Without is a horror of hosts that fight, That rest not, and cease not to kill, The thunder of feet and the cry of flight, A slaughter weird and shrill; Gray dreams are set in the weaver's sight, The weaver is weaving still.
"Come away, dear soul, come away, or we die; Hear'st thou the moan and the rush! Come away; The people are slain at the gates, and they fly; The kind God hath left them this day; The battle-axe cleaves, and the foemen cry, And the red swords swing and slay."
"Nay, wife, what boots it to fly from pain, When pain is wherever we fly?
And death is a sweeter thing than a chain: 'Tis sweeter to sleep than to cry.
The kind God giveth the days that wane; If the kind God hath said it, I die."
And the weaver wove, and the good wife fled, And the city was made a tomb, And a flame that shook from the rocks overhead Shone into that silent room, And touched like a wide red kiss on the dead Brown weaver slain by his loom.
Yet I think that in some dim shadowy land, Where no suns rise or set, Where the ghost of a whilom loom doth stand Round the dusk of its silken net, Forever flyeth his shadowy hand, And the weaver is weaving yet.
THE THREE PILGRIMS.
In days, when the fruit of men's labour was sparing, And hearts were weary and nigh to break, A sweet grave man with a beautiful bearing Came to us once in the fields and spake.
He told us of Roma, the marvellous city, And of One that came from the living God, The Virgins' Son, who in heavenly pity, Bore for His people the rood and rod,
And how at Roma the gods were broken, The new was strong, and the old nigh dead, And love was more than a bare word spoken, For the sick were healed and the poor were fed;
And we sat mute at his feet, and hearkened: The grave man came in an hour; and went, But a new light shone on a land long darkened; The toil was weary, the fruit was spent:
So we came south, till we saw the city, Speeding three of us, hand in hand, Seeking peace and the bread of pity, Journeying out of the Umbrian land;
Till we saw from the hills in a dazzled coma Over the vines that the wind made shiver, Tower on tower, the great city Roma, Palace and temple, and winding river:
And we stood long in a dream and waited, Watching and praying and purified, And came at last to the walls belated, Entering in at the eventide:
And many met us with song and dancing, Mantled in skins and crowned with flowers, Waving goblets and torches glancing; Faces drunken, that grinned in ours:
And one, that ran in the midst, came near us-- "Crown yourselves for the feast," he said, But we cried out, that the God might hear us, "Where is Jesus, the living bread?"
And they took us each by the hand with laughter; Their eyes were haggard and red with wine: They haled us on, and we followed after, "We will show you the new God's shrine."
Ah, woe to our tongues, that, forever unsleeping, Harp and uncover the old hot care, The soothing ash from the embers sweeping, Wherever the soles of our sad feet fare.
Ah, we were simple of mind, not knowing, How dreadful the heart of a man might be; But the knowledge of evil is mighty of growing; Only the deaf and the blind are free.
We came to a garden of beauty and pleasure-- It was not the way that our own feet chose-- Where a revel was whirling in many a measure, And the myriad roar of a great crowd rose;
And the midmost round of the garden was reddened With pillars of fire in a great high ring-- One look--and our souls forever were deadened, Though our feet yet move, and our dreams yet sting;
For we saw that each was a live man flaming, Limbs that a human mother bore, And a thing of horror was done, past naming, And the crowd spun round, and we saw no more.
And he that ran in the midst, descrying, Lifted his hand with a foul red sneer, And smote us each and the other, crying, "Thus we worship the new God here.
"The Caesar comes, and the people's paeans Hail his name for the new made light, Pitch and the flesh of the Galileans, Torches fit for a Roman night;"
And we fell down to the earth, and sickened, Moaning, three of us, head by head, "Where is He, whom the good God quickened?
Where is Jesus, the living bread?"
Yet ever we heard, in the foul mirth turning, Man and woman and child go by, And ever the yells of the charred men burning, Piercing heavenward, cry on cry;
And we lay there, till the frightful revel Died in the dawn with a few short moans Of some that knelt in the wan and level Shadows, that fell from the blackened bones.
Numb with horror and sick with pity, The heart of each as an iron weight, We crept in the dawn from the awful city, Journeying out of the seaward gate.
The great sun came from the sea before us; A soft wind blew from the scented south; But our eyes knew not of the steps that bore us Down to the ships at the Tiber's mouth;
And we prayed then, as we turned our faces Over the sea to the living God, That our ways might be in the fierce bare places, Where never the foot of a live man trod:
And we set sail in the noon not caring.
Whither the prow of the dark ship came, No more over the old ways faring; For the sea was cold, but the land was flame:
And the keen ship sped, and a deadly coma Blotted away from our eyes forever, Tower on tower, the great city Roma, Palace and temple and yellow river.
THE COMING OF WINTER.
Out of the Northland sombre weirds are calling; A shadow falleth southward day by day; Sad summer's arms grow cold; his fire is falling; His feet draw back to give the stern one way.
It is the voice and shadow of the slayer, Slayer of loves, sweet world, slayer of dreams; Make sad thy voice with sober plaint and prayer; Make gray thy woods, and darken all thy streams.
Black grows the river, blacker drifts the eddy: The sky is grey; the woods are cold below: Oh make thy bosom, and thy sad lips ready, For the cold kisses of the folding snow.
EASTER EVE.
Hear me, Brother, gently met; Just a little, turn not yet, Thou shalt laugh, and soon forget: Now the midnight draweth near.
I have little more to tell; Soon with hollow stroke and knell, Thou shalt count the palace bell, Calling that the hour is here.
Burdens black and strange to bear, I must tell, and thou must share, Listening with that stony stare, Even as many a man before.
Years have lightly come and gone In their jocund unison.
But the tides of life roll on---- They remember now no more.
Once upon a night of glee, In an hour of revelry, As I wandered restlessly, I beheld with burning eye, How a pale procession rolled Through a quarter quaint and old, With its banners and its gold, And the crucifix went by.
Well I knew that body brave That was pierced and hung to save, But my flesh was now a grave For the soul that gnashed within.
He that they were bearing by, With their banners white and high, He was pure, and foul was I, And his whiteness mocked my sin.