hopes rewarded,
   Or be they but in vain,
I have dreamed a golden vision,
   I have gathered in the grain—
I have dreamed a golden vision,
   I have not lived in vain.

DEDICATION

My first gift and my last, to you
I dedicate this fascicle of songs—
The only wealth I have:
Just as they are, to you.

I speak the truth in soberness, and say
I had rather bring a light to your clear eyes,
Had rather hear you praise
This bosomful of songs

Than that the whole, hard world with one consent,
In one continuous chorus of applause
Poured forth for me and mine
The homage of ripe praise.

I write the finis here against my love,
This is my love’s last epitaph and tomb.
Here the road forks, and I
Go my way, far from yours.

THE OLD CHIMÆRAS, OLD RECEIPTS

The old Chimæras, old receipts
   For making “happy land,”
The old political beliefs
   Swam close before my hand.

The grand old communistic myths
   In a middle state of grace,
Quite dead, but not yet gone to Hell,
   And walking for a space,

Quite dead, and looking it, and yet
   All eagerness to show
The Social-Contract forgeries
   By Chatterton—Rousseau—

A hundred such as these I tried,
   And hundreds after that,
I fitted Social Theories
   As one would fit a hat!

Full many a marsh-fire lured me on,
   I reached at many a star,
I reached and grasped them and behold—
   The stump of a cigar!

All through the sultry sweltering day
   The sweat ran down my brow,
The still plains heard my distant strokes
   That have been silenced now.

This way and that, now up, now down,
   I hailed full many a blow.
Alas! beneath my weary arm
   The thicket seemed to grow.

I take the lesson, wipe my brow
   And throw my axe aside,
And, sorely wearied, I go home
   In the tranquil eventide.

And soon the rising moon, that lights
   The eve of my defeat,
Shall see me sitting as of yore
   By my old master’s feet.

PRELUDE

By sunny market-place and street
Wherever I go my drum I beat,
And wherever I go in my coat of red
The ribbons flutter about my head.

I seek recruits for wars to come—
For slaughterless wars I beat the drum,
And the shilling I give to each new ally
Is hope to live and courage to die.

I know that new recruits shall come
Wherever I beat the sounding drum,
Till the roar of the march by country and town
Shall shake the tottering Dagons down.

For I was objectless as they
And loitering idly day by day;
But whenever I heard the recruiters come,
I left my all to follow the drum.

THE VANQUISHED KNIGHT

I have left all upon the shameful field,
   Honour and Hope, my God, and all but life;
Spurless, with sword reversed and dinted shield,
   Degraded and disgraced, I leave the strife.

From him that hath not, shall there not be taken
   E’en that he hath, when he deserts the strife?
Life left by all life’s benefits forsaken,
   O keep the promise, Lord, and take the life.

TO THE COMMISSIONERS OF NORTHERN LIGHTS

I send to you, commissioners,
A paper that may please ye, sirs
(For troth they say it might be worse
      An’ I believe’t)
And on your business lay my curse
      Before I leav’t.

I thocht I’d serve wi’ you, sirs, yince,
But I’ve thocht better of it since;
The maitter I will nowise mince,
      But tell ye true:
I’ll service wi’ some ither prince,
      An’ no wi’ you.

I’ve no been very deep, ye’ll think,
Cam’ delicately to the brink
An’ when the water gart me shrink
      Straucht took the rue,
An’ didna stoop my fill to drink—
      I own it true.

I kent on cape and isle, a light
Burnt fair an’ clearly ilka night;
But at the service I took fright,
      As sune’s I saw,
An’ being still a neophite
      Gaed straucht awa’.

Anither course I now begin,
The weeg I’ll cairry for my sin,
The court my voice shall echo in,
      An’—wha can tell?—
Some ither day I may be yin
      O’ you mysel’.

THE RELIC TAKEN, WHAT AVAILS THE SHRINE?

The relic taken, what avails the shrine?
The locket, pictureless?  O heart of mine,
Art thou not worse than that,
Still warm, a vacant nest where love once sat?

Her image nestled closer at my heart
Than cherished memories, healed every smart
And warmed it more than wine
Or the full summer sun in noon-day shine.

This was the little weather gleam that lit
The cloudy promontories—the real charm was
That gilded hills and woods
And walked beside me thro’ the solitudes.

The sun is set.  My heart is widowed now
Of that companion-thought.  Alone I plough
The seas of life, and trace
A separate furrow far from her and grace.

ABOUT THE SHELTERED GARDEN GROUND

About the sheltered garden ground
   The trees stand strangely still.
The vale ne’er seemed so deep before,
   Nor yet so high the hill.

An awful sense of quietness,
   A fulness of repose,
Breathes from the dewy garden-lawns,
   The silent garden rows.

As the hoof-beats of a troop of horse
   Heard far across a plain,
A nearer knowledge of great thoughts
   Thrills vaguely through my brain.

I lean my head upon my arm,
   My heart’s too full to think;
Like the roar of seas, upon my heart
   Doth the morning stillness sink.

AFTER READING “ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA”

As when the hunt by holt and field
   Drives on with horn and strife,
Hunger of hopeless things pursues
   Our spirits throughout life.

The sea’s roar fills us aching full
   Of objectless desire—
The sea’s roar, and the white moon-shine,
   And the reddening of the fire.

Who talks to me of reason now?
   It would be more delight
To have died in Cleopatra’s arms
   Than be alive to-night.

I KNOW NOT HOW, BUT AS I COUNT