Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 103. HM 6427, f. 55v, unfinished draft; f. 23, Morris autograph fair copy dated March 10, 1873.

HM 6427, f. 23

Echoes of Love's House.

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:
“Love locks up the lips whence all things good might come.”

Love makes clear the eyes that else would never see:
“Love makes blind the eyes to all but me and thee[.]”

Love turns life to joy till nought is left to gain:
“Love turns life to woe till hope is nought and vain[.]”

Love, who changest all[,] change me nevermore!
“Love, who changest all, change my sorrow sore!”

Love burns up the world to changeless heaven and blest,
“Love burns up the world to a void of all unrest[.]”

And there we twain are left, and no more work we need:
“And I am left alone--and who my work shall heed?”

Ah! I praise thee, Love, for utter joyance won!
“And is my praise nought worth for all my life undone?”

                      WM March 10th 1873

HM 6427, f. 55

Love gives every gift whereby we long to live[;]
Love take[s] every gift, and nothing back doth give[.]
Love unlocks the lips that else were ever dumb[:]
Love locks up the lips whence all things good might come[.]
Love makes clear the eyes that else would never see[:]
Love makes blind the eyes to all but me & thee[.]
Love turns life to joy till nought is left to gain[:]
Love turns life to woe that hope is nought & vain.
Love, who changest all[,] change me nevermore!
Love[,] who changest all[,] change my sorrow sore[!]
Love burns up the world to changeless heaven and blest[,]
Love burns up the world to [a] void of all unrest[.]
And there we twain are left [and] no more work we need[:]
And I am left alone, and who my work shall heed[?]
Ah! I praise thee much for utter joyance won[!]
I praise thee more for all my life undone. [omission, check]

WM March 10th 1873

CW, IX, 103.

ECHOES OF LOVE’S HOUSE.

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:
“Love locks up the lips whence all things good might come.”

Love makes clear the eyes that else would never see:
“Love makes blind the eyes to all but me and thee.”

Love turns life to joy till nought is left to gain:
“Love turns life to woe till hope is nought and vain.”

Love, who changest all, change me nevermore!
“Love, who changest all, change my sorrow sore!”

Love burns up the world to changeless heaven and blest,
“Love burns up the world to a void of all unrest.”

And there we twain are left, and no more work we need:
“And I am left alone, and who my work shall heed?”

Ah! I praise thee, Love, for utter joyance won!
“And is my praise nought worth for all my life undone?”

C-37. “Of the Wooing of Hallbiorn the Strong” (A story from the Land-Settling Book of Iceland, Chapter XXX. At Deildar-Tongue in the autumn-tide, / So many times comes summer again,)

Published Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 95-102. HM 6427, ff. 8-19, fair copy; ff. 20-22, partial draft. According to May Morris, the Northern poems of Poems By the Way were all written in the early 70’s. See also List of Morris' Translations, no. 1.

HM6427, f. 8

The Wooing of Hallbiorn the Strong.

A Story from the Land-Settling Book of Iceland, Chapter XXX.

At Deildar-Tongue in the autumn-tide[,]
         So many times over comes summer again,
Stood Odd of Tongue his door beside[.]
         What healing in summer if winter be vain?

Dim and dusk the day was grown[,]
As he heard his folded wethers moan[.]

Then through the garth a man drew near[,]
With painted shield and gold-wrought spear[.]

Good was his horse and grand his gear,
And his girths were wet with Whitewater.

“Hail[,] Master Odd, live blithe and long!
How fare the folk at Deildar-Tongue?”

“All hail[,] thou Hallbiorn the Strong!
How fare the folk by the Brothers’-Tongue?”

“Meat have we there, and drink and fire[,]
Nor lack all things that we desire.

But by the other Whitewater
Of Hallgerd many a tale we hear.”

“Tales enow may my daughter make
If too many words be said for her sake.”

“What saith thine heart to a word of mine,
That I deem thy daughter fair and fine?

[f. 9] Fair and fine for a bride is she,
And I fain would have her home with me.”

“Full many a word that at noon goes forth
Comes home at even little worth.

Now winter treadeth on autumn[-]tide,
So here till the spring shalt thou abide.

Then if thy mind be changed no whit,
And ye still will wed, see ye to it!

And on the first of summer days,
A wedded man, ye may go your ways.

Yet look, howso the thing will fall[,]
My hand shall meddle nought at all.

Lo[,] now the night and rain draweth up[,]
And within doors glimmer stoop & cup.

And hark[,] a little sound I know[,]
The laugh of Snaebiorn’s fiddle-bow.

My sister’s son, and a craftsman good[,]
When the red rain drives through the iron wood.”

Hallbiorn laughed, and followed in[,]
And a merry feast there did begin.

Hallgerd’s hands undid his weed,
Hallgerd’s hands poured out the mead.

Her fingers at his breast he felt[,]
[f. 10] As her hair fell down about his belt.

Her fingers with the cup he took[,]
And o’er its rim at her did look.

Cold cup[,] warm hand, and fingers slim[,]
Before his eyes were waxen dim.

And if the feast were foul or fair[,]
He knew not, save that she was there[.]

He knew not if men laughed or wept[,]
While still [’]twixt wall and dais she stept.

Whether she went or stood that eve[,]
Not once his eyes her face did leave.

But Snaebiorn laughed and Snaebiorn sang,
And sweet his smitten fiddle rang.

And Hallgerd stood beside him there,
              So many times over comes summer again,
Nor ever once he turned to her,
              What healing in summer if winter be vain?

Master Odd on the morrow spake,
              So many times over comes summer again[.]
Hearken[,] O guest[,] if ye be awake!”
              What healing in summer if winter be vain?

“Sure ye champions of the South
Speak many things from a silent mouth.

[f. 11] And thine[,] meseems[,] last night did pray
That ye might well be wed today.

The year’s ingathering feast it is[,]
A goodly day to give thee bliss.

Come hither, daughter, fine and fair,
Here is a wooer from Whitewater.

East away hath he gotten fame,
And his father’s name is e’en my name.

Will ye lay hand within his hand[,]
That blossoming fair our house may stand?”

She laid her hand within his hand[;]
White she was as the lily-wand.

Low sang Snaebiorn[’]s brand in its sheath[,]
And his lips were waxen grey as death.

“Snaebiorn, sing us a song of worth,
If your song must be silent from now henceforth.”

Clear and loud his voice outrang[,]
And a song of worth at the wedding he sang.

“Sharp sword,” he sang, “and death is sure[.]”
              So many times over comes summer again[,]
“But love doth over all endure.”
              What healing in summer if winter be vain?

[f. 12] Now winter cometh and weareth away,
              So many times over comes summer again.
And glad is Hallbiorn many a day.
              What healing in summer if winter be vain?

Full soft he lay his love beside[;]
But dark are the days of wintertide.

Dark are the days, and the nights are long,
And sweet and fair was Snaebiorn’s song.

Many a time he talked with her[,]
Till they deemed the summer-tide was there.

And they forgat the wind-swept ways
And angry fords of the flitting-days.

While the north wind swept the hillside there
They forgat the other Whitewater[.]

While nights at Deildar-Tongue were long,
They clean forgat the Brothers-Tongue[.]

But whatso falleth [’]twixt Hell and Home,
              So many times over comes summer again,
Full surely again shall summer come.
              What healing in summer if winter be vain?

To Odd spake Hallbiorn on a day
              So many times over comes summer again,
“Gone is the snow from every way.[”]
              What healing in summer if winter be vain?

[f. 13] "Now green is grown Whitewater-side[,]
And I to Whitewater will ride.”

Quoth Odd, “Well fare thou winter-guest,
May thine own Whitewater be best.

Well is a man’s purse better at home
Than open where all folk go and come.”

“Come ye carles of the South Country,
Now shall we go our kin to see!

For the lambs are bleating in the South[,]
And the salmon swims towards Olfus mouth.

Girth and graithe and gather your gear!
And ho for the other Whitewater!”

Bright was the morn as bright might be[,]
And Snaebiorn rode to the North Country.

And Odd to Reykholt is gone forth
To see if his mares be ought of worth.

But Hallbiorn into the bower is gone
And there sat Hallgerd all alone.

She was not dight to go nor ride
She had no joy of the summer-tide[.]

Silent she sat and combed her hair[,]
That fell all round about her there.

The slant beam lay upon her head[,]
[f. 14] And gilt her golden locks to red.

He gazed at her with hungry eyes
And fluttering did his heart arise.

“Full hot,” he said, “is the sun to-day[,]
And the snow is gone from the mountain-way.

The king-cup grows above the grass,
And through the wood do the thrushes pass.”

Of all his words she hearkened none[,]
But combed her hair amidst the sun.

“The laden beasts stand in the garth
And their heads are turned to Helliskarth.”

