Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress and Other Poems Read online

  O'er crag, morass, and hairbreadth pass,

  But never asked me yea or nay.

  He made me fast with book and bell,

  With links of love he makes me stay;

  Till now I've neither heart nor power

  Nor will nor wish to say him nay.

  WINTER RAIN

  EVERY valley drinks,

  Every dell and hollow:

  Where the kind rain sinks and sinks,

  Green of Spring will follow.

  Yet a lapse of weeks

  Buds will burst their edges,

  Strip their wool-coats, glue-coats, streaks,

  In the woods and hedges;

  Weave a bower of love

  For birds to meet each other,

  Weave a canopy above

  Nest and egg and mother.

  But for fattening rain

  We should have no flowers,

  Never a bud or leaf again

  But for soaking showers;

  Never a mated bird

  In the rocking tree-tops,

  Never indeed a flock or herd

  To graze upon the lea-crops.

  Lambs so woolly white,

  Sheep the sun-bright leas on,

  They could have no grass to bite

  But for rain in season.

  We should find no moss

  In the shadiest places,

  Find no waving meadow grass

  Pied with broad-eyed daisies:

  But miles of barren sand,

  With never a son or daughter,

  Not a lily on the land,

  Or lily on the water.

  COUSIN KATE

  I WAS a cottage maiden

  Hardened by sun and air,

  Contented with my cottage mates,

  Not mindful I was fair.

  Why did a great lord find me out,

  And praise my flaxen hair?

  Why did a great lord find me out

  To fill my heart with care?

  He lured me to his palace home—

  Woe's me for joy thereof—

  To lead a shameless shameful life,

  His plaything and his love.

  He wore me like a silken knot,

  He changed me like a glove;

  So now I moan, an unclean thing,

  Who might have been a dove.

  O Lady Kate, my cousin Kate,

  You grew more fair than I:

  He saw you at your father's gate,

  Chose you, and cast me by.

  He watched your steps along the lane,

  Your work among the rye;

  He lifted you from mean estate

  To sit with him on high.

  Because you were so good and pure

  He bound you with his ring:

  The neighbours call you good and pure,

  Call me an outcast thing.

  Even so I sit and howl in dust,

  You sit in gold and sing:

  Now which of us has tenderer heart?

  You had the stronger wing.

  O cousin Kate, my love was true,

  Your love was writ in sand:

  If he had fooled not me but you,

  If you stood where I stand,

  He'd not have won me with his love

  Nor bought me with his land;

  I would have spit into his face

  And not have taken his hand.

  Yet I've a gift you have not got,

  And seem not like to get:

  For all your clothes and wedding-ring

  I've little doubt you fret.

  My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride,

  Cling closer, closer yet:

  Your father would give lands for one

  To wear his coronet.

  NOBLE SISTERS

  'NOW did you mark a falcon,

  Sister dear, sister dear,

  Flying toward my window

  In the morning cool and clear?

  With jingling bells about her neck,

  But what beneath her wing?

  It may have been a ribbon,

  Or it may have been a ring.'—

  'I marked a falcon swooping

  At the break of day:

  And for your love, my sister dove,

  I 'frayed the thief away.'—

  'Or did you spy a ruddy hound,

  Sister fair and tall,

  Went snuffing round my garden bound,

  Or crouched by my bower wall?

  With a silken leash about his neck;

  But in his mouth may be

  A chain of gold and silver links,

  Or a letter writ to me.'—

  'I heard a hound, highborn sister,

  Stood baying at the moon:

  I rose and drove him from your wall

  Lest you should wake too soon.'—

  'Or did you meet a pretty page

  Sat swinging on the gate;

  Sat whistling whistling like a bird,

  Or may be slept too late:

  With eaglets broidered on his cap,

  And eaglets on his glove?

  If you had turned his pockets out,

  You had found some pledge of love.'—

  'I met him at this daybreak,

  Scarce the east was red:

  Lest the creaking gate should anger you,

  I packed him home to bed.'—

  'Oh patience, sister. Did you see

  A young man tall and strong,

  Swift-footed to uphold the right

  And to uproot the wrong,

  Come home across the desolate sea

  To woo me for his wife?

  And in his heart my heart is locked,

  And in his life my life.'—

  'I met a nameless man, sister,

  Hard by your chamber door:

  I said: Her husband loves her much.

  And yet she loves him more.'—

  'Fie, sister, fie, a wicked lie,

  A lie, a wicked lie,

  I have none other love but him,

  Nor will have till I die.

  And you have turned him from our door,

  And stabbed him with a lie:

  I will go seek him thro' the world

  In sorrow till I die.'—

  'Go seek in sorrow, sister,

  And find in sorrow too:

  If thus you shame our father's name

  My curse go forth with you.'

  SPRING

  FROST-LOCKED all the winter,

  Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,

  What shall make their sap ascend

  That they may put forth shoots?

  Tips of tender green,

  Leaf, or blade, or sheath;

  Telling of the hidden life

  That breaks forth underneath,

  Life nursed in its grave by Death.

  Blows the thaw-wind pleasantly,

  Drips the soaking rain,

  By fits looks down the waking sun:

  Young grass springs on the plain;

  Young leaves clothe early hedgerow trees;

  Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,

  Swollen with sap put forth their shoots;

  Curled-headed ferns sprout in the lane;

  Birds sing and pair again.

  There is no time like Spring,

  When life's alive in everything,

  Before new nestlings sing,

  Before cleft swallows speed their journey back

  Along the trackless track—

  God guides their wing,

  He spreads their table that they nothing lack,—

  Before the daisy grows a common flower,

  Before the sun has power

  To scorch the world up in his noontide hour.

