Since he is come there's nothing wise
Nor fair in man or child,
Unless his deep divining eyes

Have looked on it and smiled.

Whence came he hither all alone
Among our folk to spy?

There's nought that we can call our own,
Till he shall hap to die.

And I would dig his grave full deep
Beneath the churchyard yew,

Lest thence his wizard eyes might peep
To mark the things we do.

26

CROWN Winter with green,
And give him good drink
To physic his spleen
Or ever he think.

His mouth to the bowl,

His feet to the fire;
And let him, good soul,
No comfort desire.

So merry he be,

I bid him abide :
And merry be we
This good Yuletide.

27

THE Snow lies sprinkled on the beach,
And whitens all the marshy lea:
The sad gulls wail adown the gale,
The day is dark and black the sea.

Shorn of their crests the blighted waves
With driven foam the offing fleck :
The ebb is low and barely laves
The red rust of the giant wreck.

On such a stony, breaking beach
My childhood chanced and chose to be:
"Twas here I played, and musing made
My friend the melancholy sea.

He from his dim enchanted caves
With shuddering roar and onrush wild
Fell down in sacrificial waves

At feet of his exulting child.

Unto a spirit too light for fear

His wrath was mirth, his wail was glee :-
My heart is now too fixed to bow
Tho' all his tempests howl at me:

For to the gain life's summer saves,
My solemn joy's increasing store,
The tossing of his mournful waves
Makes sweetest music evermore.

28

My spirit kisseth thine,
My spirit embraceth thee:
I feel thy being twine

Her graces over me,

In the life-kindling fold

Of God's breath; where on high,
In furthest space untold

Like a lost world I lie :

And o'er my dreaming plains
Lightens, most pale and fair,
A moon that never wanes;
Or more, if I compare,

Like what the shepherd sees
On late mid-winter dawns,
When thro' the branchèd trees,
O'er the white-frosted lawns,

The huge unclouded sun,
Surprising the world whist,
Is all uprisen thereon,
Golden with melting mist.

29

ARIEL, O,-my angel, my own,—
Whither away then art thou flown
Beyond my spirit's dominion?

That makest my heart run over with rhyme,
Renewing at will my youth for a time,
My servant, my pretty minion.

Now indeed I have cause to mourn,
Now thou returnest scorn for scorn:
Leave me not to my folly :

For when thou art with me is none so gay
As I, and none when thou'rt away

Was ever so melancholy.

30

LAUS DEO

LET praise devote thy work, and skill employ Thy whole mind, and thy heart be lost in joy. Well-doing bringeth pride, this constant thought Humility, that thy best done is nought.

Man doeth nothing well, be it great or small, Save to praise God; but that hath saved all : For God requires no more than thou hast done, And takes thy work to bless it for his own.

BOOK V

DEDICATED TO M. G. K.

I •

THE WINNOWERS

BETWIXT two billows of the downs
The little hamlet lies,

And nothing sees but the bald crowns
Of the hills, and the blue skies.

Clustering beneath the long descent
And grey slopes of the wold,
The red roofs nestle, oversprent
With lichen yellow as gold.

We found it in the mid-day sun
Basking, what time of year
The thrush his singing has begun,
Ere the first leaves appear.

High from his load a woodman pitched His faggots on the stack:

Knee-deep in straw the cattle twitched Sweet hay from crib and rack:

And from the barn hard by was borne A steady muffled din,

By which we knew that threshèd corn Was winnowing, and went in.