human
Can you write me a poem about samarkand?
assistant
Sure, here's a poem about samarkand:
  Around my feet the clouds are drawn
In the cold mystery of the dawn;
No breezes cheer, no guests intrude
My mossy, mist-clad solitude;
When sudden down the steeps of sky
Flames a long, lightening wind.  On high
The steel-blue arch shines clear, and far,
In the low lands where cattle are,
Towns smoke.  And swift, a haze, a gleam,--
The Firth lies like a frozen stream,
Reddening with morn.  Tall spires of ships,
Like thorns about the harbour's lips,
Now shake faint canvas, now, asleep,
Their salt, uneasy slumbers keep;
While golden-grey, o'er kirk and wall,
Day wakes in the ancient capital.
Before me lie the lists of strife,
The caravanserai of life,
Whence from the gates the merchants go
On the world's highways; to and fro
Sail laiden ships; and in the street
The lone foot-traveller shakes his feet,
And in some corner by the fire
Tells the old tale of heart's desire.
Thither from alien seas and skies
Comes the far-questioned merchandise:--
Wrought silks of Broussa, Mocha's ware
Brown-tinted, fragrant, and the rare
Thin perfumes that the rose's breath
Has sought, immortal in her death:
Gold, gems, and spice, and haply still
The red rough largess of the hill
Which takes the sun and bears the vines
Among the haunted Apennines.
And he who treads the cobbled street
To-day in the cold North may meet,
Come month, come year, the dusky East,
And share the Caliph's secret feast;
Or in the toil of wind and sun
Bear pilgrim-staff, forlorn, fordone,
Till o'er the steppe, athwart the sand
Gleam the far gates of Samarkand.
The ringing quay, the weathered face
Fair skies, dusk hands, the ocean race
The palm-girt isle, the frosty shore,
Gales and hot suns the wide world o'er
Grey North, red South, and burnished West
The goals of the old tireless quest,
Leap in the smoke, immortal, free,
Where shines yon morning fringe of sea
I turn, and lo! the moorlands high
Lie still and frigid to the sky.
The film of morn is silver-grey
On the young heather, and away,
Dim, distant, set in ribs of hill,
Green glens are shining, stream and mill,
Clachan and kirk and garden-ground,
All silent in the hush profound
Which haunts alone the hills' recess,
The antique home of quietness.
Nor to the folk can piper play
The tune of "Hills and Far Away,"
For they are with them.  Morn can fire
No peaks of weary heart's desire,
Nor the red sunset flame behind
Some ancient ridge of longing mind.
For Arcady is here, around,
In lilt of stream, in the clear sound
Of lark and moorbird, in the bold
Gay glamour of the evening gold,
And so the wheel of seasons moves
To kirk and market, to mild loves
And modest hates, and still the sight
Of brown kind faces, and when night
Draws dark around with age and fear
Theirs is the simple hope to cheer.--
A land of peace where lost romance
And ghostly shine of helm and lance
Still dwell by castled scarp and lea,
And the last homes of chivalry,
And the good fairy folk, my dear,
Who speak for cunning souls to hear,
In crook of glen and bower of hill
Sing of the Happy Ages still.
O Thou to whom man's heart is known,
Grant me my morning orison.
Grant me the rover's path--to see
The dawn arise, the daylight flee,
In the far wastes of sand and sun!
Grant me with venturous heart to run
On the old highway, where in pain
And ecstasy man strives amain,
Conquers his fellows, or, too weak,
Finds the great rest that wanderers seek!
Grant me the joy of wind and brine,
The zest of food, the taste of wine,
The fighter's strength, the echoing strife
The high tumultuous lists of life--
May I ne'er lag, nor hapless fall,
Nor weary at the battle-call!...
But when the even brings surcease,
Grant me the happy moorland peace;
That in my heart's depth ever lie
That ancient land of heath and sky,
Where the old rhymes and stories fall
In kindly, soothing pastoral.
There in the hills grave silence lies,
And Death himself wears friendly guise
There be my lot, my twilight stage,
Dear city of my pilgrimage.
despatched from Venice, contain the following short narrative....
admixture is something fantastic and unpredictable.  I forgot my
She spoke in Italian.  "Your pardon, signor, but I fear my good
Cristine has done you unwittingly a wrong."
