Yet so revolves the axle of the world,
And by that brief aversion wheels us round
To morn, and rolls us on the larger paths
Of annual duty. Thou observant moon,
That dancest round the seasonable earth
As David round the ark, but half thy ring
In process, yet, complete, the circular whole
Promotes thee, and expedes thy right advance,
And all thy great desire of summer signs.
And thou, O sun, our centre, who thyself
Art satellite, and, conscious of the far
Archelion, in obedience of free will

IO

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And native duty, as the good man walks
Among the children's faces, with thine house
About thee, least and greatest, first and last,
Makest of the blue eternal holiday

Thy glad perambulation; and thou, far
Archelion, feudatory still, of one

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Not sovran nor in fee of paramount power; Moons round your worlds, worlds round your suns, suns round

Such satraps as in orderly degree
Confess a lordlier regent and pervade
A vaster cycle

-

ye, so moved, commoved, Revolving and convolving, turn the heavens Upon the pivot of that summery star,

Centre of all we know: and thou, O star,

Centre of all we know, chief crown of crowns, Who art the one in all, the all in one,

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And seest the ordered whole - nought uninvolved

But all involved to one direct result
Of multiform volition — in one pomp,

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One power, one tune, one time, upon one path Move with thee moving, thou, amid thy host Marchest - ah whither?

O God, before Whom We marshal thus Thy legioned works to take The secret of Thy counsel, and array Congress and progress, and, with multitude As conquerors and to conquer, in consent Of universal law, approach Thy bound, Thine immemorial bound, and at Thy face Heaven and earth flee away; O Thou Lord God, Whether, O absolute existence, Thou,

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The Maker, makest, and this fair we see
Be but the mote and dust of that unseen
Unsought unsearchable; or whether Thou
Whose goings forth are from of old, around
Thy going, in mere effluence, without care,
Breathest creation out into the cold
Beyond Thee, and, within Thine ambient breath,
So walkest everlasting as we walk

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The unportioned snows; or whether, meditating
Eternity, self-centred, self-fulfilled,
Self-continent, Thou thinkest and we live,

10

To mine, and, clasp'd, they tread the equal lea
To the same village-school, where side by side
They spell "our Father." Hard by, the twin-pride
Of that grey hall whose ancient oriel gleams
Thro' yon baronial pines, with looks of light
Our sister-mothers sit beneath one tree.
Meanwhile our Shakespeare wanders past and
dreams

His Helena and Hermia. Shall we fight?

Nor force nor fraud shall sunder us! O ye
Who north or south, on east or western land,
Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth,
Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God
For God; O ye who in eternal youth
Speak with a living and creative flood
This universal English, and do stand

Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand
Heroic utterance parted, yet a whole,
Far, yet unsevered, - children brave and free 10
Of the great Mother-tongue, and ye shall be
Lords of an Empire wide as Shakespeare's soul,
Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme,

And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream.

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary's gift,

For service meetly worn;

Her hair that lay along her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.

Her seemed she scarce had been a day
One of God's choristers;

The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers;
Albeit, to them she left, her day
Had counted as ten years.

(To one, it is ten years of years.

Yet now, and in this place,

Surely she leaned o'er me her hair
Fell all about my face. .
Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves.
The whole year sets apace.)

It was the rampart of God's house
That she was standing on;

By God built over the sheer depth
The which is Space begun;

So high, that looking downward thence
She scarce could see the sun.

It lies in Heaven, across the flood
Of ether, as a bridge.

Beneath, the tides of day and night

With flame and darkness ridge The void, as low as where this earth Spins like a fretful midge.

Around her, lovers, newly met

'Mid deathless love's acclaims, Spoke evermore among themselves Their heart-remembered names; And the souls mounting up to God

Went by her like thin flames.

And still she bowed herself and stooped Out of the circling charm;

Until her bosom must have made

The bar she leaned on warm,

And the lilies lay as if asleep

Along her bended arm.

From the fixed place of Heaven she saw Time like a pulse shake fierce

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24

30

36

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Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
She spoke through the still weather.
Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sang together.

(Ah sweet! Even now, in that bird's song, Strove not her accents there,

Fain to be hearkened? When those bells
Possessed the mid-day air,

Strove not her steps to reach my side
Down all the echoing stair?)

"I wish that he were come to me,
For he will come," she said.

"Have I not prayed in Heaven?

Lord, Lord, has he not pray'd?

on earth,

Are not two prayers a perfect strength?

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"Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,

To Him round whom all souls

Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads Bowed with their aureoles:

I'll take his hand and go with him To the deep wells of light;

As unto a stream we will step down, And bathe there in God's sight.

This room of yours, my Jenny, looks A change from mine so full of books, Whose serried ranks hold fast, forsooth, So many captive hours of youth, The hours they thieve from day and night To make one's cherished work come right, And leave it wrong for all their theft, Even as to-night my work was left: Until I vowed that since my brain And eyes of dancing seemed so fain, My feet should have some dancing too: And thus it was I met with you. Well, I suppose 'twas hard to part, For here I am. And now, sweetheart

You seem too tired to get to bed.