The sun was falling on her knee,
And she combed her gold hair silently.

“To-morrow great will be the cheer
At the Brothers[-]Tongue by Whitewater[.]”

From her folded lap the sunbeam slid[;]
She combed her hair[,] and the word she hid.

“Come, love; is the way so long and drear
From Whitewater to Whitewater?”

The sunbeam lay upon the floor[;]
She combed her hair and spake no more[.]

He drew her by the lily hand:
“I love thee better than all the land.”

[f. 15] He drew her by the shoulders sweet:
“My threshold is but for thy feet.”

He drew her by the yellow hair:
“O why wert thou so deadly fair?

“O am I wedded to death?” he cried[,]
“Is the Dead-strand come to Whitewater side?”

And the sun was fading from the room[,]
But her eyes were bright in the change and the gloom.

“Sharp sword,” she sang, “and death is sure,
But over all doth love endure.”

She stood up shining in her place
And laughed beneath his deadly face.

Instead of the sunbeam gleamed a brand[,]
The hilts were hard in Hallbiorn’s hand:

The bitter point was in Hallgerd[’]s breast
That Snaebiorn’s lips of love had pressed.

Morn and noon, and nones passed o[’]er[,]
And the sun is far from the bower door.

To-morrow morn shall the sun come back[,]
              So many times over comes summer again[,]
But Hallgerd’s feet the floor shall lack.
              What healing in summer if winter be vain?

[f. 16] Now Hallbiorn’s house-carles ride full fast,
              So many times over comes summer again[,]
Till many a mile of way is past[.]
              What healing in summer if winter be vain?

But when they came over Oxridges,
’Twas, “Where shall we give our horses ease?”

When Shieldbroad-side was well in sight[,]
’Twas, “Where shall we lay our heads to-night[?]”

Hallbiorn turned and raised his head;
“Under the stones of the Waste,” he said.

Quoth one, “The clatter of hoofs anigh.”
Quoth the other, “Spears against the sky!”

“Hither ride men from the Wells apace;
Spur we fast to a kindlier place.”

Down from his horse leapt Hallbiorn straight;
“Why should the supper of Odin wait?

Weary and chased I will not come
To the table of my fathers’ home.”

With that came Snaebiorn, who but he,
And twelve in all was his company.

Snaebiorn[’]s folk were on their feet[;]
He spake no word as they did meet.

They fought upon the northern hill:
Five are the howes men see there still.

[f. 17] Three men of Snaebiorn[’]s fell to earth
And Hallbiorn’s twain that were of worth.

And never a word did Snaebiorn say[,]
Till Hallbiorn’s foot he smote away.

Then Hallbiorn cried: “Come, fellow of mine[,]
To the southern bent where the sun doth shine.”

Tottering into the sun he went[,]
And slew two more upon the bent.

And on the bent where dead he lay
Three howes do men behold today.

And never a word spake Snaebiorn yet[,]
Till in his saddle he was set.

Nor was there any heard his voice[,]
        So many times over comes summer again[,]
Till he came to his ship in Grimsar-oyce[.]
        What healing in summer if winter be vain[?]

On so fair a day they hoisted sail,
              So many times over comes summer again[,]

And for Norway well did the wind avail.
              What healing in summer if winter be vain?

But Snaebiorn looked aloft and said:
“I see in the sail a stripe of red:

Murder meseems is the name of it
And ugly things about it flit.

[f. 18] A stripe of blue in the sail I see;
Cold death of men it seems to me.

And next I see a stripe of black[,]
For a life fulfilled of bitter lack.”

Quoth one, “So fair a wind doth blow
That we shall see Norway soon enow.”

“Be blithe[,] O shipmate,” Snaebiorn said,
“Tell Hacon the Earl that I be dead.”

About the midst of the Iceland main
Round veered the wind to the east again.

And west they drave, and long they ran
Till they saw a land was white and wan.

“Yea,” Snaebiorn said, “my home it is,
Ye bear a man shall have no bliss.

Far off beside the Greekish sea
The maidens pluck the grapes in glee.

Green groweth the wheat in the English [land]
And the honey[-]bee flieth on every hand.

In Norway by the cheaping town
The laden beasts go up and down.

In Iceland many a mead they mow
And Hallgerd[’]s grave grows green enow.

But these are Gunnbiorn’s skerries wan
[f. 19] Meet harbour for a hapless man.

In all lands else is love alive[,]
But here is nought with grief to strive.

Fail not for a while[,] O eastern wind[,]
For nought but grief is left behind.

And here before [me] a rest I know,
          So many times over comes summer again[,]
A grave beneath the Greenland snow.”
         What healing in summer if winter be vain[?]

HM 6427, ff. 20-22 [correct]

OF THE WOOING OF HALLBIORN THE STRONG.

A STORY FROM THE LAND-SETTLING BOOK OF ICELAND, CHAPTER XXX.

[f. 20] At Deildar-Tongue in the autumn-tide,
So many times over comes summer again,
Stood Odd of Tongue his door beside.
What healing in summer if winter be vain?

Dim and dusk the day was grown,
As he heard his folded wethers moan[.]

Then through the garth a man drew near,
With painted shield and gold-wrought spear.

Good was his horse and grand his gear,
And his girths were wet with Whitewater.

“Hail[,] Master Odd, live blithe and long!
How fare the folk at Deildar-Tongue?”

“All hail, thou Hallbiorn the Strong!
How fare the folk by the Brothers’-Tongue?”

“Meat have we there, and drink and fire,
Nor lack all things that we desire.

But by the other Whitewater
Of Hallgerd many a tale we hear.”

“Tales enow may my daughter make
If too many words be said for her sake.”

“What saith thine heart to a word of mine,
That I deem thy daughter fair and fine?

Fair and fine for a bride is she,
And I fain would have her home with me.”

“Full many a word that at noon goes forth
Comes home at even little worth.

Now winter treadeth on autumn[-]tide,
So here till the spring shalt thou abide.

Then if thy mind be changed no whit,
And ye still will wed, see ye to it!

And on the first of summer days,
A wedded man, ye may go your ways.

Yet look, howso the thing will fall[,]
My hand shall meddle nought at all.

Lo[,] now the night and rain draweth up[,]
And within doors glimmer stoop & cup.

And hark[,] a little sound I know[,]
The laugh of Snaebiorn’s fiddle-bow.

My sister’s son, and a craftsman good[,]
When the red rain drives through the iron wood.”

Hallbiorn laughed, and followed in[,]
And a merry feast there did begin.

Hallgerd’s hands undid his weed,
Hallgerd’s hands poured out the mead.

Her fingers at his breast he felt[,]
As her hair fell down about his belt.

Her fingers with the cup he took[,]
And o’er its rim at her did look.

Cold cup[,] warm hand, and fingers slim[,]
Before his eyes were waxen dim.

And if the feast were foul or fair[,]
He knew not, save that she was there[.]

He knew not if men laughed or wept[,]
While still [’]twixt wall and dais she stept.

Whether she went or stood that eve[,]
Not once his eyes her face did leave.

But Snaebiorn laughed and Snaebiorn sang,
And sweet his smitten fiddle rang.

And Hallgerd stood beside him there,
      So many times over comes summer again,
Nor ever once he turned to her[,]
      What healing in summer if winter be vain?

Master Odd on the morrow spake,
      So many times over comes summer again[.]
Hearken[,] O guest[,] if ye be awake!”
      What healing in summer if winter be vain?

“Sure ye champions of the South
Speak many things from a silent mouth.

And thine[,] meseems[,] last night did pray
That ye might well be wed today.

The year’s ingathering feast it is[,]
A goodly day to give thee bliss.

Come hither, daughter, fine and fair,
Here is a wooer from Whitewater.

East away hath he gotten fame,
And his father’s name is e’en my name.

Will ye lay hand within his hand[,]
That blossoming fair our house may stand?”

She laid her hand within his hand[;]
White she was as the lily-wand.

Low sang Snaebiorn[’]s brand in its sheath[,]
And his lips were waxen grey as death.

“Snaebiorn, sing us a song of worth,
If your song must be silent from now henceforth.”

Clear and loud his voice outrang[,]
And a song of worth at the wedding he sang.

“Sharp sword,” he sang, “and death is sure[.]”
      So many times over comes summer again[,]
“But love doth over all endure.”
      What healing in summer if winter be vain?

Now winter cometh and weareth away,
      So many times over comes summer again.
And glad is Hallbiorn many a day.
      What healing in summer if winter be vain?

Full soft he lay his love beside[;]
But dark are the days of wintertide.

Dark are the days, and the nights are long,
And sweet and fair was Snaebiorn’s song.

Many a time he talked with her[,]
Till they deemed the summer-tide was there.

And they forgat the wind-swept ways
And angry fords of the flitting-days.