"My name," said I, "is Hervey-Townshend, an Englishman travelling
"My worthy aunt," I replied, with a tender recollection of that
preposterous woman.
Madame turned to Cristine, and spoke rapidly in a whisper.
The Tre Croci had been in happier days a Bishop's lodging, and
Gianbattista, to attend on my wants.  Presently Madame d'Albani
scribbled a line of acceptance and went to dress.
I answered that she did famously, and wondered what cause of
"My aunt must be a voluminous correspondent, sir," I said.
sorrowful recollection.
"Know you Scotland?" he asked suddenly.
I replied that I had visited Scotch cousins, but had no great
"You know the land, sir?" I asked.
wrought his revenge."
He was staring into a fire, which burned small and smokily.
I told him thirty at a stretch.
Charlotte, my dear, bid Oliphant fetch glasses and hot water and
"Tell me,"  I said in a whisper, "who is the Count d'Albani, your
regnant brethren.  I had heard tales of a growing sottishness, a
therefore sought from a friend's friend, meaning myself.
I was very really embarrassed.  Not that I would not have given
A flicker of a smile crossed his face.  "I'll lee like a Scotch
Versailles, of Avignon where she had spent some years, and of the
delivered as if 'twere a pot-house catch--
"This is the inn called the Tre Croci, sir?" he asked.
rivers, and high mountains."
"And now,"  I said, "having won, you have the greatest of human
It seemed to me that they exchanged glances.
sovereign?"
Again a smile seemed to pass among the four.
The news interested them hugely.
"You have seen him?" they cried.  "What is he like?"
travels with him and tends his old age."
"And you--you have spoken with him?"
The four looked at each other, and then Mr. Galloway rose.
Presently they returned and seated themselves at the table.
I nodded.  "It is a thin disguise to one familiar with history."
Mr. Galloway took snuff.
"There is his daughter."
"By so much the better.  We do not wish a young king who may be
fractious.  An old man tempered by misfortune is what our purpose
At that one of the Sylvesters spoke sharply.  "I have heard such
gossip, but I do not credit it.  I have not forgotten Preston and
I made my last objection.  "He has no posterity--legitimate
posterity--to carry on his line."
The four gentlemen smiled.  "That happens to be his chiefest
I did, and I also perceived the colossal absurdity of the whole
business. But I could not convince them of it, for they met my
"You wish me to make this proposal on your behalf?"  I asked.
implement their promise."
The lady's control was at breaking-point.  Another moment and I
"It is impossible," she said sharply.
She rose and paced the room.
"They will be honoured, madame, but I do not think they will be
"So be it.  They shall see him.  Oh, I am sick to death of fine
Compagnons de la Marjolaine--e!"
It was true. The company came late indeed--too late by forty
Hearts to break but nane to sell,
Gear to tine but nane to hain;--
We maun dree a weary spell
Ere our lad comes back again.
I walk abroad on winter days,
When storms have stripped the wide champaign,
For northern winds have norland ways,
And scents of Badenoch haunt the rain.
And by the lipping river path,
When in the fog the Rhone runs grey,
I see the heather of the Strath,
And watch the salmon leap in Spey.
The hills are feathered with young trees,
I set them for my children's boys.
I made a garden deep in ease,
A pleasance for my lady's joys.
Strangers have heired them. Long ago
She died,--kind fortune thus to die;
And my one son by Beauly flow
Gave up the soul that could not lie.
Old, elbow-worn, and pinched I bide
The final toll the gods may take.
The laggard years have quenched my pride;
They cannot kill the ache, the ache.
Weep not the dead, for they have sleep
Who lie at home: but ah, for me
In the deep grave my heart will weep
With longing for my lost countrie.
Hearts to break but nane to sell,
Gear to tine but nane to hain;--
We maun dree a weary spell
Ere our lad comes back again.
It happened that Lord Caerlaverock cook's came from the same
Caerlaverock was stroking his beard, his legs astraddle on the
humanity.
And then we went down to dinner.