It was a careless life I led

When rooms like this were scarce so strange Not long ago.

What breeds the change, The many aims or the few years? Because to-night it all appears Something I do not know again.

The cloud's not danced out of my brain,
The cloud that made it turn and swim
While hour by hour the books grew dim.
Why, Jenny, as I watch you there,
For all your wealth of loosened hair,
Your silk ungirdled and unlac'd,
And warm sweets open to the waist,
All golden in the lamplight's gleam,
You know not what a book you seem,
Half-read by lightning in a dream!
How should you know, my Jenny? Nay,
And I should be ashamed to say:
Poor beauty, so well worth a kiss!

But while my thought runs on like this
With wasteful whims more than enough,
I wonder what you're thinking of.

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30

On sorry matters best unsolved? -
Or inly is each grace revolved
To fit me with a lure? —or (sad
To think!) perhaps you're merely glad
That I'm not drunk or ruffianly,
And let you rest upon my knee.

For sometimes, were the truth confess'd, You're thankful for a little rest, Glad from the crush to rest within, From the heart-sickness and the din Where envy's voice at virtue's pitch Mocks you because your gown is rich; And from the pale girl's dumb rebuke, Whose ill-clad grace and toil-worn look Proclaim the strength that keeps her weak, And other nights than yours bespeak; And from the wise unchildish elf, To schoolmate lesser than himself, Pointing you out, what thing you are:— Yes, from the daily jeer and jar, From shame and shame's outbraving too, Is rest not sometimes sweet to you? But most from the hatefulness of man Who spares not to end what he began, Whose acts are ill and his speech ill, Who, having used you at his will, Thrusts you aside, as when I dine

I serve the dishes and the wine.

Well, handsome Jenny mine, sit up, I've filled our glasses, let us sup, And do not let me think of you,

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Lest shame of yours suffice for two.
What, still so tired? Well, well then, keep
Your head there, so you do not sleep;
But that the weariness may pass
And leave you merry, take this glass.
Ah! lazy lily hand, more bless'd
If ne'er in rings it had been dress'd
Nor ever by a glove conceal'd!

Behold the lilies of the field, They toil not neither do they spin; (So doth the ancient text begin, Not of such rest as one of these Can share.) Another rest and ease Along each summer-sated path From its new lord the garden hath, Than that whose spring in blessings ran Which praised the bounteous husbandman, Ere yet, in days of hankering breath, The lilies sickened unto death.

What, Jenny, are your lilies dead? Aye, and the snow-white leaves are spread

Jenny, you know the city now.

A child can tell the tale there, how
Some things which are not yet enroll'd
In market-lists are bought and sold
Even till the early Sunday light,
When Saturday night is market-night
Everywhere, be it dry or wet,
And market-night in the Haymarket.
Our learned London children know,
Poor Jenny, all your pride and woe;
Have seen your lifted silken skirt.
Advertise dainties through the dirt;

Have seen your coach-wheels splash rebuke
On virtue; and have learned your look

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A Lethe of the middle street?
Nay, it reflects not any face,
Nor sound is in its sluggish pace,
But as they coil those eddies clot,
And night and day remember not.

Why, Jenny, you're asleep at last! Asleep, poor Jenny, hard and fast, So young and soft and tired; so fair, With chin thus nestled in your hair, Mouth quiet, eyelids almost blue As if some sky of dreams shone through!

Just as another woman sleeps! Enough to throw one's thoughts in heaps Of doubt and horror, - what to say Or think, - this awful secret sway, The potter's power over the clay! Of the same lump (it has been said) For honour and dishonour made, Two sister vessels. Here is one.

My cousin Nell is fond of fun,

And fond of dress, and change, and praise,
So mere a woman in her ways:
And if her sweet eyes rich in youth
Are like her lips that tell the truth,
My cousin Nell is fond of love.

And she's the girl I'm proudest of.

Who does not prize her, guard her well? The love of change, in cousin Nell,

Shall find the best and hold it dear:

The unconquered mirth turn quieter

Not through her own, through others' woe:
The conscious pride of beauty glow
Beside another's pride in her,
One little part of all they share.
For Love himself shall ripen these
In a kind soil to just increase
Through years of fertilizing peace.

Of the same lump (as it is said) For honour and dishonour made, Two sister vessels. Here is one.

It makes a goblin of the sun.

So pure, - so fall'n! How dare to think Of the first common kindred link? Yet, Jenny, till the world shall burn It seems that all things take their turn; And who shall say but this fair tree May need, in changes that may be, Your children's children's charity?

Scorned then, no doubt, as you are scorn'd! Shall no man hold his pride forewarn'd