While the north wind swept the hillside there
They forgat the other Whitewater[.]

While nights at Deildar-Tongue were long,
They clean forgat the Brothers-Tongue[.]

But whatso falleth ’twixt Hell and Home,
      So many times over comes summer again,
Full surely again shall summer come.
      What healing in summer if winter be vain?

To Odd spake Hallbiorn on a day
      So many times over comes summer again,
[“]Gone is the snow from every way.[”]
      What healing in summer if winter be vain?

"Now green is grown Whitewater-side[,]
And I to Whitewater will ride.”

Quoth Odd, “Well fare thou winter-guest,
May thine own Whitewater be best.

Well is a man’s purse better at home
Than open where all folk go and come.”

“Come ye carles of the South Country,
Now shall we go our kin to see!

For the lambs are bleating in the South[,]
And the salmon swims towards Olfus-mouth.

Girth and graithe and gather your gear!
And ho for the other Whitewater!”

Bright was the morn as bright might be[,]
And Snaebiorn rode to the North Country.

And Odd to Reykholt is gone forth
To see if his mares be ought of worth.

But Hallbiorn into the bower is gone
And there sat Hallgerd all alone.

She was not dight to go nor ride
She had no joy of the summer-tide[.]

Silent she sat and combed her hair[,]
That fell all round about her there.

The slant beam lay upon her head[,]
And gilt her golden locks to red.

He gazed at her with hungry eyes
And fluttering did his heart arise.

“Full hot,” he said, “is the sun to-day[,]
And the snow is gone from the mountain-way.

The king-cup grows above the grass,
And through the wood do the thrushes pass.”

Of all his words she hearkened none[,]
But combed her hair amidst the sun.

“The laden beasts stand in the garth
And their heads are turned to Helliskarth.”

The sun was falling on her knee,
And she combed her gold hair silently.

“To-morrow great will be the cheer
At the Brothers[-]Tongue by Whitewater[.]”

From her folded lap the sunbeam slid[;]
She combed her hair[,] and the word she hid.

“Come, love; is the way so long and drear
From Whitewater to Whitewater?”

The sunbeam lay upon the floor[;]
She combed her hair, and spake no more[.]

He drew her by the lily hand:
“I love thee better than all the land.”

CW, IX, 95-102

OF THE WOOING OF HALLBIORN THE STRONG.

A STORY FROM THE LAND-SETTLING BOOK OF ICELAND, CHAPTER XXX.

At Deildar-Tongue in the autumn-tide,
So many times over comes summer again,
Stood Odd of Tongue his door beside.
What healing in summer if winter be vain?
Dim and dusk the day was grown,
As he heard his folded wethers moan.
Then through the garth a man drew near,
With painted shield and gold-wrought spear.
Good was his horse and grand his gear,
And his girths were wet with Whitewater.
“Hail, Master Odd, live blithe and long!
How fare the folk at Deildar-Tongue?”
“All hail, thou Hallbiorn the Strong!
How fare the folk by the Brothers’-Tongue?”
“Meat have we there, and drink and fire,
Nor lack all things that we desire.
But by the other Whitewater
Of Hallgerd many a tale we hear.”
“Tales enow may my daughter make
If too many words be said for her sake.”
“What saith thine heart to a word of mine,
That I deem thy daughter fair and fine?
Fair and fine for a bride is she,
And I fain would have her home with me.”
“Full many a word that at noon goes forth
Comes home at even little worth.
Now winter treadeth on autumn-tide,
So here till the spring shalt thou abide.
Then if thy mind be changed no whit,
And ye still will wed, see ye to it!
And on the first of summer days,
[p. 96] A wedded man, ye may go your ways.
Yet look, howso the thing will fall,
My hand shall meddle nought at all.
Lo, now the night and rain draweth up,
And within doors glimmer stoop and cup.
And hark, a little sound I know,
The laugh of Snaebiorn’s fiddle-bow,
My sister’s son, and a craftsman good,
When the red rain drives through the iron wood.”
Hallbiorn laughed, and followed in,
And a merry feast there did begin.
Hallgerd’s hands undid his weed,
Hallgerd’s hands poured out the mead.
Her fingers at his breast he felt,
As her hair fell down about his belt.
Her fingers with the cup he took,
And o’er its rim at her did look.
Cold cup, warm hand, and fingers slim,
Before his eyes were waxen dim.
And if the feast were foul or fair,
He knew not, save that she was there.
He knew not if men laughed or wept,
While still ’twixt wall and dais she stept.
Whether she went or stood that eve,
Not once his eyes her face did leave.
But Snaebiorn laughed and Snaebiorn sang,
And sweet his smitten fiddle rang.
And Hallgerd stood beside him there,
So many times over comes summer again,
Nor ever once he turned to her,
What healing in summer if winter be vain?

Master Odd on the morrow spake,
So many times over comes summer again.
Hearken, O guest, if ye be awake,”
What healing in summer if winter be vain?
“Sure ye champions of the south
[p. 97] Speak many things from a silent mouth.
And thine, meseems, last night did pray
That ye might well be wed to-day.
The year’s ingathering feast it is,
A goodly day to give thee bliss.
Come hither, daughter, fine and fair,
Here is a Wooer from Whitewater.
East away hath he gotten fame,
And his father’s name is e’en my names.
Will ye lay hand within his hand,
That blossoming fair our house may stand?”
She laid her hand within his hand;
White she was as the lily wand.
Low sang Snaebiorn’s brand in its sheath,
And his lips were waxen grey as death.
“Snaebiorn, sing us a song of worth,
If your song must be silent from now henceforth.”
Clear and loud his voice outrang,
And a song of worth at the wedding he sang.
“Sharp sword,” he sang, “and death is sure.”
So many times over comes summer again,
“But love doth over all endure.”
What healing in summer if winter be vain?

Now winter cometh and weareth away,
So many times over comes summer again,
And glad is Hallbiorn many a day.
What healing in summer if winter be vain?
Full soft he lay his love beside;
But dark are the days of wintertide.
Dark are the days, and the nights are long,
And sweet and fair was Snaebiorn’s song.
Many a time he talked with her,
Till they deemed the summer-tide was there.
And they forgat the wind-swept ways
And angry fords of the flitting-days.
While the north wind swept the hillside there
[p. 98] They forgat the other Whitewater.
While nights at Deildar-Tongue were long,
They clean forgat the Brothers’-Tongue.
But whatso falleth ’twixt Hell and Home,
So many times over comes summer again,
Full surely again shall summer come.
What healing in summer if winter be vain?

To Odd spake Hallbiorn on a day
So many times over comes summer again,
“Gone is the snow from everyway.”
What healing in summer if winter be vain?
Now green is grown Whitewater-side,
And I to Whitewater will ride.”
Quoth Odd, “Well fare thou winter-guest,
May thine own Whitewater be best.
Well is a man’s purse better at home
Than open where folk go and come.”
“Come ye carles of the south country,
Now shall we go our kin to see!
For the lambs are bleating in the south,
And the salmon swims towards Olfus mouth.
Girth and graithe and gather your gear!
And ho for the other Whitewater!”
Bright was the moon as bright might be,
And Snaebiorn rode to the north country.
And Odd to Reykholt is gone forth,
To see if his mares be ought of worth.
But Hallbiorn into the bower is gone
And there sat Hallgerd all alone.
She was not dight to go nor ride
She had no joy of the summer-tide.
Silent she sat and combed her hair,
That fell all round about her there.
The slant beam lay upon her head,
And gilt her golden locks to red.
He gazed at her with hungry eyes
[p. 99] And fluttering did his heart arise.
“Full hot,” he said, “is the sun to-day,
And the snow is gone from the mountain-way.
The king-cup grows above the grass,
And through the wood do the thrushes pass.”
Of all his words she hearkened none,
But combed her hair amidst the sun.
“The laden beasts stand in the garth
And their heads are turned to Helliskarth.”
The sun was falling on her knee,
And she combed her gold hair silently.
“To-morrow great will be the cheer
At the Brothers’-Tongue by Whitewater.”
From her folded lap the sunbeam slid;
She combed her hair, and the word she hid.
“Come, love; is the way so long and drear
From Whitewater to Whitewater?”
The sunbeam lay upon the floor;
She combed her hair and spake no more.
He drew her by the lily hand:
“I love thee better than all the land.”
He drew her by the shoulders sweet:
“My threshold is but for thy feet.”
He drew her by the yellow hair:
“O why wert thou so deadly fair?
“O am I wedded to death?” he cried
“Is the Dead-strand come to Whitewater side?”
And the sun was fading from the room,
But her eyes were bright in the change and the gloom.
“Sharp sword,” she sang, “and death is sure,
But over all doth love endure.”
She stood up shining in her place
And laughed beneath his deadly face.
Instead of the sunbeam gleamed a brand,
The hilts were hard in Hallbiorn’s hand:
The bitter point was in Hallgerd’s breast
That Snaebiorn’s lips of love had pressed.
[p. 100] Morn and noon, and nones passed o’er,
And the sun is far from the bower door.
To-morrow morn shall the sun come back,
So many times over comes summer again,
But Hallgerd’s feet the floor shall lack.
What healing in summer if winter be vain?