Mr. Vennard was addressing the dinner-table as if it were a large
"Can't you get hold of Mr. Vennard and forcibly cut his hair?"
He was talking I recall, to Lady Lavinia Dobson, renowned in two
Suffragists, but for breaking the peace.  Why, goodness me, if we
preferential treatment because he was a Christian Scientist or a
Mr. Cargill was becoming excited, and exchanging his ordinary
Edinburgh-English for a broader and more effective dialect.
Lady Lavinia folded her hands.  "We slaughter our black
"I never swore in my life," said Lady Lavinia.
Lord Caerlaverock rose to join the ladies with an air of outraged
impressed and horribly mystified.
I found my aunt almost in tears.
I did not say that I thought Mulross's accident a merciful
success with the Prime Minister.
"We must disavow him," said Caerlaverock.
"But this is flat treason."
"Or drunk?"  I suggested.
"What news?" he asked with a start.
"This row about Vennard and Cargill."
"I hope I may congratulate you,"  I said.
approached convalescence, the hives of politics were humming with
interviewed, using blasphemous language about our free Press; and
"We have come back," she said, "to meet our accusers."
"Accusers!" cried my aunt.
"I really don't know what you mean, Mrs. Cargill."
"He is well, but heartbroken.  His is a sensitive nature, Lady
Caerlaverock, and he feels a stain like a wound."
appeared in the Liberal Press; but Vennard took not the slightest
temperament.  It scattered current convictions, roused dormant
"I want a leader who governs as well as reigns," said Vennard. "I
"They are not the only members who fail in discipline."
Cargill was in tremendous form. He began to tell Scotch stories,
This lasted till the entree, the famous Caerlaverock curry.
As I have said, I was not in the secret, and did not detect the
transition.  As I partook of the dish I remember feeling a sudden
I asked him if he felt seedy.
"You should go off for a change,"  I said.
When I was young and herdit sheep
I read auld tales o' Wallace wight;
My heid was fou o' sangs and threip
O' folk that feared nae mortal might.
But noo I'm auld, and weel I ken
We're made alike o' gowd and mire;
There's saft bits in the stievest men,
The bairnliest's got a spunk o' fire.
Sae hearken to me, lads,
It's truth that I tell:
There's nae man a' courage--
I ken by mysel'.
I've been an elder forty year:
I've tried to keep the narrow way:
I've walked afore the Lord in fear:
I've never missed the kirk a day.
I've read the Bible in and oot,
(I ken the feck o't clean by hert).
But, still and on, I sair misdoot
I'm better noo than at the stert.
Sae hearken to me, lads,
It's truth I maintain:
Man's works are but rags, for
I ken by my ain.
I hae a name for decent trade:
I'll wager a' the countryside
Wad sweer nae trustier man was made,
The ford to soom, the bent to bide.
But when it comes to coupin' horse,
I'm just like a' that e'er was born;
I fling my heels and tak' my course;
I'd sell the minister the morn.
Sae hearken to me, lads,
It's truth that I tell:
There's nae man deid honest--
I ken by mysel'.
willingly give earth and water.  It was the whim of a fantastic
Atta had played this game often in the little island wars.  Very
certain, unless he kept moving.  Already he was retching with the
"Greeting, stranger," said the voice.  "By Hermes, you choose the
The sentries laughed.  One quoted a proverb about island courage.
Delphi seemed beyond the moon, and his errand a child's dream.
Then the King, for so he thought of the tall man, spoke--
Troops were filing fast to the east--Thebans, Corinthians.  "Time
The King's eyes glittered; they seemed to peer into his heart.
As it happened, the deed was not quite forgotten.  An islander, a
(Roughly translated.)
I will sing of thee, Great Sea-Mother,
Whose white arms gather
Thy sons in the ending:
And draw them homeward
From far sad marches--
Wild lands in the sunset,
Bitter shores of the morning--
Soothe them and guide them
By shining pathways
Homeward to thee.
All day I have striven in dark glens
With parched throat and dim eyes,
Where the red crags choke the stream
And dank thickets hide the spear.
I have spilled the blood of my foes
And their wolves have torn my flanks.
