22 He was but one like thousands more, Day and night I deplore My people and born own nation, Fast foundering own generation,

23 I might let bygones be--our curse Of ruinous shrine no hand or, worse, Robbery's hand is busy to Dress, h.o.a.r-hallowed shrines unvisited;

24 Only the breathing temple and fleet Life, this wildworth blown so sweet, These daredeaths, ay this crew, in Unchrist, all rolled in ruin--

25 Deeply surely I need to deplore it, Wondering why my master bore it, The riving off that race So at home, time was, to his truth and grace

26 That a starlight-wender of ours would say The marvellous Milk was Walsingham Way And one--but let be, let be: More, more than was will yet be.--

27 O well wept, mother have lost son; Wept, wife; wept, sweetheart would be one: Though grief yield them no good Yet shed what tears sad truelove should.

28 But to Christ lord of thunder Crouch; lay knee by earth low under: 'Holiest, loveliest, bravest, Save my hero, O Hero savest.

29 And the prayer thou hearst me making Have, at the awful overtaking, Heard; have heard and granted Grace that day grace was wanted.'

30 Not that h.e.l.l knows redeeming, But for souls sunk in seeming Fresh, till doomfire burn all, Prayer shall fetch pity eternal.

_18 The May Magnificat_

MAY is Mary's month, and I Muse at that and wonder why: Her feasts follow reason, Dated due to season--

Candlemas, Lady Day; But the Lady Month, May, Why fasten that upon her, With a feasting in her honour?

Is it only its being brighter Than the most are must delight her?

Is it opportunest And flowers finds soonest?

Ask of her, the mighty mother: Her reply puts this other Question: What is Spring?-- Growth in every thing--

Flesh and fleece, fur and feather, Gra.s.s and green world all together; Star-eyed strawberry-breasted Throstle above her nested

Cl.u.s.ter of bugle blue eggs thin Forms and warms the life within; And bird and blossom swell In sod or sheath or sh.e.l.l.

All things rising, all things sizing Mary sees, sympathising With that world of good, Nature's motherhood.

Their magnifying of each its kind With delight calls to mind How she did in her stored Magnify the Lord.

Well but there was more than this: Spring's universal bliss Much, had much to say To offering Mary May.

When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple Bloom lights the orchard-apple And thicket and thorp are merry With silver-surfed cherry

And azuring-over greybell makes Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes And magic cuckoocall Caps, clears, and clinches all--

This ecstacy all through mothering earth Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth To remember and exultation In G.o.d who was her salvation.

_19 Binsey Poplars

felled 1879_

MY aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled, Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun, All felled, felled, are all felled; Of a fresh and following folded rank Not spared, not one That dandled a sandalled Shadow that swam or sank On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what we do When we delve or hew-- Hack and rack the growing green!

Since country is so tender To touch, her being so slender, That, like this sleek and seeing ball But a p.r.i.c.k will make no eye at all, Where we, even where we mean To mend her we end her, When we hew or delve: After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.

Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve Strokes of havoc unselve The sweet especial scene, Rural scene, a rural scene, Sweet especial rural scene.

_20 Duns Scotus's Oxford_

TOWERY city and branchy between towers; Cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmed, lark-charmed, rook- racked, river-rounded; The dapple-eared lily below thee; that country and town did Once encounter in, here coped and poised powers;

Thou hast a base and brickish skirt there, sours That neighbour-nature thy grey beauty is grounded Best in; graceless growth, thou hast confounded Rural rural keeping--folk, flocks, and flowers.

Yet ah! this air I gather and I release He lived on; these weeds and waters, these walls are what He haunted who of all men most sways my spirits to peace;

Of realty the rarest-veined unraveller; a not Rivalled insight, be rival Italy or Greece; Who fired France for Mary without spot.

_21 Henry Purcell_

_The poet wishes well to the divine genius of Purcell and praises him that, whereas other musicians have given utterance to the moods of man's mind, he has, beyond that, uttered in notes the very make and species of man as created both in him and in all men generally._

HAVE fair fallen, O fair, fair have fallen, so dear To me, so arch-especial a spirit as heaves in Henry Purcell, An age is now since pa.s.sed, since parted; with the reversal Of the outward sentence low lays him, listed to a heresy, here.

Not mood in him nor meaning, proud fire or sacred fear, Or love or pity or all that sweet notes not his might nursle: It is the forged feature finds me; it is the rehearsal Of own, of abrupt self there so thrusts on, so throngs the ear.

Let him Oh! with his air of angels then lift me, lay me!

only I'll Have an eye to the sakes of him, quaint moonmarks, to his pelted plumage under Wings: so some great stormfowl, whenever he has walked his while

The thunder-purple seabeach plume purple-of-thunder, If a wuthering of his palmy snow-pinions scatter a colossal smile Off him, but meaning motion fans fresh our wits with wonder.

_22 Peace_

WHEN will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut, Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?

When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I'll not play hypocrite To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?

O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite, That plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does house He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo, He comes to brood and sit.

_23 The Bugler's First Communion

A BUGLER boy from barrack (it is over the hill There)--boy bugler, born, he tells me, of Irish Mother to an English sire (he Shares their best gifts surely, fall how things will),

This very very day came down to us after a boon he on My late being there begged of me, overflowing Boon in my bestowing, Came, I say, this day to it--to a First Communion.

Here he knelt then in regimental red.

Forth Christ from cupboard fetched, how fain I of feet To his youngster take his treat!