• Not that the earth is changing, O my God!
• Nor that the seasons totter in their walk,—
• Not that the virulent ill of act and talk
• Seethes ever as a winepress ever trod,—
• Not therefore are we certain that the rod
• Weighs in thine hand to smite thy world; though now
• Beneath thine hand so many nations bow,
• So many kings:—not therefore, O my God!—

• But because Man is parcelled out in men
• 10 To-day; because, for any wrongful blow,
• No man not stricken asks, ‘I would be told
• Why thou dost thus;’ but his heart whispers then,
• ‘He is he, I am I.’ By this we know
• That our earth falls asunder, being old.

   

• As he that loves oft looks on the dear form
• And guesses how it grew to womanhood,
• And gladly would have watched the beauties bud
• And the mild fire of precious life wax warm:—
• So I, long bound within the threefold charm
• Of Dante's love sublimed to heavenly mood,
• Had marvelled, touching his Beatitude,
• How grew such presence from man's shameful swarm.

• At length within this book I found pourtrayed
• 10 Newborn that Paradisal Love of his,
• And simple like a child; with whose clear aid
• I understood. To such a child as this,
• Christ, charging well his chosen ones, forbade
• Offence: ‘for lo! of such my kingdom is.’

   

• And did'st thou know indeed, when at the font
• Together with thy name thou gav'st me his,
• That also on thy son must Beatrice
• Decline her eyes according to her wont,
• Accepting me to be of those that haunt
• The vale of magical dark mysteries
• Where to the hills her poet's foot-track lies
• And wisdom's living fountain to his chaunt
• Trembles in music? This is that steep land
• 10 Where he that holds his journey stands at gaze
• Tow'rd sunset, when the clouds like a new height
• Seem piled to climb. These things I understand:
• For here, where day still soothes my lifted face,
• On thy bowed head, my father, fell the night.

       

• The lilies stand before her like a screen,
• Through which, upon this silent solemn day,
• God surely hears. For there she kneels to pray
• Who bore our Bourne of prayer—Mary the Queen.
• She was Faith's Present, parting what had been
• From what began with her and is for aye:
• On either side God's twofold system lay,—
• With meek bowed face a virgin prayed between.

• So prays she, and the Dove flies in to her,
• 10 And she has turned. Within the porch is one
• Who looks as though proud awe made him to smile.
• Heavy with heat, the growths yield shadow there,
• The loud flies cross each other in the sun,
• And the aisle-pillars meet the poplar-aisle.

   

• Upon a sun-scorched road when noon was deep
• I passed a little consecrated shrine,
• Where among simple pictures ranged in line
• The Blessed Mary holds her Son asleep.
• To kneel here, shepherd-children leave their sheep
• When silence broods at heart of the sunshine,
• And again kneel here in the day's decline,
• And here, when their life ails them, come to weep.

• Night being full, I passed on the same road
• 10By the same shrine. Within, a lamp was lit,
• Which through the depth of utter darkness glow'd.
• Thus, after heat of life, when doubts arise
• Dim-hurtling, Faith's pure lamp must beam on it,—
• How oft unfir'd in man,—how oft that dies!

   

• She fluted with her mouth as when one sips,
• And gently waved her golden head, inclin'd
• Outside his cage close to the window-blind;
• Till her fond bird, with little turns and dips,
• Piped low to her of sweet companionships.
• And when he made an end, some seed took she
• And fed him from her tongue, which rosily
• Peeped as a piercing bud between her lips.

• And like the child in Chaucer, on whose tongue
• 10 The Blessed Mary laid, when he was dead,
• A grain,—who straightway praised her name in song:
• Even so, when she, a little lightly red,
• Now turned on me and laughed, I heard the throng
• Of inner voices praise her golden head.