I am faint, O Mother,
Faint and aweary.
I have longed for thy cool winds
And thy kind grey eyes
And thy lover's arms.
At the even I came
To a land of terrors,
Of hot swamps where the feet mired
And waters that flowerd red with blood
There I strove with thousands,
Wild-eyed and lost,
As a lion among serpents.
--But sudden before me
I saw the flash
Of the sweet wide waters
That wash my homeland
And mirror the stars of home.
Then sang I for joy,
For I knew the Preserver,
The great Sea-Mother.
Soon will the sweet light come,
And the salt winds and the tides
Will bear me home.
Far in the sunrise,
Nestled in thy bosom,
Lies my own green isle.
Thither wilt thou bear me.
To where, above the sea-cliffs,
Stretch mild meadows, flower-decked, thyme-scented,
Crisp with sea breezes.
There my flocks feed
On sunny uplands,
Looking over thy waters
To where the mount Saos
Raises purl snows to God.
Hermes, guide of souls,
I made thee a shrine in my orchard,
And round thy olive-wood limbs
The maidens twined Spring blossoms--
Violet and helichryse
And the pale wind flowers.
Keep thou watch for me,
For I am coming.
Tell to my lady
And to all my kinsfolk
That I who have gone from them
Tarry not long, but come swift o'er the sea-path,
My feet light with joy,
My eyes bright with longing.
For little it matters
Where a man may fall,
If he fall by the sea-shore;
The kind waters await him,
The white arms are around him,
And the wise Mother of Men
Will carry him home.
I who sing
Wait joyfully on the morning.
Ten thousand beset me
And their spears ache for my heart.
They will crush me and grind me to mire,
So that none will know the man that once was me.
But at the first light I shall be gone,
Singing, flitting, o'er the grey waters,
Outward, homeward,
To thee, the Preserver,
"Est impossibile? Certum est."
heather.  Leithen's eyes were looking vacantly before him.
"Did you ever know Hollond?" he asked.
metaphysics."
mathematical professor?"  I asked.
"But at that point I fell asleep and left Hollond to repeat his
questions to a guide who knew no English and a snoring porter.
"He said that he had come to me because we were old friends.  He
landmarks.'
"'You mean what people call a sense of direction,' I put in.
"Hollond's eye had kindled, and he sat doubled up in his chair,
dominating me with a finger.
intelligible and real, though not with our common reality.'
obedient to certain mathematical laws.  Space, I gathered, was
perpetually 'forming fours' in some fancy way.
"What did he say?" I asked.
I shook my head.  It seemed to me pure craziness.
account Space was a sort of mathematical pandemonium."
sometimes--well, you know I haven't much in the way of nerves or
inexorable laws.  I never could get quite clear as to what this
consciousness was like.  When I asked he used to look puzzled and
"How long was it before he went mad?"  I asked.
I asked if it made him happy or miserable.
prophet.' He would spend hours travelling those eerie shifting
tremendous public trouncing.
world's mysteries.'
"But Hollond did not cheer up.  He seemed strangely languid and
'Within the region of the air,
Compassed about with Heavens fair,
Great tracts of lands there may be found,
Where many numerous hosts,
In those far distant coasts,
For other great and glorious ends
Inhabit, my yet unknown friends.'
"He stopped for a second or two, then suddenly leaned forward and
"I got to Chamonix in time for his funeral.  An ordinary climbing
Aiguilles.  Dupont told me that they had found a new route up the
Which men have wrought from wood or clay,
Carven with chisel, shaped with thumb,
A morning's task, an evening's play.
You bid me turn my face on high
Where the blue heaven the sun enthrones,
And serve a viewless deity,
Nor make my bow to stocks and stones.
My lord, I am not skilled in wit
Nor wise in priestcraft, but I know
That fear to man is spur and bit
To jog and curb his fancies' flow.
He fears and loves, for love and awe
In mortal souls may well unite
To fashion forth the perfect law
Where Duty takes to wife Delight.
But on each man one Fear awaits
And chills his marrow like the dead.--
He cannot worship what he hates
Or make a god of naked Dread.