Now Hallbiorn’s house-carles ride full fast,
So many times over comes summer again,
Till many a mile of way is past.
What healing in summer if winter be vain?
But when they came over Oxridges,
’Twas, “Where shall we give our horses ease?”
When Shieldbroad-side was well in sight,
’Twas, “Where shall we lay our heads to-night?”
Hallbiorn turned and raised his head;
“Under the stones of the waste,” he said.
Quoth one, “The clatter of hoofs anigh.”
Quoth the other, “Spears against the sky!”
“Hither ride men from the Wells apace;
Spur we fast to a kindlier place.”
Down from his horse leapt Hallbiorn straight:
“Why should the supper of Odin wait?
Weary and chased I will not come
To the table of my fathers’ home.”
With that came Snaebiorn, who but he,
And twelve in all was his company.
Snaebiorn’s folk were on their feet;
He spake no word as they did meet.
They fought upon the northern hill:
Five are the howes men see there still.
Three men of Snaebiorn’s fell to earth
And Hallbiorn’s twain that were of worth.
And never a word did Snaebiorn say,
Till Hallbiorn’s foot he smote away.
Then Hallbiorn cried: “Come, fellow of mine,
To the southern bent where the sun doth shine.”
[p. 101] Tottering into the sun he went,
And slew two more upon the bent.
And on the bent where dead he lay
Three howes do men behold to-day.
And never a word spake Snaebiorn yet,
Till in his saddle he was set.
Nor was there any heard his voice,
So many times over comes summer again,
Till he came to his ship in Grimsar-oyce.
What healing in summer if winter be vain?

On so fair a day they hoisted sail,
So many times over comes summer again,
And for Norway well did the wind avail.
What healing in summer if winter be vain?
But Snaebiorn looked aloft and said:
“I see in the sail a stripe of red:
Murder, meseems, is the name of it
And ugly things about it flit.
A stripe of blue in the sail I see:
Cold death of men it seems to me.
And next I see a stripe of black,
For a life fulfilled of bitter lack.”
Quoth one, “So fair a wind doth blow
That we shall see Norway soon enow.”
“Be blithe, O shipmate,” Snaebiorn said,
“Tell Hacon the Earl that I be dead.”
About the midst of the Iceland main
Round veered the wind to the east again.
And west they drave, and long they ran
Till they saw a land was white and wan.
“Yea,” Snaebiorn said, “my home it is,
Ye bear a man shall have no bliss.
Far off beside the Greekish sea
The maidens pluck the grapes in glee.
Green groweth the wheat in the English land
And the honey-bee flieth on every hand.
[p. 102] In Norway by the cheaping town
The laden beasts go up and down.
In Iceland many a mead they mow
And Hallgerd’s grave grows green enow.
But these are Gunnbiorn’s skerries wan
Meet harbour for a hapless man.
In all lands else is love alive,
But here is nought with grief to strive.
Fail not for a while, O eastern wind,
For nought but grief is left behind.
And before me here a rest I know,”
So many times over comes summer again,
“A grave beneath the Greenland snow,”
What healing in summer if winter be vain?

C-38. The King of Denmark’s Sons” (In Denmark gone is many a year; / So fair upriseth the rim of the sun,)

Published Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 140-45. HM 6427, ff. 66-72; Morris autograph. According to May Morris, the Northern poems in Poems By the Way were all written in the early 1870’s.

HM 6427, f. 66

The King of Denmark's Sons

In Denmark gone is many a year,

              So fair upriseth the rim of the sun,         (red)
Two sons of Gorm the King there were,
              So Grey is the sea when day is done.      (red)

Both these were gotten in lawful bed
Of Thyrre Denmark's Surety-head.

Fair was Knut of face and limb
As the breast of the Queen that suckled him.

But Harald was hot of hand and heart
As lips of lovers ere they part.

Knut sat at home in all men's love,
But over the seas must Harald rove.

And for every deed by Harald won,
Gorm laid more love on Knut alone.

On a high-tide spake the King in hall;
"Old I grow as the leaves that fall:

"Knut shall reign when I am dead,
So shall the land have peace and aid:

"But many a ship shall Harald have,
For I deem the sea well wrought for his grave."

Then none spake save the King again,
"If Knut die all my days be vain:

[f. 67] "And whoso the tale of his death shall tell,
Hath spoken a word to gain him hell.

"Lo here a doom I will not break,["]
               So fair upriseth the rim of the sun.       red
"For life or death or any man's sake.["]
               So grey is the sea when day is done.      red

O merry days in the summer-tide!
               So fair upriseth the rim of the sun.         red
When the ships sail fair and the young men ride.
               So grey is the sea when day is done.     (red)

Now Harald has got him east away,
And each morrow of fight was a gainful day[.]

But Knut is to his fosterer gone
To deal in deeds of peace alone.

So wear the days, and well it is
Such lovely lords should dwell in bliss.

O merry in the winter-tide
When men to Yule-feast wend them wide.

And here lieth Knut in the Lima-firth
When the lift is low o'er the Danish earth.

"Tell me now, Shipmaster mine,
What are yon torches there that shine?"

"Lord, no torches may these be
But golden prows across the sea:
[f.68]

"For over there the sun shines now
And the gold worms gape from every prow."

The sun and the wind came down o'er the sea--
"Tell them over how many they be!"

"Ten I tell with shield-hung sides,
Nought but a fool his death abides."

"Ten thou tellest, and we be three,
Good need that we do manfully.

"Good fellows[,] grip the shield and spear[,]
For Harald my brother draweth near.

"Well breakfast we when night is done,
And Valhall's cock crows up the sun."

Up spoke Harald in wrathful case:
"I would have word with this waxen face!

"What wilt thou pay, thou hucksterer,
That I let thee live another year?

"For oath that thou wilt never reign
Will I let thee live a year or twain."

"Kisses and love shalt thou have of me
If yet my liegeman thou wilt be.

"But stroke of sword, and dint of axe,
Or ere thou makest my face as wax."

As thick the arrows fell around
As fall sere leaves on autumn ground.
[f. 69]

In many a cheek the red did wane
No maid might ever kiss again.

"Lay me aboard," Lord Harald said,
"The winter day will soon be dead!

"Lay me aboard the bastard's ship,
And see to it lest your grapnels slip!"

Then some they knelt and some they drowned[,]
And some lay dead lord Knut around.

"Look here at the wax-white corpse of him,
As fair as the Queen in face and limb!

"Make now for the shore, for the moon is bright,
And I would be home ere the end of night.

"Two sons last night had Thyrre the Queen,"
          So fair upriseth the rim of the sun.           red
And both she may lack ere the woods wax green."
          So grey is the sea when day is done.

A little before the morning tide,
          So fair upriseth the rim of the sun,
Queen Thyrre looked out of her window-side,
          So grey is the sea when day is done.

"O men-at-arms, what men be ye?"
"Harald thy son come over the sea."

"Why is thy face so pale[,] my son?"
"It may be red or day is done."
[f. 70]

"O evil words of an evil hour!
Come, sweet son, to thy mother[']s bower!"

None from the Queen's bower went that day
Till dark night over the meadows lay.

None thenceforth heard wail or cry
Till the King's feast was waxen high.

Then into the hall Lord Harald came
When the great wax lights were all aflame.

"What tidings, son, dost thou bear to me?
Speak out before I drink with thee."

"Tidings small for a seafarer--
--Two falcons in the sea-cliff's were[:]

"And one was white and one was grey
And they fell to battle on a day:

"They fought in the sun, they fought in the wind, No boot the white fowl's wounds to bind.

"They fought in the wind, they fought in the sun,
And the white fowl died when the play was done."

"Small tidings these to bear o'er the sea!
Good hap that nothing worser they be!

"Small tidings for a travelled man!
Drink with me[,] son[,] whiles yet ye can!"
[f. 71]

"Drink with me ere thy day and mine.
          So fair upriseth the rim of the sun,           red
"Be nought but a tale told over the wine!"
          So grey is the sea when day is done.         red

Now fareth the King with his men to sleep,
          So fair upriseth the rim of the sun[, ]
And dim the maids from the Queen's bower creep;
          So grey is the sea when day is done.

And in the hall is little light,
And there standeth the Queen with cheeks full white.

And soft the feet of women fall
From end to end of the King's great hall.

