Complete works of willia.., p.539
Complete Works of William Morris, page 539
Upon a hill where three black crosses stood,
Black, and black shadowed; where the white sky lay,
Broken and ghastly on the withered grass.
Then in a garden fair the moon shone once,
The light fell full upon a sepulchre,
Hewn in the rock, with armèd men around;
There where the light was grey about the tree,
And the moon sunk, the sun not risen yet,
Then women came to view the sepulchre
With eyes that weeping had made red, with hands
That twitched at their garments evermore,
Twisting them unto knots; with faint slow steps
Bringing to Him Who lay no longer there
Sweet spices: many a summer flower sprung up;
Famished and withered in that garden sweet;
Beneath the sun and wind, beneath the cold.
But now the garden and the trees are gone;
From far off lands both men and women come,
Strong men and weak, and women very weak
That they may lie upon that blessèd stone
Where lay the piercèd body of the Lord,
That they may die upon it, kissing it;
That they may kiss their sins away on it,
Such reverence pay they e’en to dead cold stone,
That could not feel God’s body as It lay
Wrapt in the linen, hidden in the rock.
And Oman’s threshing floor! Years years ago,
A marble temple stood, where stood of old
That other temple with the gilded beams
Of cedar and of olive — years ago
The marble burnèd slowly into dust
While shouts and shrieks rang round it: filthy things
Are filled now upon the level rock,
Instead of marble pilèd into walls
With splendour on them from the morning dew
With splendour on them from the summer winds,
That sweetly slid along the marble smooth.
And now the warriors are upon the hill.
Some sleep and dream, not of the clashing swords
Dreaming of faces very far away
Some sit and twist the grass about their hands
Dreaming awake: some talk about the fight,
And some there are, who pacing up and down
Are weary, weary, with the watch they keep.
About them stand all glittering in the moon
Tall things bright-headed, blades, but not of grass,
Bright-headed, but they will be dulled soon
When blood dries brown on them, these are the men
Who have swept over many lands with these
Tall spears bright-headed that I tell about.
What people stood before them? on they come.
How may the dwellers in Jerusalem
Keep close their gates against them? very soon
The gates are opened, and the lances gleam
From street to street in dots of trembling light
From which the women shrink back shuddering.
The warriors who lay dreaming on the hills
Lie dreaming now within their quiet graves
Or seem to dream, for there the white bones lie
With nothing moving them: Oman is dead
And in its sheath his great sword perishes
As the rust eats it: On Araunah’s floor
Another temple lifts its splendour up,
So gorgeous, that perchance some simple ones
Think it the same that Solomon did build
Without the sound of hammers: it is sweet
To see the many marble pillars stand,
To see within, the many arches cross:
To see the arches other arches make
In dark and light upon the marble floor.
In sooth it is a very beauteous place.
And I perchance could rest within its walls
Could rest within its smooth and barred walls
But round me ever a confused noise,
Swells up and falls and clearer swells again.
Well know I what it means that aweful sound.
O North! O north! about thy quiet hills
How fair thy flowers are in summer time.
O north! O north how oft the west-wind brings
The purple haze to lie upon the elms,
And make them purple too, in autumn eves
When twilight shades the streets and underneath
The thick trees, darkness makes. O north! O north! MS, O! north O! north
Under thy hills now fairly dance the waves
Showing the slate stones lying in the lake,
And throwing shadows on them from the sun.
O! south sky without a cooling cloud,
O! sickening yellow sand without a break,
O! palm with dust a-lying on thy leaves,
O! scarlet flowers burning with the sun.
I cannot love thee South for all thy sun,
For all thy scarlet flowers or thy palms,
But in the North for ever dwells my heart.
The North with all its human sympathies,
The glorious North, where all amidst the sleet
Warm hearts do dwell, warm hearts sing out with joy.
The North that ever loves the poet well,
The north where in the spring the primrose lies
So thick amongst the moss and hazel roots,
The North, where all the purple clouds do course
From out the north-west making green the trees,
Shout for the North, O! brothers shout with me
Pray for the North. O brothers pray with me.
A piteous tale that holy hermit told
In all the listening ears of Christendom,
A piteous tale to all the swelling hearts:
He told of pilgrims dying at the gate,
The wardens mocking at their agony.