The homeless winds that twist and race,
The heights of cloud that veer and roll,
The unplumb'd Abyss, the drift of Space--
These are the fears that drain the soul.
Ye dauntless ones from out the sea
Fear nought. Perchance your gods are strong
To rule the air where grim things be,
And quell the deeps with all their throng.
For me, I dread not fire nor steel,
Nor aught that walks in open light,
But fend me from the endless Wheel,
The voids of Space, the gulfs of Night.
Wherefore my brittle gods I make
Of friendly clay and kindly stone,--
Wrought with my hands, to serve or break,
From crown to toe my work, my own.
My eyes can see, my nose can smell,
My fingers touch their painted face,
They weave their little homely spell
To warm me from the cold of Space.
My gods are wrought of common stuff
For human joys and mortal tears;
Weakly, perchance, yet staunch enough
To build a barrier 'gainst my fears,
Where, lowly but secure, I wait
And hear without the strange winds blow.--
I cannot worship what I hate,
Or serve a god I dare not know.
"As streams of water in the south, Our bondage, Lord, recall."
--PSALM cxxvi.  (Scots Metrical Version).
I made my passages side by side with my friend the shepherd, and
"Is the water rising?"  I asked.
"How many are left?"  I asked.
"Ay," said I, "and why 'Streams of Water'?"
"Juist for the reason ye see," said he.
crossed the moor toward his dwelling, his thoughts relaxed and he
captivated by the nameless mystery of his appearance.  There was
something startling to one accustomed to the lack-lustre gaze of
kindliness.
Then I remembered all I had heard of the old man's craze, and I
humoured him.  "It's a fine countryside for burns,"  I said.
I asked him how he had done since I saw him last.
"It's an ill world now," he said in a slow, querulous voice.
I conceived dimly that the cause of his wrath was a scheme for
"You are looking ill,"  I said.  "What has come over you?"
And then he fell to wild telling of the ruin of the place and the
foreheads of steel-like grey.  The autumn blue faded in the far
Then his spirit failed him, his voice sank, and he was almost the
'As streams o' water in the South, Our bondage Lord, recall.'
And as we went down the slopes to the darkening vale I heard him
"Whae are ye?" says he, in a thin voice that gaed to my hert.
"Ye ken me fine, ye auld fule," says I.  "I'm Jock Rorison o' the
"That's the Solloway," says I.
"Nae man ever fordit it,"  I said.
"But I never yet cam to the water I couldna ford," says he.  "But
"That's the salt, for we're at the sea here, the mighty ocean.
"I've nae need o' it," said he.  "I'm find and warm"; and he sits
But as I lookit I saw some folk comin' up frae the beach carryin'
"As streams of water in the South,
Our bondage, Lord, recall."
The door is open to the wall,
The air is bright and free;
Adown the stair, across the hall,
And then-the world and me;
The bare grey bent, the running stream,
The fire beside the shore;
And we will bid the hearth farewell,
And never seek it more, My love,
And never seek it more.
And you shall wear no silken gown,
No maid shall bind your hair;
The yellow broom shall be your gem,
Your braid the heather rare.
Athwart the moor, adown the hill,
Across the world away;
The path is long for happy hearts
That sing to greet the day, My love,
That sing to greet the day.
When morning cleaves the eastern grey,
And the lone hills are red
When sunsets light the evening way
And birds are quieted;
In autumn noon and springtide dawn,
By hill and dale and sea,
The world shall sing its ancient song
Of hope and joy for thee, My love,
Of hope and joy for thee.
And at the last no solemn stole
Shall on thy breast be laid;
No mumbling priest shall speed thy soul,
No charnel vault thee shade.
But by the shadowed hazel copse,
Aneath the greenwood tree,
Where airs are soft and waters sing,
Thou'lt ever sleep by me, My love,
Thou'lt ever sleep by me.
"C'est enfin  que dans leurs prunelles
Rit et pleure-fastidieux--
L'amour des choses eternelles
Des vieux morts et des anciens dieux!"