These bear the gold-wrought cloths away,
And in other wise the hall array;

Till all is black that hath been gold
So heavy a tale there must be told.

The morrow men looked on King Gorm and said[,]
"Hath he dreamed a dream or beheld the dead?

"Why is he sad who should be gay?
Why are the old man's lips so grey?"

Slow paced the King adown the hall,
Nor looked aside to either wall:

Till in high-seat there he sat him down,
And deadly old men deemed him grown.

[f. 72] "O Queen, what thrall's hands durst do this,
To strip my hall of mirth and bliss?"

[omitted in ms: "No thrall's hands in the hangings were,
No thrall's hands made the tenters bare.]

"King's daughters' hands have done the deed,
The hands of Denmark's Surety-head."

"Nought betters the deed thy word unsaid--
Tell me that Knut my son is dead!"

She said[:] "The doom on thee[,] O King!
For thine own lips have said the thing."

Men looked to see the King arise,
The death of men within his eyes.

Men looked to see his bitter sword
That once cleared ships from board to board.

But in the hall no sword gleamed wide,
His hand fell down along his side.

But no red came into his cheek,
He fell aback as one made weak.

His wan cheek brushed the high-seat's side,
And in the noon of day he died.

So lieth King Gorm beneath the grass,
But from mouth to mouth this tale did pass.

And Harald reigned and went his way[,]
                   So fair upriseth the rim of the sun[.]               red
And still is the story told today,
                  So grey is the sea when day is done.               red

CW, IX, 140-45

In Denmark gone is many a year,
So fair upriseth the rim of the sun,
Two sons of Gorm the King there were,
So grey is the sea when day is done.

Both these were gotten in lawful bed
Of Thyrre Denmark's Surety-head.

Fair was Knut of face and limb
As the breast of the Queen that suckled him.

But Harald was hot of hand and heart
As lips of lovers ere they part.

Knut sat at home in all men's love,
But over the seas must Harald rove.

And for every deed by Harald won,
Gorm laid more love on Knut alone.

On a high-tide spake the King in hall,
"Old I grow as the leaves that fall.

"Knut shall reign when I am dead,
So shall the land have peace and aid.

"But many a ship shall Harald have,
For I deem the sea well wrought for his grave."

Then none spake save the King again,
"If Knut die all my days be vain.

"And whoso the tale of his death shall tell,
Hath spoken a word to gain him hell.

"Lo here a doom I will not break,"
So fair upriseth the rim of the sun.
"For life or death or any man's sake,"
So grey is the sea when the day is done.

[141] O merry days in the summer-tide!
So fair upriseth the rim of the sun.

When the ships sail fair and the young men ride.
So grey is the sea when day is done.

Now Harald has got him east away,
And each morrow of fight was a gainful day.

But Knut is to his fosterer gone
To deal in deeds of peace alone.

So wear the days, and well it is
Such lovely lords should dwell in bliss.

O merry in the winter-tide
When men to Yule-feast wend them wide.

And here lieth Knut in the Lima-firth
When the lift is low o'er the Danish earth.

"Tell me now, Shipmaster mine,
What are yon torches there that shine?"

"Lord, no torches may these be
But golden prows across the sea.

"For over there the sun shines now
And the gold worms gape from every prow."

The sun and the wind came down o'er the sea,
"Tell them over how many they be!"

"Ten I tell with shield-hung sides.
Nought but a fool his death abides."

"Ten thou tellest, and we be three,
Good need that we do manfully.

"Good fellows, grip the shield and spear,
For Harald my brother draweth near.

"Well breakfast we when night is done,
And Valhall's cock crows up the sun."

[142] Up spoke Harald in wrathful case:
"I would have word with this waxen face!

"What wilt thou pay, thou hucksterer,
That I let thee live another year?

"For oath that thou wilt never reign
Will I let thee live a year or twain."

"Kisses and love shalt thou have of me
If yet my liegeman thou wilt be.

"But stroke of sword, and dint of axe,
Or ere thou makest my face as wax."

As thick the arrows fell around
As fall sere leaves on autumn ground.

In many a cheek the red did wane
No maid might ever kiss again.

"Lay me aboard," Lord Harald said,
"The winter day will soon be dead!

"Lay me aboard the bastard's ship,
And see to it lest your grapnels slip!"

Then some they knelt and some they drowned,
And some lay dead Lord Knut around.

"Look here at the wax-white corpse of him,
As fair as the Queen in face and limb!

"Make now for the shore, for the moon is bright,
And I would be home ere the end of night.

"Two sons last night had Thyrre the Queen,
So fair upriseth the rim of the sun.
And both she may lack ere the woods wax green,"
So grey is the sea when day is done.

[143] A little before the morning tide,
So fair upriseth the rim of the sun,
Queen Thyrre looked out of her window-side,
So grey is the sea when day is done.

"O men-at-arms, what men be ye?"
"Harald thy son come over the sea."

"Why is thy face so pale, my son?"
"It may be red or day is done."

"O evil words of an evil hour!
Come, sweet son, to thy mother's bower!"

None from the Queen's bower went that day
Till dark night over the meadows lay.

None thenceforth heard wail or cry
Till the King's feast was waxen high.

Then into the hall Lord Harald came
When the great wax lights were all aflame.

"What tidings, son, dost thou bear to me?
Speak out before I drink with thee."

"Tidings small for a seafarer.
Two falcons in the sea-cliff's were;

"And one was white and one was grey
And they fell to battle on a day;

"They fought in the sun, they fought in the wind,
No boot the white fowl's wounds to bind.

"They fought in the wind, they fought in the sun,
And the white fowl died when the play was done."

"Small tidings these to bear o'er the sea!
Good hap that nothing worser they be!

"Small tidings for a travelled man!
Drink with me, son, whiles yet ye can!

[144] "Drink with me ere thy day and mine,
So fair upriseth the rim of the sun,
Be nought but a tale told over the wine."
So grey is the sea when day is done.

Now fareth the King with his men to sleep,
So fair upriseth the rim of the sun,
And dim the maids from the Queen's bower creep,
So grey is the sea when day is done.

And in the hall is little light,
And there standeth the Queen with cheeks full white.

And soft the feet of women fall
From end to end of the King's great hall.

These bear the gold-wrought cloths away,
And in other wise the hall array;

Till all is black that hath been gold
So heavy a tale there must be told.

The morrow men looked on King Gorm and said
"Hath he dreamed a dream or beheld the dead?

"Why is he sad who should be gay?
Why are the old man's lips so grey?"

Slow paced the King adown the hall,
Nor looked aside to either wall,

Till in high-seat there he sat him down,
And deadly old men deemed him grown.

"O Queen, what thrall's hands durst do this,
To strip my hall of mirth and bliss?"

"No thrall's hands in the hangings were,
No thrall's hands made the tenters bare.

[145] "King's daughters' hands have done the deed, The hands of Denmark's Surety-head."

"Nought betters the deed thy word unsaid.
Tell me that Knut my son is dead!"

She said: "The doom on thee, O King!
For thine own lips have said the thing."

Men looked to see the King arise,
The death of men within his eyes.

Men looked to see his bitter sword
That once cleared ships from board to board.

But in the hall no sword gleamed wide,
His hand fell down along his side.

No red there came into his cheek,
He fell aback as one made weak.

His wan cheek brushed the high-seat's side,
And in the noon of day he died.

So lieth King Gorm beneath the grass,
But from mouth to mouth this tale did pass.

And Harald reigned and went his way[,]
     So fair upriseth the rim of the sun.
And still is the story told to-day,
     So grey is the sea when day is done.

C-39. “To the Muse of the North” ( O muse that swayest the sad Northern Song, / Thy right hand full of smiting and of wrong )

Included in A Book of Verse, 1870, 43; published Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 116. HM 6427, f. 27; Morris autograph.

According to May Morris, the Northern poems in Poems By the Way were all written in the early 1870’s. This was originally an introduction to the Grettir Saga.

HM 6427, f. 27

O muse that swayest the sad northern song
Thy right hand full of smiting & of wrong[,]
Thy left hand holding pity[,] & thy breast
Heaving with hope of that so certain rest[,]
Thou with the grey eyes kind & unafraid[,]
The soft lips trembling not that they have said
The doom of the world and those that dwell therein
The lips that smile not though thy children win
The fated Love that earns the fated death—
Borne down the odorous freshness of thy breath
Let some word reach my ears & pierce my heart
That if it may be[,] I may have a part
In those sweet sorrows of thy children dead
That smote the heart and bowed adown the head
Whitened the hair, made Life an eager dream[,]
And death the murmuring of a peaceful stream[,]
But left no blemish on those [souls] of thine
Whose great hearts through the dark of ages shine.
O mother & love and sister all in one[,]
Come thou[,] for now am I enough alone
That thou thine arms about my heart shouldst throw--
And wrap me in the griefs of long ago.