  There is no time like Spring,

  Like Spring that passes by;

  There is no life like Spring-life born to die,—

  Piercing the sod,

  Clothing the uncouth clod,

  Hatched in the nest,


  Fledged on the windy bough,

  Strong on the wing:

  There is no time like Spring that passes by,

  Now newly born, and now

  Hastening to die.

  THE LAMBS OF GRASMERE, 1860

  THE upland flocks grew starved and thinned:

  Their shepherds scarce could feed the lambs

  Whose milkless mothers butted them,

  Or who were orphaned of their dams.

  The lambs athirst for mother's milk

  Filled all the place with piteous sounds:

  Their mothers' bones made white for miles

  The pastureless wet pasture grounds.

  Day after day, night after night,

  From lamb to lamb the shepherds went,

  With teapots for the bleating mouths

  Instead of nature's nourishment.

  The little shivering gaping things

  Soon knew the step that brought them aid,

  And fondled the protecting hand,

  And rubbed it with a woolly head.

  Then, as the days waxed on to weeks,

  It was a pretty sight to see

  These lambs with frisky heads and tails

  Skipping and leaping on the lea,

  Bleating in tender, trustful tones,

  Resting on rocky crag or mound.

  And following the beloved feet

  That once had sought for them and found.

  These very shepherds of their flocks,

  These loving lambs so meek to please,

  Are worthy of recording words

  And honour in their due degrees:

  So I might live a hundred years,

  And roam from strand to foreign strand,

  Yet not forget this flooded spring

  And scarce-saved lambs of Westmoreland.

  A BIRTHDAY

  MY heart is like a singing bird

  Whose nest is in a watered shoot;

  My heart is like an apple-tree

  Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;

  My heart is like a rainbow shell

  That paddles in a halcyon sea;

  My heart is gladder than all these

  Because my love is come to me.

  Raise me a dais of silk and down;

  Hang it with vair and purple dyes;

  Carve it in doves, and pomegranates,

  And peacocks with a hundred eyes;

  Work it in gold and silver grapes,

  In leaves, and silver fleurs-de-lys;

  Because the birthday of my life

  Is come, my love is come to me.

  REMEMBER

  SONNET

  REMEMBER me when I am gone away,

  Gone far away into the silent land;

  When you can no more hold me by the hand,

  Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

  Remember me when no more day by day

  You tell me of our future that you planned:

  Only remember me; you understand

  It will be late to counsel then or pray.

  Yet if you should forget me for a while

  And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

  For if the darkness and corruption leave

  A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

  Better by far you should forget and smile

  Than that you should remember and be sad.

  AFTER DEATH

  SONNET

  THE curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept

  And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may

  Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,

  Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept.

  He leaned above me, thinking that I slept

  And could not hear him; but I heard him say:

  'Poor child, poor child:' and as he turned away

  Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept.

  He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold

  That hid my face, or take my hand in his,

  Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head:

  He did not love me living; but once dead

  He pitied me; and very sweet it is

  To know he still is warm though I am cold.

  AN END

  LOVE, strong as Death, is dead.

  Come, let us make his bed

  Among the dying flowers:

  A green turf at his head;

  And a stone at his feet,

  Whereon we may sit

  In the quiet evening hours.

  He was born in the Spring,

  And died before the harvesting:

  On the last warm summer day

  He left us; he would not stay

  For Autumn twilight cold and grey.

  Sit we by his grave, and sing

  He is gone away.

  To few chords and sad and low

  Sing we so:

  Be our eyes fixed on the grass

  Shadow-veiled as the years pass

  While we think of all that was

  In the long ago.

  MY DREAM

  HEAR now a curious dream I dreamed last night

  Each word whereof is weighed and sifted truth.

  I stood beside Euphrates while it swelled

  Like overflowing Jordan in its youth:

  It waxed and coloured sensibly to sight;

  Till out of myriad pregnant waves there welled

  Young crocodiles, a gaunt blunt-featured crew,

  Fresh-hatched perhaps and daubed with birthday dew.

  The rest if I should tell, I fear my friend

  My closest friend would deem the facts untrue;

  And therefore it were wisely left untold;

  Yet if you will, why, hear it to the end.

  Each crocodile was girt with massive gold

  And polished stones that with their wearers grew:

  But one there was who waxed beyond the rest,

  Wore kinglier girdle and a kingly crown,

  Whilst crowns and orbs and sceptres starred his breast.

  All gleamed compact and green with scale on scale,

  But special burnishment adorned his mail

  And special terror weighed upon his frown;

  His punier brethren quaked before his tail,

  Broad as a rafter, potent as a flail.

  So he grew lord and master of his kin:

  But who shall tell the tale of all their woes?

  An execrable appetite arose,

  He battened on them, crunched, and sucked them in.

  He knew no law, he feared no binding law,

  But ground them with inexorable jaw:

  The luscious fat distilled upon his chin,

  Exuded from his nostrils and his eyes,

  While still like hungry death he fed his maw;

  Till every minor crocodile being dead

  And buried too, himself gorged to the full,

  He slept with breath oppressed and unstrung claw.

  Oh marvel passing strange which next I saw:

  In sleep he dwindled to the common size,

  And all the empire faded from his coat.

  Then from far off a wingèd vessel came,

  Swift as a swallow, subtle as a flame:

  I know not what it bore of freight or host,

  But white it was as an avenging ghost.

  It levelled strong Euphrates in its course;