25 The echo of the whole sea's speech.

And all mankind is thus at heart

Not any thing but what thou art:
And Earth, Sea, Man, are all in each.

SONNETS

SIBYLLA PALMIFERA

(For a Picture)

Under the arch of Life, where love and death,
Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw
Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck

awe,

I drew it in as simply as my breath.

5 Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath,

10

The sky and sea bend on thee,-which can draw,
By sea or sky or woman, to one law,

The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath.

This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise

Thy voice and hand shake still,-long known to thee

By flying hair and fluttering hem,-the beat Following her daily of thy heart and feet, How passionately and irretrievably,

In what fond flight, how many ways and days!

(From The House of Life, in Ballads and Sonnets, 1881)

SONNET XIX

SILENT NOON

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,-
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams
and glooms

'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass. 5 All round our nest, far as the eye can pass, Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthornhedge.

'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly 10 Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky :So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above. Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower, This close-companioned inarticulate hour

When twofold silence was the song of love.

SONNET LXIII.

INCLUSIVENESS

The changing guests, each in a different mood,
Sit at the roadside table and arise:

And every life among them in likewise

Is a soul's board set daily with new food.

5 What man has bent o'er his son's sleep, to brood How that face shall watch his when cold it lies? Or thought, as his own mother kissed his eyes, Of what her kiss was when his father wooed?

10

May not this ancient room thou sit'st in dwell
In separate living souls for joy or pain?
Nay, all its corners may be painted plain.
Where Heaven shows pictures of some life spent

well;

And may be stamped, a memory all in vain,
Upon the sight of lidless eyes in Hell.

SONNET XCVII.

A SUPERSCRIPTION

Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been; I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell; Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between; 5 Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell

10

Is now a shaken shadow intolerable,

Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen.

Mark me how still I am! But should there dart
One moment through thy soul the soft surprise
Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath of

sighs,

Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart
Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart
Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes.

William Morris

1834-1896

AN APOLOGY

(From The Earthly Paradise, 1868-70)

Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing,
I cannot ease the burden of your fears,
Or make quick-coming death a little thing,
Or bring again the pleasure of past years,
5 Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears,
Or hope again for aught that I can say,
The idle singer of an empty day.

But rather, when aweary of your mirth, From full hearts still unsatisfied ye sigh, 10 And, feeling kindly unto all the earth, Grudge every minute as it passes by,

15

Made the more mindful that the sweet days die—
-Remember me a little then I pray,

The idle singer of an empty day.

The heavy trouble, the bewildering care
That weighs us down who live and earn our bread,
These idle verses have no power to bear;

So let me sing of names remembered,
Because they, living not, can ne'er be dead,
20 Or long time take their memory quite away
From us poor singers of an empty day.

Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?
Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme
25 Beats with light wing against the ivory gate,
Telling a tale not too importunate

To those who in the sleepy region stay,
Lulled by the singer of an empty day.

Folk say, a wizard to a northern king

30 At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did

show,

That through one window men beheld the spring, And through another saw the summer glow, And through a third the fruited vines a-row, While still, unheard, but in its wonted way, 35 Piped the drear wind of that December day.

So with this Earthly Paradise it is,
If ye will read aright, and pardon me,
Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss

Midmost the beating of the steely sea,

40 Where tossed about all hearts of men must be; Whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay, Not the poor singer of an empty day.

THE DAY OF DAYS

(From Poems by the Way, 1892)

Each eve earth falleth down the dark,
As though its hope were o'er;

Yet lurks the sun where day is done
Behind to-morrow's door.

5 Grey grows the dawn while men-folk sleep,
Unseen spreads on the light,

Till the thrush sings to the coloured things,
And earth forgets the night.

No otherwise wends on our Hope:

10 E'en as a tale that's told

Are fair lives lost, and all the cost

Of wise and true and bold.

We've toiled and failed; we spake the word;
None hearkened; dumb we lie;

15 Our Hope is dead, the seed we spread
Fell o'er the earth to die.

What's this? For joy our hearts stand still,
And life is loved and dear,

The lost and found the Cause hath crowned, 20 The Day of Days is here.