Book of Verse, 1870

To The Muse of the North

[p. 43]
O thou who swayest the sad northern song
Thy right hand full of smiting and of wrong,
Thy left hand holding pity, and thy breast
Heaving with hope of that so certain rest,
Thou with the grey eyes kind and unafraid,
The soft lips trembling not that they have said
The doom of the World and those that dwell therin
The lips that smile not though thy children win
The fated Love, that earns the fated Death—
Borne down the balmy freshness of thy breath
Let some word reach my ears and touch my heart
That, if it may be, I may have a part
In that sweet sorrow of thy children dead
That smote the soul, and bowed adown the head
Whitened the hair, made Life an eager dream,
And death the murmuring of a peaceful stream,
But left no blemish on those souls of thine
Whose fairness through the dim World yet doth shine.

Mother and Love and Sister all in one,
Come thou, for am I not enough alone
That thou thine arms about my heart shouldst throw,
And wrap me in the griefs of Long Ago?

C-40. “Spring’s Bedfellow” (Spring went about the woods to-day, / The soft-foot winter-thief, And found where idle sorrow lay)

Published Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 132. HM 6427, ff. 55-56, two autograph copies. The second is dated March 8, 1873.

HM 6427, f. 55

[Spring's bedfellow]

Spring went about the woods one day,
        The soft-foot winter-thief,
And found where idle sorrow lay
        'Twixt flower and faded leaf.

She looked on him, and deemed him fair
        For all she had been told;
She knelt adown beside him there,
        And sang of days of old.

His open eyes beheld her nought,
        Yet [']gan his lips to move,
But life and deeds were in her thought,
        And he would sing of love.

Still sang they till their eyes did meet[,]
        And faded fear and shame;
More bold he grew, and she more sweet[,]
        Until they sang the same.

Until, say they who know the thing[,]
        Their very lips must kiss,
And Sorrow laid abed with Spring[,]
        Beget an earthly bliss.

HM 6427, f. 56

Spring's Bedfellow

Spring went about the woods to-day,
The soft-foot winter-thief,
And found where idle sorrow lay
'Twixt flower and faded leaf.
She looked on him, and found him fair
For all she had been told;
She knelt adown beside him there,
And sang of days of old.

His open eyes beheld her nought,
Yet 'gan his lips to move;
But life and deeds were in her thought,
And he would sing of love.

So sang they till their eyes did meet,
And faded fear and shame;
More bold he grew, and she more sweet,
Until they sang the same.

Until, say they who know the thing,
Their very lips did kiss,
And Sorrow laid abed with Spring
Begat an earthly bliss.

Poems by the Way, p. 132

SPRING'S BEDFELLOW.

Spring went about the woods to-day,

The soft-foot winter-thief,
And found where idle sorrow lay
'Twixt flower and faded leaf.
She looked on him, and found him fair
For all she had been told;
She knelt adown beside him there,
And sang of days of old.

His open eyes beheld her nought,
Yet 'gan his lips to move;
But life and deeds were in her thought,
And he would sing of love.

So sang they till their eyes did meet,
And faded fear and shame;
More bold he grew, and she more sweet,
Until they sang the same.

Until, say they who know the thing,
Their very lips did kiss,
And Sorrow laid abed with Spring
Begat an earthly bliss.

C-41. “Gunnar’s Howe Above the House at Lithend” (Ye who have come o’er the sea / to behold this grey minster of lands, / Whose floor is the tomb of the past, / and whose walls by the toil of dead hands)

Published Collected Works, vol. 9, Poems By the Way, 179. HM 6427, ff. 118-19; Morris autograph with corrections. According to May Morris, the Northern poems in Poems By the Way were all written in the early 1870’s.

HM 6427, f. 118

Gunnar's Howe above the House at Lithend

Ye who have come o[’]er the sea
to behold this grey minster of lands,
Whose floor is the tomb of time past[,]
and whose walls by the toil of dead hands
Show pictures amidst of the ruin
of deeds that have overpast death[,]
Stay by this tomb in a tomb
to ask of who lieth beneath.
Ah! the world changeth too soon[,]
that ye stand there with unbated breath,
As I name him that Gunnar of old,
who erst in the haymaking tide
Felt all the land fragrant and fresh,
as amidst of the edges he died.
Too swiftly fame fadeth away,
if ye tremble not lest once again
The grey mound should open and show him
glad-eyed without grudging or pain[.]
Little labour methinks to behold him
but the tale-teller laboured in vain.
Little labour for ears that may hearken
to hear his death conquering song,
Till the heart swells to think of the gladness
undying that overcame wrong[.]
O young is the world yet meseemeth
and the hope of it flourishing green[,]
When the words of a man unremembered
so bridge all the days that have been,
As we look round about on the land
that these nine hundred years he hath seen.
Dusk is abroad on the grass
Of this valley amidst of the hill:
[f. 119] Dusk that shall never be dark
till the dawn hard on midnight shall fill
The trench under Eyiafell’s snow[,]
and the grey plain the sea meeteth grey.
White[,] high aloft hangs the moon
that no dark night shall brighten ere day[,]
For here day and night toileth the summer
lest deedless his time pass away.

Poems by the Way, CW IX, 179.

GUNNAR’S HOWE ABOVE THE HOUSE AT LITHEND.

Ye who have come o’er the sea to behold this grey minster of lands,
Whose floor is the tomb of time past, and whose walls by the toil of dead hands
Show pictures amidst of the ruin of deeds that have overpast death,
Stay by this tomb in a tomb to ask of who lieth beneath.
Ah! the world changeth too soon, that ye stand there with unbated breath,
As I name him that Gunnar of old, who erst in the haymaking tide
Felt all the land fragrant and fresh, as amidst of the edges he died.
Too swiftly fame fadeth away, if ye tremble not lest once again
The grey mound should open and show him glad-eyed without grudging or pain.
Little labour methinks to behold him but the tale-teller laboured in vain.

Little labour for ears that may hearken to hear his death-conquering song,
Till the heart swells to think of the gladness undying that overcame wrong.
O young is the world yet meseemeth and the hope of it flourishing green,
When the words of a man unremembered so bridge all the days that have been,
As we look round about on the land that these nine hundred years he hath seen.

Dusk is abroad on the grass of this valley amidst of the hill:
Dusk that shall never be dark till the dawn hard on midnight shall fill
The trench under Eyiafell’s snow, and the grey plain the sea meeteth grey.
White, high aloft hangs the moon that no dark night shall brighten ere day,
For here day and night toileth the summer lest deedless his time pass away.

*C-42. “Envoi” to Eyrbyggja Saga ( Tale teller, who twixt fire and snow )

Unpublished. One passage quoted in Jack Lindsay, 156.

And though this seems so far from me
Though sunk in dreams I still must be
Self-made about myself--yet now
Who knows what out of all may grow;
Who knows but I myself at last
May face the truth, with all fear cast
Clean forth of me: real Love and I
Set side by side before I die.

B. M. Add. Ms. 45,347, f. 16, copied in Georgiana Burne-Jones’ hand, with attached letter to May, f. 15 and 15v, “the remaining lines that Jack quotes, to illustrate what he says (vol. 1, p. 263.) are extracted from the Epilogue. I send you a copy of it.”

Epilogue to the Eyrbyggja Saga

Tale teller, who twixt fire and snow
Hast heart to turn about & show
With faint half smile things great & small
That in thy fearful land did fall,
Of those full surely wert thou bred
Who erst rejoiced to see the dead
To their own funeral feast return.
In them and these sure life did burn
No faint and flickering flame, but caught
Swift on all good & evil brought
By tale for feeding of the flame
That lighteth still thy long spent days
Thou & thy brethren sure did gain
That thing for which I long in vain,
Prefigured by your Sigurd’s part
In eating of the dragon’s heart,
The spell whereby the mist of fear
Was melted, and your ears might hear
Earth’s voices as they are indeed.

“The Dwellers of Eyre” was published in vol. 2 of The Saga Library, trans. William Morris and Eiríkir Magnússon, Bernard Quaritch, London, 1892. See Eyrbyggia Saga.

Version printed in J. W. Mackail, The Life of William Morris, 2 vols., Longman, 1899, vol. 1, 263-64:

Lo here an ancient chronicle
Recording matters that befell
A folk, whose life and death and pain
Might touch the great world's loss and gain
Full little: yet such might had they
They could not wholly pass away:
From mouth to mouth they sent a tale,
That yet for something may avail;
For midst them all a man they wrought,
Who all these words together brought,
Made shadows breathe, quickened the dead,
And knew what silent mouths once said,
Till with the life his life might give
These lived agian, and yet shall live.

