English

In themselves as weak as worms.
How can feeble saints prevail,
When temptations, trials, storms.
Foes, and crime their souls assail?

Weak indeed they know they are,
But they seek the throne of grace,
And the God, who answers pray'r,
Helps them, when they seek his face.

Though he may awhile delay,
Yet his help they're sure to gain;
He, who taught their hearts to pray,
Will not let them cry in vain.

Wrestling pray'r can wonders do,
Bring relief in deepest straits;

At this point let us become more personal —
What do you think—a proper sporting spell!
Come down to earth with me and rummage round
In things as concrete as our well-pegged pound,
Round fourteen shillings: things as far apart
As the economic history of art,
And the great laws that hedge the life of Dr Fell,
That admirable physician! Let us tell
Each other stories of the dark campaigns
That dominate the output of our brains
And for that purpose I will call upon
A powerful ghost, as well up as any don

Stumble upon this block. You wangle when
You come to seize the bright strap-hanging pen,
In an overcoat-pocket. (This is the block you've seen
Midway to the big sporting guillotine.)
Come now, crestfallen! I'll cut off your crest.
Come now, crude angel, I'll give you of my best!
I'm not half the man to bivouac just half-way.
No half-way house beyond the frosty bay
Is a stone beacon. Yesterday's enough.
Come now, my curlew! The icepack's up to snuff,
And the young ice is strong. Come now, Bellerophon

The man I can when others cannot be—
When they're most mannish, why that's not for me!
(Because I am so modest I'm so frank.
I know how the class-conscious crab my rank).
Now when I'm up in arms others are not,
When I'm most male they are a softish lot.
They puff their chests when I deflate my own.
They stick their jaws out when my own jawbone
Is tucked back in my neck. So there you are!
There is a time to spar and not to spar.
My time to spar is the reverse of men's.
They are often cocky, but when I'm a cock they're hens!

Now come all ye who live in England's span
And tell me if I'm not a proper man.
A bollocky Bill, a mild-horned coptic ram.
And yet I'm all that is the sheer reverse
Of horsey He-man antics. Verse for verse
I can stand toe to toe with Chapman—or
With Humbert Wolfe or Kipling or Tagore!
I link my arm with the puff-armlets of Sweet Will,
I march in step with Pope, support Churchill.
The tudor song blossoms again when I speak.
With the cavaliers I visit, with Donne I am dark and meek.
With Cleveland I coin phrases—Inca buds

The Year, now eight moons old, leans o'er the flood
In a grave quiet. He has laid to heart
The winds—at evening hushed, that vexed the morn—
As he had heard December's shout from far.
Yet is his mood resigned, for he has blessed
The earth with beauty.—Thus we moralized.
Feeling bred fancy; filial fancy brought
New stores to feeling, till the scene around
Grew human like ourselves. The current sighed
To think it might not tarry; laden boughs—
Like triumph smitten with the thought of death—
Drooped over the green walls; and sat sedate

Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it.
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God's sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.

A long and narrow shop, magenta black
Mottled with rose; ten fires along one wall.
Faint day comes through the skylight overhead
Smoke-grimed to orange, when it comes at all.
The blast shut off for breakfast, fires are slack.

The buzzing neighbouring engine quieted,
You hear the mates talking from berth to berth;
The silence is complete. The seldom noises
Reverberate as, quaintly, under earth
The graves repeat the sayings of the dead.

Contrasted with the metals, human voices
Sound hoarse and soft, as out of hollowed wood.

Once I was young, and fancy was my all,
My love, my joy, my grief, my hope, my fear,
And ever ready as an infant's tear,
Whate'er in Fancy's kingdom might befal,
Some quaint device had Fancy still at call,
With seemly verse to greet the coming cheer;
Such grief to soothe, such airy hope to rear,
To sing the birth-song, or the funeral,
Of such light love, it was a pleasant task;
But ill accord the quirks of wayward glee,
That wears affliction for a wanton mask,
With woes that bear not Fancy's livery;

Lord God, I have been guilty in my life,
Yet worshiped Beauty, and aspire to make
A work that shall have love and faith, heart-break,
Passion and joy and triumph after strife,
And all the glow wherewith the sky is rife.

And I implore thee, Master, for the sake
Of this, the longing of my soul, to give
Thy potent aid: since thou art pain and bliss
And faith and love and everything that is.
Look down upon my work and let it live
And be for ever lovely; and for this
Great boon of thine, I swear to do Thy will