He told of bishops with their hoary beards
A-lying in the grasp of Saracens,
Of Christ’s name cursèd in the very place
Where he had blessed so many solemnly.
To those new warriors that are on the hills,
The hills that hang about Jerusalem,
Come from the North that they might free the tomb
Of Him who bought them they have come from far,
From towns where all over the houses rise
White spires in the light: from pleasant hills
Which look down on the river where the trees
Are dark above the stream and dark below:
Where all the bank and all the pollard trees
Lie in the water clearer than above
They come from woods where underneath the beech
The ground is hard, the air is almost green
From the green leaves above, while in the den
The notchèd fern is laughing merrily.
Ah me they come from many a lovely place,
And there their voices are weeping in the night
And there their children breathing heavily
Dreaming of horrors as the night goes on
With changes of the clouds — they dream perhaps
Of all the horrors that lie round about
The line of march the Christian soldiers took.
Perchance they dream that there for many a mile
Great bones be whitening in the southern sun,
And over armour crawls the loathly asp,
His flat head clubbing at the close steel rings
Of broken swords, whose hilts are wrought about
With what the Saints have suffered for the Lord,
That they may die while on the army goes.
Of friends that stay behind, to die with them
And hold the cross against their parched lips.
It may be that their sire is such a one,
A-dying on the sand, but there all night
The soldiers watch about Jerusalem.
Shout! for the ladder catching on the wall,
Shout! for the mailcoat falling back again
From the knees slackening underneath its fold:
Shout! As the Christians press against the foe.
Shout! as the turbans wave despairingly:
Shout as the swords clash on the parapet
And fall in shivers underneath the wall,
Shout for the brave knight raising well his knee
Amid the glimmer of the scimitars:
Shout as the sword rises above his head
And falls again amidst the turbaned ones.
Hurrah! for sloping down the narrow streets
Hurrah! for rushing unto Omar’s mosque
Where all the marble pillars stand aghast
As if they feared the shadows of the men
Shall cross the shadows of the arches there.
Ah me! they slew the woman and the babe,
They slew the old man with his hoary hair,
The youth who asked not mercy, and the child
Who prayed sore that he might see the sun
Some few days more — those soldiers of the Cross.
Pray Christians for the sins of Christian men.
Then for long years the mosque of Omar felt
The long hymns which beat against the domed roof,
The hymns which Solomon had sung of old,
His full heart swelling, in the golden wall,
His gift, from which the Cherubim looked down,
It saw the image of the Crucified
Over the Altar, and it saw the priest
Stand with his chasuble in heavy folds,
The jewels on it hiding from the sun.
About the arches rolled the incense-cloud
As once it rolled about the cedar roof —
Now all is changed — When will the cross once more
Be lifted high above its central Home?
Never perhaps. Yet many wondrous things
That silent dome has looked on quietly.
And truly very many wondrous things
The rock on which the temple stood has seen.
I wonder what Araunah’s floor was like
Before the flood came down upon the Earth —
THE THREE FLOWERS (NOW THE CROCUS IS BESIDE ME / IN THE SWEET SPRING-TIDE OF YEAR;)
Now the crocus is beside me
In the sweet spring-tide of year;
And the hazelboughs they hide me,
Daffodillies grow anear.
Long ago sweet daffodillies
With their yellow crowned my brow,
That was where the sunny hill is,
In the sun I see them now.
We were children then together
When we sat upon that hill,
In the sunny April weather,
On the flower-covered hill.
There, three flowers grow for ever
On the flower-covered hill;
But two flowers grow together,
One, groweth lonely still.
Tiger lilies, tall white lilies,
In the summer grow together;
Gorgeous golden daffodillies
In the spring grow lonely ever.
Yet the daffodils clung round me,
Yet she hung them round my brow;
Yet a child she said she loved me,
Yet I know she loves me now.
He was very noble surely
Very much did I love him,
And they loved each other purely,
Never will their love grow dim.
Yet, when there she had been reading,
When with pity she looked on me,
As I stood before her pleading
Dreary looked the flowers to me.
