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Forth sprang their swords, and Balen slew
The knave ere well one witness knew
Of all that round them stood or drew
What sight was there to see.

Then spake the great king's wrathful will
A doom for six dark months to fill
Wherein close prison held him, still
And steadfast-souled for good or ill.

But when those weary days lay dead
His lordliest knights and barons spake
Before the king for Balen's sake
Good speech and wise, of force to break
The bonds that bowed his head.

A BALLAD OF DREAMLAND.

[Poems and Ballads, Second Series, 1878. Vorher in «Belgravia», 1876.]

I HID my heart in a nest of roses,

Out of the sun's way, hidden apart;

In a softer bed than the soft white snow's is,
Under the roses I hid my heart.

Why would it sleep not? why should it start,
When never a leaf of the rose-tree stirred?

What made sleep flutter his wings and part?
Only the song of a secret bird.

Lie still, I said, for the wind's wing closes,
And mild leaves muffle the keen sun's dart;
Lie still, for the wind on the warm sea dozes,

And the wind is unquieter yet than thou art.

Does a thought in thee still as a thorn's wound smart? Does the fang still fret thee of hope deferred? What bids the lids of thy sleep dispart?

Only the song of a secret bird.

The green land's name that a charm encloses,
It never was writ in the traveller's chart,
And sweet on its trees as the fruit that grows is,
It never was sold in the merchant's mart.

The swallows of dreams through its dim fields dart, And sleep's are the tunes in its tree-tops heard;

No hound's note wakens the wildwood hart, Only the song of a secret bird.

ENVOI.

In the world of dreams I have chosen my part,
To sleep for a season and hear no word
Of true love's truth or of light love's art,
Only the song of a secret bird.

WHAT IS DEATH?

[Tristram of Lyonesse and other Poems, 1882.]

LOOKING on a page where stood

Graven of old on old-world wood

Death, and by the grave's edge grim,

Pale, the young man facing him,

Asked my well-beloved of me

Once what strange thing this might be,

Gaunt and great of limb.

Death, I told him: and, surprise

Deepening more his wildwood eyes

(Like some sweet fleet thing's whose breath
Speaks all spring though nought it saith),
Up he turned his rosebright face

Glorious with its seven year's grace,
Asking-What is death?

A JACOBITE'S FAREWELL.

1716.

[Poems and Ballads, Third Series, 1889.]

THERE'S nae mair lands to tyne, my dear,
And nae mair lives to gie:

Though a man think sair to live nae mair,
There's but one day to die.

For a' things come and a' days gane
What needs ye rend your hair?
But kiss me till the morn's morrow,
Then I'll kiss ye nae mair.

O lands are lost and life's losing,
And what were they to gie?
Fu' mony a man gives all he can,
But nae man else gives ye.

Our king wons ower the sea's water,
And I in prison sair:

But I'll win out the morn's morrow,

And ye'll see me nae mair.

THE DEATH OF RICHARD WAGNER.

[A Century of Roundels, 1883; vorher in The Musical Review, Febr. 24, 1883.]

I.

MOURNING on earth, as when dark hours descend, Wide-winged with plagues, from heaven; when hope and mirth:

Wane, and no lips rebuke or reprehend

Mourning on earth.

The soul wherein her songs of death and birth,
Darkness and light, were wont to sound and blend,
Now silent, leaves the whole world less in worth.

Winds that make moan and triumph, skies that bend, Thunders, and sound of tides in gulf and firth,

Spake through his spirit of speech, whose death should

send

Mourning on earth.

II.

The world's great heart, whence all things strange and rare
Take form and sound, that each inseperate part
May bear its burden in all tuned thoughts that share
The world's great heart-

The fountain forces, whence like steeds that start
Leap forth the powers of earth and fire and air,
Seas that revolve and rivers that depart--

Spake, and were turned to song: yea, all they were,
With all their works, found in his mastering art
Speech as of powers whose uttered word laid bare
The world's great heart.

III.

From the depths of the sea, from the wellsprings of earth, from the wastes of the midmost night,

From the fountains of darkness and tempest and thunder, from heights where the soul would be,

The spell of the mage of music evoked their sense, as an unknown light

From the depths of the sea.

As a vision of heaven from the hollows of ocean, that none but a god might see,

Rose out of the silence of things unknown of a presence, a form, a might,

And we heard as a prophet that hears God's message against him, and may not flee.

Eye might not endure it, but ear and heart with a rapture of dark delight,

With a terror and wonder whose core was joy, and a passion of thought set free,

Felt inly the rising of doom divine as a sundawn risen to sight

From the depths of the sea.

TWO PRELUDES.

[A Century of Roundels, 1883.]

I.

LOHENGRIN.

LOVE, out of the depth of things,
As a dewfall felt from above,

From the heaven whence only springs
Love,

Love, heard from the heights thereof,
The clouds and the watersprings,
Draws close as the clouds remove.

And the soul in it speaks and sings,
A swan sweet-souled as a dove,
An echo that only rings

Love.

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