   

• Weary already, weary miles to-night
• I walked for bed: and so, to get some ease,
• I dogged the flying moon with similes.
• And like a wisp she doubled on my sight
• In ponds; and caught in tree-tops like a kite;
• And in a globe of film all liquorish
• Swam full-faced like a silly silver fish;—
• Last like a bubble shot the welkin's height
• Where my road turned, and got behind me, and sent
• 10 My wizened shadow craning round at me,
• And jeered, ‘So, step the measure,—one two three!’—
• And if I faced on her, looked innocent.
• But just at parting, halfway down a dell,
• She kissed me for good-night. So you'll not tell.

       

• Tell me now in what hidden way is
• Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
• Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
• Neither of them the fairer woman?
• Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
• Only heard on river and mere,—
• She whose beauty was more than human?...
• But where are the snows of yester-year?

• Where's Héloise, the learned nun,
• 10 For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
• Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
• (From Love he won such dule and teen!)
• And where, I pray you, is the Queen
• Who willed that Buridan should steer
• Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine?...
• But where are the snows of yester-year?

• White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,
• With a voice like any mermaiden,—
• Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
• 20 And Ermengarde the lady of Maine,—
• And that good Joan whom Englishmen
• At Rouen doomed and burned her there,—
• Mother of God, where are they then? . . .
• But where are the snows of yester-year?

• Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,
• Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
• Save with thus much for an overword,—
• But where are the snows of yester-year?

   

• Death, of thee do I make my moan,
• Who hadst my lady away from me,
• Nor wilt assuage thine enmity
• Till with her life thou hast mine own;
• For since that hour my strength has flown.
• Lo! what wrong was her life to thee,
• Death?

• Two we were, and the heart was one;
• Which now being dead, dead I must be,
• 10 Or seem alive as lifelessly
• As in the choir the painted stone,
• Death!

   

• Lady of Heaven and earth, and therewithal
• Crowned Empress of the nether clefts of Hell,—
• I, thy poor Christian, on thy name do call,
• Commending me to thee, with thee to dwell,
• Albeit in nought I be commendable.
• But all mine undeserving may not mar
• Such mercies as thy sovereign mercies are;
• Without the which (as true words testify)
• No soul can reach thy Heaven so fair and far.
• 10 Even in this faith I choose to live and die.

• Unto thy Son say thou that I am His,
• And to me graceless make Him gracious.
• Sad Mary of Egypt lacked not of that bliss,
• Nor yet the sorrowful clerk Theophilus,
• Whose bitter sins were set aside even thus
page: 287  
• Though to the Fiend his bounden service was.
• Oh help me, lest in vain for me should pass
• (Sweet Virgin that shalt have no loss thereby!)
• The blessed Host and sacring of the Mass.
• 20 Even in this faith I choose to live and die.

• A pitiful poor woman, shrunk and old,
• I am, and nothing learn'd in letter-lore.
• Within my parish-cloister I behold
• A painted Heaven where harps and lutes adore,
• And eke an Hell whose damned folk seethe full sore:
• One bringeth fear, the other joy to me.
• That joy, great Goddess, make thou mine to be,—
• Thou of whom all must ask it even as I;
• And that which faith desires, that let it see.
• 30 For in this faith I choose to live and die.

• O excellent Virgin Princess! thou didst bear
• King Jesus, the most excellent comforter,
• Who even of this our weakness craved a share
• And for our sake stooped to us from on high,
• Offering to death His young life sweet and fair.
• Such as He is, Our Lord, I Him declare,
• And in this faith I choose to live and die.

   

• John of Tours is back with peace,
• But he comes home ill at ease.

• ‘Good-morrow, mother.’ ‘Good-morrow, son;
• Your wife has borne you a little one.’

• ‘Go now, mother, go before,
• Make me a bed upon the floor;

• ‘Very low your foot must fall,
• That my wife hear not at all.’

• As it neared the midnight toll,
• 10 John of Tours gave up his soul.

• ‘Tell me now, my mother my dear,
• What's the crying that I hear?’

• ‘Daughter, it's the children wake
• Crying with their teeth that ache.’