I WILL follow through yon grove,
Where I soon shall meet my love;
Then with sweet embraces we
Will clip, and cull, and none shall see.
A willow garland I will make,
And sweetly wear it for his sake.
Then through the thickets, woods and plains
I will hide me from the swains.

There dwelt a miller, hale and bold,
—Beside the River Dee;
He wrought and sang from morn till night,
—No lark more blithe than he;
And this the burden of his song
—Forever used to be,
“I envy no man, no, not I,
—And no one envies me!”

“Thou'rt wrong, my friend!” said old King Hal,
—“As wrong as wrong can be;
For could my heart be light as thine,
—I'd gladly change with thee.
And tell me now what makes thee sing
—With voice so loud and free,
While I am sad, though I'm the King,
—Beside the River Dee?”

Ruminant, while firelight glows on shadowy walls
And dusk with the last leaves of autumn falls,
I hear my garden thrush whose notes again
Tell stillness after hours of gusty rain.
Can I record tranquillity intense
With harmony of heart,—experience
Like a rich memory's mind-lit monochrome?
Winged lovely moments, can I call you home?

This texture is to-day's. Near as my mind
Each instant is; yet each reveals to me
November night-falls known a lifetime long:
And I've no need to travel far to find
This bird who from the leafless walnut tree

Paint black with peril what the Time portends;
Breathe, if thou wilt, but stifling hopelessness;
Brood on Man's swift decline from small to less—
The beast that wallows or the beast that rends:
Yet shall the Good prevail,
We shall not fail!

Blush for our country's dignity and fame,
Forgot by those who rob us of our pride;
Deplore the sleepers at the altar's side
While madmen light their torch at Freedom's flame:
Yet shall the Good prevail,
We shall not fail!

Yea, shudder at the temple strewn with coin;
Law leaning on the broken sword of Force;

I WEEP a sight which was not seen,
A deed which was not done at all
The murder of an unborn queen,
The sack of an unbuilded hall.

Never a queen of Art or Song
This doom-devoted star hath borne
Whom the protagonists of Wrong
Did not tread down with hooves of scorn.

Stern watch those iron traitors keep
Who crucified the Singing Child.
The unborn Christs we poets weep,
The strangled songs, the dreams defiled.

Put back the Bible in its place: you know
Well enough where it lies upon the mat
Beside the aspidistra—ay, just so.
I cannot think at all what you'd be at,
Taking it down, and on a weekday, too!
You cannot have been after any good.
Surely a girl should have enough to do
Upon a Monday morning, ay, she should,
With the week's washing waiting to be done,
Without book-reading and such idleness!
What was it you were conning? Solomon!
A young wench reading Solomon, no less!
You should feel shame! I cannot think what lasses

A woman stops at nothing, when she wears
Rich emeralds round her neck, and, in her ears,
Pearls of enormous size; these justify
Her faults, and make all lawful in her eye.
Sure, of all ills with which the state is curst,
A wife, who brings you money, is the worst.
Behold! her face a spectacle appears,
Bloated, and foul, and plaister'd to the ears
With viscous pastes:—the husband looks askew,
And sticks his lips in this detested glew.
Still to the adulterer, sweet and clean she goes,
(No sight offends his eye, no smell his nose,)

I SAW before me loom an ancient house;
One portal there, with mystic words inscribed,
Had in its centre graved, the single horn
Ascending—sign of the immortal mind
Which rules for ever and is ruled by none,
Because united to the Law Divine
'Tis made for ever to itself a law—
Thy burning star, dread, potent Pentagram!

Before that threshold in the morn's first light,
In wonder lost, in ecstasy of joy,
I stood: Thou spirit to the end attain'd,
Thou crown'd adept, thy long probation done,
Was that the Temple of the Rose and Cross?
Speak, hierophant!

Skoles stinks so deadly, that his Breeches loath
His dampish Buttocks furthermore to cloath:
Cloy'd they are up with Arse; but hope, one blast
Will whirle about, and blow them thence at last.

If there be graveyards in the heart
From which no roses spring,
A place of wrecks and old gray tombs
From which no birds take wing,
Where linger buried hopes and dreams
Like ghosts among the graves,
Why, buried hopes are dismal things,
And lonely ghosts are knaves!

If there come dreary winter days,
When summer roses fall
And lie, forgot, in withered drifts
Along the garden wall;
If all the wreaths a lover weaves
Turn thorns upon the brow,—
Then out upon the silly fool
Who makes not merry now!

For if we cannot keep the past,