Where art thou, O thou nameless one?
And dost thou laugh to look upon
My eagerness thy tale to read
Midst such changed hope and fear and need?
Or somewhere near me dost thou stand,
And through the dark reach out thine hand?
Yea, are we friends? Draw nigher then,
Thou tale-teller of vanished men,
For we are of one company
To link the dull years struggling by,
[264] Their lonely hopes and griefs gown cold,
Into a chain of tear-washed gold
That yet shall cling about the Earth
In dawning of her second birth.

Tale-teller, who 'twixt fire and snow
Hast heart to turn about & show
With faint half-smile things greatand small
That in thy fearful land did fall,
Thou and thy brethren sure did gain
That thing for which I long in vain,
The spell, whereby the mist of fear
Was melted, and your ears might hear
Earth’s voices as they are indeed.
Well, ye have helped me at my need.

C-43. “Summer Night” ( “O love O love though thy eyelids are shut close, / Yet remember the sweet-breathed nestling rare!” )

A Book of Verse, 1870, 22; VA, R. C. AA 17, 1870, 22. Not in Poems by the Way.

Book of Verse, p. 22

                  Summer Night.

O love, O love though thy lids are shut close,
Yet hearken the sweet breathed rustling rose!

Why liest thou sleeping, yet red with shame
While the harp-strings tremble to hear thy name?

Hearken the harp in a trembling hand!
Hearken soft speech of a far off land!

O my love, if thou hearest my foot-steps anear
Thy very breathing methinks I may hear

O my sweet, is it true that we are alone,
The grey leaves a-quiver twixt us and the moon

O me, the love, the love in thine eyes,
Now the night is a-dying as all life dies!

Are thou come, swift end of beginning of bliss?
O my sweet! O thine eyes, O thy hands O thy kiss!

C-44. “Guileful Love” ( “Love set me in a flowery garden fair / Love showed me many marvels moving there” )

A Book of Verse, p. ; VA, R. C. AA 17. This would date it as written by 1870, since A Book of Verse was completed and given to Georgiana Burne-Jones that year.

Book of Verse, p. 21

                  Guileful Love.

Love set me in a flowery garden fair
Love showed me many marvels moving there
Love said Take these if nought thy soul doth dare
To feel my fiery hand upon thine heart,
Take these, and live, and lose the better part.

Love showed me Death, and said, Make no delay;
Love showed me Change, and said, Joy ebbs away;
Love showed me Eld amid regrets grown grey—
I laughed for joy, and round his heart I clung,
Sickened and swooned by bitter-sweetness stung.

But I awoke at last, and born again
Laid eager hands upon unrest and pain,
And wrapped myself about with longing vain:
Ah, better still and better all things grew,
As more the root and heart of Love I knew.

O love Love Love, what is it thou hast done?
All pains, all fears I knew, save only one;
Where is the fair earth now, where is the sun?
Thou didst not say my Love might never move
Her eyes, her hands, her lips to bless my love.

C-45. “The End of May” / ["The Birth of June"] ( How the wind howls this morn / About the end of May, )

In "A Book of Verse," 47-48, titled "Birth of June," with an additional final stanza absent from Poems by the Way version. Published as "The End of May" in Poems By the Way, CW, IX, 196. HM 6427, ff. 138-39, Morris autographs; f. 139 titled, “The birth of June." F. 138 is a fair copy of f. 139. Written on paper used about 1870 (May Morris, CW, IX, xxxvi).

HM 6427

[f. 138]

The End of May.

How the wind howls this morn
       About the end of May[,]
              And drives June on apace
To mock the world forlorn
       And the world’s joy passed away
              And my unlonged-for face!

The world’s joy passed away[;]
       For no more may I deem
              That any folk are glad
To see the dawn of day
       Sunder the tangled dream
Wherein no grief they had.

Ah, through the tangled dream
         Where others have no grief
               Ever it fares with me
That fears and treasons stream
         And dumb sleep slays belief
               Whatso therein may be.

Sleep slayeth all belief
         Until the hopeless light
               Wakes at the birth of June
More lying tales to weave,
       More love in woe’s despite,
              More hope to perish soon.

[f. 139]

              The Birth of June

How the wind howls this morn[--]
About the end of May
And drives June on apace
To mock the world forlorn.
And the year[']s joy passed away[,]
And my unlonged for face.

The year[']s joy passed away;
For no more may I deem
That any heart is glad
To see the break of day
Sunder the tangled dream,
Wherein no grief it had[.]

Ah, through the tangled dream
Where others have no grief
Ever it fares with me
That fears and treasons stream,
And sleep slays all belief,
of what I hoped might be.

Sleep slayeth all belief;
Until the hopeless light
Wakes at the birth of June
More lying tales to weave,
More love in woe’s despite
More hope to perish soon.

[in pencil] More love in woe[']s despite[--]
Then tongue[,] hold thou thy peace[!]
Be silent thankless heart[,]
Nor wish the world were bright
Nor wish for autumn[’]s ease
Thou hast the better part[.]

A Book of Verse

[p. 47]

How the wind howls this morn

About the end of May
And drives June on apace
To mock the world forlorn
And the world’s joy passed away,
And my unlonged-for face!

The world’s joy passed away;
For no more may I deem
That any folk are glad
To see the dawn of day
Sunder the tangled dream
Wherein no grief they had.

Ah, through the tangled dream
Where others have no grief
Ever it fares with me
That fears and treasons stream;
And dumb sleep slays belief
Whatso therein may be.

Sleep slayeth all belief
Until the hopeless light
Wakes at the birth of June
[p. 48] More lying tales to weave,
More love in woe’s despite[,]
More hope to perish soon.

CW, IX, 196.

THE END OF MAY.

How the wind howls this morn
About the end of May,
And drives June on apace
To mock the world forlorn
And the world’s joy passed away
And my unlonged-for face!
The world’s joy passed away;
For no more may I deem
That any folk are glad
To see the dawn of day
Sunder the tangled dream
Wherein no grief they had.
Ah, through the tangled dream
Where others have no grief
Ever it fares with me
That fears and treasons stream
And dumb sleep slays belief
Whatso therein may be.
Sleep slayeth all belief
Until the hopeless light
Wakes at the birth of June
More lying tales to weave,
More love in woe’s despite,
More hope to perish soon.

C-46. “Come hearken dreams and marvels of the days when earth was young”

Published AWS, I, 463-64. Draft in in B. L. Add. Ms. 45, 298A, f. 121 and 121v., white ruled paper with corrections. The AWS version seems based on a later corrected copy. Probably an early draft for Sigurd; see also "List of Poems Presumed Written After 1875," no. 40, Sigurd the Volsung.

[f. 121]

Come hearken to the marvels of the days when earth was young
And sons of men unburdened with the woes that have no name.
The days of youth when every deed men did might so be sung
That oft out of all defeat and failure oft sprung up the tree of fame
And round the hights of victory oft a cloud of sorrow clung
And stoutly stone by [stone] they built the house none shall overthrow
Nor named it good nor named it ill but joyed to see it grow

Ah what have I to sing of these in days so changed and worn
To sing [the] bloom that yet was fair amidst the rain of blood
And shown through drift of twilight hail greet the April morn.
And fell so fresh from off the fruit that none but deemed it good
O changed the hope as changed the days but have it not in scorn
For if indeed in hope of joy the clinging roots were set
The seed shall fall and rise again and I shall see it yet.

So let me look aback awhile to see the light before
Come glimmering from the mountain tops across the shade they cast
It promised dawn it promised day with midnight scarcely oer
And girt in glimmer of the dusk our fathers towards it past
And though men use the dark for light and long for day no more
Yet if the sun that shed that gleam in very heaven be set
The day shall come ere earth be dead and I shall see it yet.

