Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

Thou from thy soul didst whisper--_in that heaven
Which yearns beyond us! Lead me up the height!
How should the golden fruit to one be given
Till your three splendours in that Sun unite
Where each in each ye move like light in light?
How should I judge the rapture till I know
The pain?_ And like three waves of music there
They closed thee round, blinding thy blissful sight
With beauty and, like one roseate orb a-glow,
They bore thee on their breasts
Up the sun-smitten crests
And melted with thee smiling into the Most Fair.

XV

Upward and onward, ever as ye went
The cities of the world nestled beneath
Closer, as if in love, round Ida, blent
With alien hills in one great bridal-wreath
Of dawn-flushed clouds; while, breathing with your breath
New heavens mixed with your mounting bliss. Deep eyes,
Beautiful eyes, imbrued with the world's tears
Dawned on you, beautiful gleams of Love and Death
Flowed thro' your questioning with divine replies
From that ineffable height
Dark with excess of light
Where the Ever-living dies and the All-loving hears.

XVI

For thou hadst seen what tears upon man's face
Bled from the heart or burned from out the brain,
And not denied or cursed, but couldst embrace
Infinite sweetness in the heart of pain,
And heardst those universal choirs again
Wherein like waves of one harmonious sea
All our slight dreams of heaven are singing still,
And still the throned Olympians swell the strain,
And, hark, the burden, of all--_Come unto Me!_
Sky into deepening sky
Melts with that one great cry;
And the lost doves of Ida moan on Siloa's hill.

XVII

I gather all the ages in my song
And send them singing up the heights to thee!
Chord by aeonian chord the stars prolong
Their passionate echoes to Eternity:
Earth wakes, and one orchestral symphony
Sweeps o'er the quivering harp-strings of mankind;
Grief modulates into heaven, hate drowns in love,
No strife now but of love in that great sea
Of song! I dream! I dream! Mine eyes grow blind:
Chords that I not command
Escape the fainting hand;
Tears fall. Thou canst not hear. Thou'rt still too far above.

XVIII

Farewell! What word should answer but farewell
From thee, O happy spirit, whose clear gaze
Discerned the path--clear, but unsearchable--
Where Olivet sweetens, deepens, Ida's praise,
The path that strikes as thro' a sunlit haze
Through Time to that clear reconciling height
Where our commingling gleams of godhead dwell;
Strikes thro' the turmoil of our darkling days
To that great harmony where, like light in light,
Wisdom and Beauty still
Haunt the thrice-holy hill,
And Love, immortal Love ... what answer but farewell?

THE ELECTRIC TRAM

I

Bluff and burly and splendid
Thro' roaring traffic-tides,
By secret lightnings attended
The land-ship hisses and glides.
And I sit on its bridge and I watch and I dream
While the world goes gallantly by,
With all its crowded houses and its colored shops a-stream
Under the June-blue sky,
Heigh, ho!
Under the June-blue sky.

II

There's a loafer at the kerb with a sulphur-coloured pile
Of "Lights! Lights! Lights!" to sell;
And a flower-girl there with some lilies and a smile
By the gilt swing-doors of a drinking hell,
Where the money is rattling loud and fast,
And I catch one glimpse as the ship swings past
Of a woman with a babe at her breast
Wrapped in a ragged shawl;
She is drinking away with the rest,
And the sun shines over it all,
Heigh, ho!
The sun shines over it all!

III

And a barrel-organ is playing,
Somewhere, far away,
_Abide with me_, and _The world is gone a-maying_,
And _What will the policeman say?_
There's a glimpse of the river down an alley by a church,
And the barges with their tawny-coloured sails,
And a grim and grimy coal-wharf where the London pigeons perch
And flutter and spread their tails,
Heigh, ho!
Flutter and spread their tails.

IV

O, what does it mean, all the pageant and the pity,
The waste and the wonder and the shame?
I am riding tow'rds the sunset thro' the vision of a City
Which we cloak with the stupor of a name!
I am riding thro' ten thousand thousand tragedies and terrors,
Ten million heavens that save and hells that damn;
And the lightning draws my car tow'rds the golden evening star;
And--They call it only "riding on a tram,"
Heigh, ho!
They call it only "riding on a tram."

SHERWOOD

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA

ROBIN Earl of Huntingdon, known as "Robin Hood."

LITTLE JOHN } FRIAR TUCK } WILL SCARLET } Outlaws and followers of "Robin Hood." REYNOLD GREENLEAF } MUCH, THE MILLER'S SON } ALLAN-A-DALE }

PRINCE JOHN. KING RICHARD, Coeur de Lion. BLONDEL King Richard's minstrel. OBERON King of the Fairies. TITANIA Queen of the Fairies. PUCK A Fairy. THE SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM. FITZWALTER Father of Marian, known as "Maid Marian." SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF A Fool. ARTHUR PLANTAGENET Nephew to Prince John, a boy of about ten years of age. QUEEN ELINOR Mother of Prince John and Richard Lion-Heart. MARIAN FITZWALTER Known as Maid Marian, betrothed to Robin Hood. JENNY Maid to Marian. WIDOW SCARLET Mother of Will Scarlet. PRIORESS OF KIRKLEE.

Fairies, merry men, serfs, peasants, mercenaries, an abbot, a baron, a novice, nuns, courtiers, soldiers, retainers, etc.