Then she rose up in her pity,
While the wind about her played,
In her hand a tiger-lily,
Very lovingly she said;
“Sweet friend, do you not remember,
In the summer long ago,
How we children played together
On as sweet a day as now?
“How you played at swearing fealty
To a Queen of beauty bright,
“Of your vows of love and lealty
In that sunset’s golden light?
“How you crowned me with white lilies
White as ever snow doth fall,
And three spotted tiger-lilies
Did my royal sceptre call?
“How there were no daffodillies
For your head to be a crown,
Of his crown of tiger-lilies
Fading as the sun went down?
“Past my flowers blew the soft air,
To the west your face was turned,
Tenderly wind raised your dark hair
In your face the sunset burned.
““We three stood with love between us,
While the swallow overhead
Flew around, as he had seen us,
While the clouds the west wind led.
“Do you keep your child-love, brother,
As you vowed to keep it then?
Will you love me, if another
Be my lover among men?
“Earth will not hold us for ever
On the earth we live not long;
When we live in heaven together
God will make our weak love strong.”
O! my tears fell downward quickly,
Fell, as drooped my head to the ground,
On the daisies there, that thickly,
Yellow-centered stood around.
Yet the tears grew very tender;
Through my tears I saw her stand,
Tremblingly I saw the slender
Tiger lily in her hand.
Last year did I see her lying,
Crown of lilies on her head;
Held his hand as he lay dying,
Kissed him, as he lay dead:
There they lay, lay dead together
With their hands clasped each in each,
As they sat in summer weather
While above them was the beach.
Round her head a crown of lilies
And a lily in her hand;
Fair white lilies; tiger lilies
Round his head and in his hand.
FROM ALL OTHER MOVING SHADOWS
From all other moving shadows
Today before the sun went down
Behind the purple hills;
The maple tree with its buds was blown
O’er the hollow the primrose fills.
That hollow under the maple tree
The primrose fills alway:
In the autumn and summer the broad leaves be,
In the spring the blossoms gay.
In the winter the ground is hard and the snow
Is white above the ground:
But the primrose roots they lie below
With the maple leaves around.
So today before the sun was set
The wind blew on one cloud:
Towards the east hand the rock was wet
With the water splashing up loud.
And a young knight stood by the maple tree:
With his right hand resting on it:
And in his left hand you might see
A letter, his blue eyes upon it.
Now the west was all a blaze with the sun,
There were purple clouds in the blaze:
The colours kept changing, the sun going down
And the east was soft with haze.
And the knight he gazed at the letter still
With his hand on the maple tree,
Till the sun was hidden by the hill
And he scarce could the letter see.
The wind sank down, when the sun went down,
And still the rock was wet:
And the daisies bent their heads adown
For they knew the sun was set.
Then the knight from the letter lifted his eyes
And he looked down on the river, breaks off
AND THEN AS THE SHIP MOVES OVER THE DEEP
And then as the ship moves over the deep,
She moves with her mariners all asleep;
They dream very sweetly.
And so our ship moved on through the night
Swiftly sailèd, under the light,
Swiftly and gently.
And all our mariners lay asleep
I did not dream, I did not sleep.
The Mermaid sang gently.
Under the moon I saw the surf,
I heard the mermaid gently laugh,
As we sailed to it.
I knew the coral reef was there —
I could not speak, I could not stir,
Though we sailed to it.
Scarce can I my wild tale tell
While the wave sounds like a knell.
Now my hair is very grey;
On the morning of that day
Black it curled about my brow,
That was very long ago.
That night beneath the moon.
To the surf we sailed on;
As I gazed, it seemed to me
That it was the rock, not we,
That movèd over the sea.
O! how horrible was the crash,
And a fiery straining flash
Dazzled my doomèd eyes
Instead of the light of the skies
Which were so blue above
Where the moon and the clouds did rove.
Jesu! how the shrieks rang out!
How the shriek rang, and the shout!
As the ship staggered;
As the masts wavered,
As the ship sank through the blue water.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Over are waved the boughs of the palm,
When I woke up all things were calm
In the dreary desert isle.
How many years have I wandered here,
By the purple sea, through the purple air,
In the dreary desert isle?
Notches I cut for each day in the year
In the bark of the palm, that rises in air