Now therefore love constraineth me to set all shame aside
And strive to sing for love of life love of the flowery earth
Love of the awful heavens and lone sea [weltering?] wide
And love of Love the bitter lord and all his woe and mirth

[f. 121v]
And love of God that was and is and ever shall abide
While that shall live that is but he and ne[’]er shall be undone
The One that is a thousandfold the thousand fold in one.
The happy words unfaltering amid the dusk of death
To see the deeds that Sigurd doth
And if I pray for pardon of the mighty men of old
It is because belike it is that I shall faint and fail
And not because the longing of my heart is overbold
Nay scarce because my very eyes may not at whiles avail
To see that story of the north nor yet my ears to hold
The happy words unfaltering amid the dusk of death
To see the deeds that Sigurd doth to hear the words he saith:

[at this point breaks from pen to light pencil:]
There is a plain in Iceland edged southward by the sea
That elsewhere another sea [itself goes?] grey to meet
The outguards of the mountains and breaketh northwardly
Gainst the [Green?] ridge of Fleet lithe and east against the feet
Of Eyiafell the mighty summit where come ye now with me
While west away the mirage hides [the mighty river hides?] the hill they call the tomb
Of him who first a thousand years agone durst trek this dreary home

[continues in pen:]
Come for the wash of Mark [fleet?] waves is icy cold between
The Lithe and us; yet if indeed of Gunnar ye have heard
Look oer your shoulder yet to see the brighter path of green
Upon [“the hanging of the hill” crossed out] where erst he fell unfeared
Though nought avail to strain your eyes for B[ergthorsknoll] unseen
But if the dead walk thereabout against the Westman Isles
Belike beside the beardless Njal at rest Skarfhedinn smiles

*C-47. Icelandic fragment, “A land of deep snows and scarcely hidden fire”

B. M. Add. Ms. 45,319b, vi reverse. Similar in theme to “Iceland First Seen.”

[f. vi reverse]

A land of deep snows and scarcely hidden fire
Of running rivers and selfruined [?] hills
barren Coffer of dead mens dead and fruitless wills
A record of its bliss and half born fond despairs
Thou world’s remembrance of deeds that [ne’er?] tire
Wall of the fields of fame that no mean [?] tale 
What is there of the Iceland that so stills
My querulous longing and yet draws love nigher

C-48. Interlinking lyric for "The Deeds of Jason" ( Now must we tell what life those old men had )

CW, II, xxi-xxiii, with fascimile inserted. This lyric was removed when The Life and Death of Jason was published independently from The Earthly Paradise.

Now must we tell what life those old men had

While from the glass the last sands quickly ran
Of their loved lives; they dwelt there scarcely glad
And scarcely sorry, loved of every man
In such-like joyance as these elders can;
Feeble, and willing life should pass away
In peaceful ending to a stormy day.

And on a time when March was well begun
The rulers of the land in their great hall
Set forth a feast, and there bid every one

Of lords and strangers, and till eve did fall
They feasted, while the March rain beat the wall
Half-heard in pauses of the minstrelsy.

The spices being brought in, and men being set
About the strangers, spoke the chiefest lord:
“No doubt, O guests, ye scarcely can forget
Of how awhile ago ye spoke a word
Of old tales telling wonders of the sword,
The changing ways of strange fold of all climes
And unforgotten men of ancient times.

“And now this eve there cometh unto me
The memory of a tale ye well may hear
Of the first men that sailed upon the sea
From our old land of Greece, that they might bear
That fleece unto their temple: without fear
They bore to suffer many a dreadful thing,
Therefore to-day their names are flourishing.”

“Green in their memory truly,” quoth Sir Rafe
“And we perchance are clean forgotten now;
They, their great deed accomplished, came back safe,
But we shall never pass the white cliffs now
Or see the nesses named by names we know.
Yet tell your tale, although I weep again
Our wasted lives and fond desire and vain.

“And let us think ourselves a little while
But merchants, with no hope but gain of gold,
Willing an anxious hour to beguile
By hearing tell of fearless deeds of old
Wrought spite of fire fierce, and water cold.
Fair Sir, we hearken.” Then the kingly man
This story of the Argo thus began.
To come between “March” and “The Deeds of Jason”

C-49. Lyric from “Bellerophon in Lycia”

CW, VI, xiv-xvi. Included in a longer excised beginning for “Bellerophon.” B. L. Add. Ms. 45,301, f. 23v and f. 24.

45,301

[f.23]
The day grew to its hottest, the warm air
Was little stirred and rose and lily fair
Let drop its fainting leaves upon the ground[.]
[Around?] them full was the air with sound
Of murmuring bees, high elms far away
Come the doves['] moan about the last spring day:
And Venus sparrows twittered in the eves
Above his head – so in the languid leaves
And overblown blossoms he awhile did pace
Striving to think, but still that eager face—
Wild with its love[,] grief and hope and fear
He still beheld, and still that voice did hear
A smooth green bank sheath sweeping lime boughs [ms. l(ay)]
And underneath their shadow there was laid—
Unwitting of him a fair Lycian maid
Over a silver harp from string to string
Her fingers wandered till she gan to sing.

A sweet garden by the sea
Did my true love give to me[,]
The all-father’s Paradise
Was not wrought in fairer wise[;]
     Ah how lone[, ] how lone it is[.]

There the birds sing songs for me
And the murmuring of the sea
Do I hear daylong[,] nightlong,
Nothing there can do me wrong[;]
     Ah how lone[,] how lone it is[.]

In that garden by the sea
He let build a house for me
Therein is there wealth of gold
Old tales on wall & floor are told[;]
     Ah how lone[,] how lone it is[.]

[f. 24]

Many a slave he gat for me
To that garden by the sea.
The Lycian and the Argive land[,] [ms. adds the at end of line]
Sent girls to serve my craving hand[--]
     Ah how lone[,] how lone it is[.]

Twixt the oak[-]trees and the sea
Ancient tales they tell to me[;]
Songs they sing of happy dreams[,]
But the o’er word ever seems[,]
     Ah how lone[,] how lone it is[.]

Sometimes do folk say to me
When the murmur of the sea
At dead ebb is far away,
[“]Forget him[,] he died yesterday[”]--
     Ah how lone[,] how lone it is[.]

Or when west winds make the sea
Mad and loud, they say to me[,]
Weeping makes thine eyes less fair[,]
Tomorrow morn he cometh here,”
     Ah how lone[,] how lone it is.

When tomorrow comes to me
I shall not hear the unquiet sea,
When today is yesterday
No more shall I weep and say,
     Ah how lone[,] how lone it is.”

Sometimes do folk say to me
When the murmur of the sea
At dead ebb is far away,
["]Forget him[,] he died yesterday["]--
       Ah how lone[,] how lone it is[.]

Or when west winds make the sea
Mad and loud[,] they say to me[,]
Weeping makes thine eyes less fair[,]
Tomorrow morn he cometh here[,"]
       Ah how lone[,] how lone it is[."]

When tomorrow comes to me
I shall not hear the unquiet sea[,]
When today is yesterday
No more shall I weep and say
        Ah how lone[,] how lone it is[."]

He stopped to listen and she saw him not
But lay aback in the green shady spot
And murmured something smiling as she lay
Happy with young life and the summer day
But when the song was done he sighed & turned
Back to the house and howesoever he yearned
For what he had not[;] happier then life seemed
Unto his heart than he had ever dreamed
Life could be --

Unto her feet she gat and slowly went
Another way, as one made well night sad
     Amidst of joyous life . . . .

CW, VI, xiv-xvi

[p. xiv]

There twixt the languid leaves
And o’er blown blossoms he awhile did go,
Striving to think, but still that eager face
Wild with its love, and grief and hope and fear
Must he behold; and that sweet voice must hear
Sad and heart-piercing: but nigh where he did pass
Neath sweeping lime-boughs lay a bank of grass
And underneath the shadows there was laid
Unwitting of him, a fair Lycian maid
Not heeding if in that hot windless tide
The loosened clasp should let the linen glide
From off her shoulder, careless that the crown
Of roses from her head had fallen down;
But lying there faint words as of a song
She murmured, and her fingers moved among
The strings of a small harp that lightly lay
Upon her breast, till as one thrusts away
A listless mood she raised herself at last
And pensive music on the hot air cast:

[p. xv]

A sweet garden by the sea
Did my true love give to me,
The All-father’s paradise
Was not wrought in fairer wise;
     Ah how lone, how lone it is.

There the birds sing songs for me
And the murmur of the sea
Do I hear day-long, night-long,
Nothing there may do me wrong;
     Ah how lone, how lone it is.

There ’twixt blossomed trees and sea
He let build a house for me
Therein is there wealth of gold
Tales on walls and floor are told;
     Ah how lone, how lone it is

Many a slave he gate for me
On that beach along the sea,
From Mysian land and Argive land
Did the captrive women stand;
     Ah how lone, how lone it is.

Twixt lily-bed and white-crowned sea
Tales of love folk tell to me;
Songs they sing of happy dreams,
But the o’erword ever seems,
     Ah how lone, how lone it is.

Sometimes do folk say to me
When the murmur of the sea
At dead ebb is far away,
“Forget him, he died yesterday.”
     Ah how lone, how lone it is.

Or when west winds make the sea
Mad and loud, they say to me,
“Weeping makes thine eyes less fair,
Tomorrow morn shall he be here,”
     Ah how lone, how lone it is.

[p. xvi]
When tomorrow comes to me
I shall not hear the unquiet sea,
When today is yesterday
No more shall I weep and say,
     “Ah how lone, how lone it is.”

He stopped the while she sang, she saw him not
As ‘neath the moveless boughs in that green spot
She sang, and when the last words of the song were spent
Unto her feet she gat and slowly went
Another way, as one made well night sad
Amidst of joyous life . . . .

C-50. Verses for June and July, The Earthly Paradise