1894

What would he find if came he now?
A phantom crown on kingly brow,
Veiled sceptre, trembling throne;
Pulpits where threat and curse have ceased,
And shrines whereat half-sceptic priest 35
Worships, too oft, alone.

With muffled psalm and whispered hymn,
At secret dawn or twilight dim,

A pious remnant pray;

For their maimed rites indulgence plead, 40 And, half uncertain of their creed,

Explain their God away.

Gone the conventions Shelley cursed:
The first are last, the last are first;
The lame, the halt, the blind,
Now in the seat of power, along
With the far-seeing and the strong,
Mould mandates for mankind.

45

Wake, poet! and retune your strings.
The earth now swarms with petty kings, 80
Seated on self-made thrones,

And altar-tables richly spread,
Where Roguery consecrates the bread,
And Opulence atones.

Here Shelley prayed that War might cease 85
From earth, and Pentecostal Peace

Descend with dovelike breath.

Look round this bay! each treeless gorge,
Each scarred ravine, incessant forge

The instruments of death.
From Salterbrand's unfreezing peaks
To sunny Manfredonia's creeks,

Have alien satraps gone;

But, guarding Italy the Free,

90

Her murderous mammoth-monsters, see, Come grimly wallowing on.

95

Yes, here He dwelt and dreamed: and there, Gleams Porto Venere the fair,

The mockery of a name.

Where fervent Venus once was Queen, 100 Hot Mars now ravishes the scene,

And fans a fiercer flame.

It grows not older for mortal tears, For the falsehood of men or for women's fears;

"T is as young as it was in the bygone years, When first was heard the cuckoo.

I will love you then as I love you now, 65
Cuckoo!

What cares the Spring for a broken vow?
Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
The broods of last year are pairing, this;
And there will never lack, while love is
bliss,

Fresh ears to cozen, fresh lips to kiss,

In the month when sings the cuckoo.

70

Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

The dew of the night and the morning heat Will close up the track of my farewell feet:

She hardly knew

10

100

She was a woman, so

So good-bye to the life that once was sweet, When so sweetly called the cuckoo.

The kine are unmilked, and the cream un

Cuckoo!

Sweetly she grew.

Coffin-board, heavy stone,
Lie on her breast,

I vex my heart alone,
She is at rest.

churned,

15

Peace, Peace, she cannot hear

Lyre or sonnet,

All my life's buried here,
Heap earth upon it.

1881

THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL

I

He did not wear his scarlet coat,

For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;

A cricket cap was on his head,

And his step seemed light and gay; But I never saw a man who looked

So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye

Upon that little tent of blue

Which prisoners call the sky,

And at every drifting cloud that went

With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
Within another ring,

And was wondering if the man had done
A great or little thing,

When a voice behind me whispered low, 'That fellow's got to swing.'

Dear Christ! the very prison walls
Suddenly seemed to reel,

And the sky above my head became
Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought
Quickened his step, and why

He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;

20

5

10

15

20

And the Governor all in shiny black,

70

While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats,

The man had killed the thing he loved 35 And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword!

The Burial Office read, Nor, while the terror of his soul Tells him he is not dead, Cross his own coffin, as he moves Into the hideous shed.

40

90

He does not stare upon the air Through a little roof of glass: