Men call you “dark.” Was Chaucer’s speech a muddy stream, The language born of Norman sun and Saxon snow? Was Langland’s verse or Wyclif’s prose mere glow-worm’s gleam? And the tales Of Arthur’s sword and of the holy Grail, And Avalon, the isle where no storms blow: From such romance did no light glance? Have we not heard a tongue, Whose words the Saxon thralls Would scorn to speak above their muck-rake and their fork, The speech of barrack-rooms and music-halls, Where every fool has flung The rotten refuse of Calcutta and New York?
Men call you “dark.” But _chivalry_ and _honour_ stand As words that you, not we, did fashion, when the need Of food beyond the price of gold awoke our land. For you taught Inconstancy is like a standard lost; And we who prove untrue in love or deed Will doubly shame an ancient name. Your robes were not all white, Your soul was not a sea Where all the crystal rivulets of God found room: But we must often to your lessons flee, Our truth with yours unite, Before we meet the holy dayspring of the doom.
RING out again that faltering strain, Cease not so soon, Sweet peal that brought to me the thought Of some deep shadowed English lane Across the blue lagoon.
The water street where oarsmen meet And shout ahead, The glowing quay, all noise and glee, Seemed hallowed as when angels’ feet Touched Jacob’s stony bed.
On pearly dome and princely home Day’s glory dies: Once more the bells’ low murmur tells That faith is not a line of foam Nor life a bridge of sighs.
SO little dost thou seem of common earth, So much of spirit doth thy fabric show, That we, who watch thee through the azure glow, Might deem that with the stars thou cam’st to birth.
So sweet and true the voices from thy spire, Which bless the day’s betrothal unto night, That when they falter with the fading light, We well might think an angel touched his lyre.
If chiselled stone and molten bronze instil Hopes deeper than the fountains of my tears, And love that hungers for eternity,
God, I believe Thou hast some use for me; Leave me no life of dumb and sluggard years, But cut or melt me till I speak Thy will.
ROUGH swarthy Gipsy folk, Would that my voice could once forget to falter, And sing a song as free as swallows’ wings Of ancient Gipsies, and their “dukes” and “kings,” The men who braved the branding-rod and halter, Because like birds they nimbly came and went, And loved the stars and road, and crouching tent Beneath a grove of oak.