THE EARTHLY PARADISE BY WILLIAM MORRIS. VOLUME VII. DECEMBER: THE GOLDEN APPLES. THE FOSTERING OF ASLAUG. JANUARY: BELLEROPHON AT ARGOS. THE RING GIVEN TO VENUS.
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December |
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Thin o’er the moon the hindmost cloud swims past |
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Of that great rack that brought us up the snow; |
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On earth strange shadows o’er the snow are cast; |
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Pale stars, bright moon, swift cloud, make heaven so vast |
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That earth left silent by the wind of night |
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Seems shrunken ‘neath the grey unmeasured height. |
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Ah! through the hush the looked-for midnight clangs! |
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And then, e’en while its last stroke’s solemn drone |
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In the cold air by unlit windows hangs, |
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Out break the bells above the year fordone, |
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Change, kindness lost, love left unloved alone; |
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Till their despairing sweetness makes thee deem |
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Thou once wert loved, if but amidst a dream. |
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O thou who clingest still to life and love, |
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Though nought of good, no God thou mayst discern, |
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Though nought that is, thine utmost woe can move, |
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Though no soul knows wherewith thine heart doth yearn, |
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Yet, since thy weary lips no curse can learn, |
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Cast no least thing thou lovedst once away, |
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Since yet perchance thine eyes shall see the day. |
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E’en for the empty days and leisure’s sake |
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That earth’s cold leaden sleep doth bring; so there |
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Our elders sat within the guest-hall fair, |
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Not looking older for the snow without; |
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Cheery enough; remembering not old doubt, |
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A gnawing pain once, grown too hard to bear, |
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And so cast by; not thinking of old fear, |
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That conquering once, e’en with its victory |
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Must fade away, and, like all things else, die. |
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Not thinking of much else than that they had |
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Enough of life to make them somewhat glad |
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When all went well with them. Now so it fell |
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That mariners were there, who ‘gan to tell |
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Mishaps betid upon the winter seas, |
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Which set some younger men amidst of these |
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To ask the Wanderers of their voyage vain, |
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As knowing scarce the tale thereof. Small pain |
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It gave them now to answer: yet belike |
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On the old men, their hosts, the thing did strike |
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In jarring wise, this turning o’er and o’er |
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Of memories once so bitter sharp and sore: |
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Wherefore at last an elder said: Let be, |
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My masters! if about the troublous sea |
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Ye needs must hear, hearken a tale once told |
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By kin of ours in the dim days of old, |
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Whose thoughts when turning to a peaceful home |
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Unto this very west of ours must come, |
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Scarce causelessly meseems when all is said, |
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And I remember that years bow my head, |
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And not the trouble of those days of war, |
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Of loss and wrong that in old stories are. |
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