"I don't think I shall go back to England," he said, kicking a
To hint such a thing would have meant a breach of friendship, for
telephone.  I'll grow most of my supplies, and start a colony to
He talked for a good hour of what he would do, and his dream grew
satisfied the eye that for the sheer wonder of its perfection we
stopped and stared in silence for many minutes.
"Who owns it?"  I asked.
"My firm, as like as not.  We have miles of land about here.  But
Christian wood.  It was not a copse, but a "grove,"--one such as
inspiration this time."
I asked him if he had been ill.
"Yes," he said slowly, "there is no place like it--in the world."
extraordinarily successful in his speculations, and that from his
I could have given no reason for my impression but there it was.
moonlight.  I remember that the alabaster moon shimmered like
I lit a reading-lamp and tried to interest myself in "La Cruelle
Jobson was looking at me very seriously and frankly.  I risked a
question.
"What do you suppose is the matter?"
He lay back on his pillows.  "You needn't trouble.  I only want a
The man promised, and I thought I saw some relief in his face.
"For Solomon went after Ashtaroth, the goddess of the Zidonians."
That was all, but it was like a key to a cipher.  Instantly there
alabaster!  Some dark priest had worn it on his forehead when he
half-believer in casual faiths, was in the presence of some hoary
Without any conscious purpose I rose and followed, kicking off my
something, too, in his hand,--something which glittered.
"I thought you would," he replied.  "I've had the same experience
"The Grove?"  I said.
"Ay, the wud," was the answer in broad Scots.
There was no mistaking the air.  I had found my Tishbite.
"I want men,"  I said, "--as many as we can get."
"And he brake in Pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and
filled their places with the bones of men....'
"Moreover the altar that was at Beth-el, and the high place which
It was as if someone were pleading with me.  A gentle voice, not
heartsick, the whole loveliness of Nature seemed to plead for its
I would see to it that this grove should be utterly forgotten.
I will walk warily in the wise woods on the fringes of eventide,
For the covert is full of noises and the stir of nameless things.
that ride,
And down in the marish hollow I have heard the lady who sings.
And once in an April gleaming I met a maid on the sward,
All marble-white and gleaming and tender and wild of eye;--
I, Jehan the hunter, who speak am a grown man, middling hard,
But I dreamt a month of the maid, and wept I knew not why.
Down by the edge of the firs, in a coppice of heath and vine,
Is an old moss-grown altar, shaded by briar and bloom,
Denys, the priest, hath told me 'twas the lord Apollo's shrine
In the days ere Christ came down from God to the Virgin's womb.
I never go past but I doff my cap and avert my eyes--
(Were Denys to catch me I trow I'd do penance for half a year)--
For once I saw a flame there and the smoke of a sacrifice,
Mary the Blessed Mother, and the kindly Saints as well,
I will give glory and praise, and them I cherish the most,
For they have the keys of Heaven, and save the soul from Hell.
But likewise I will spare for the Lord Apollo a grace,
And a bow for the lady Venus-as a friend but not as a thrall.
'Tis true they are out of Heaven, but some day they may win the
place;
For gods are kittle cattle, and a wise man honours them all.
The last rays of October daylight that filtered through the straw
The peat smoke got into his throat and brought on a fresh fit of
"Whatna fray?" Sim asked blankly.
"Ninemileburn.  Bewcastle's marching.  They riped the place at
cockcrow, and took twenty-six kye, five horse and a walth o'
plenishing.  They were seen fordin' Teviot at ten afore noon, but
He stared hopelessly up at a darkening sky.  Then he went to the
The company grew, as men dropped in from left and right.  Sim
They were now in a land of low hills, which made ill-going.  A
There'll be bluidy war on Tarras side ere the nicht's dune."
keeping up with his fellows.
reproachful.  He would be one of the plain folk who had to ride,
swallow.
"How mony beasts were killed?" he asked incuriously, and was told
Men were drawn by lot to drive the cattle, and others to form a
"The coo, Sim," she said faintly. "Hae ye brocht the coo?"
The rushlight dropped on the floor. Now he knew the price of his
riding.  He fell into a fit of coughing.
Since flaming angels drove our sire
From Eden's green to walk the mire,
We are the folk who tilled the plot
And ground the grain and boiled the pot.
We hung the garden terraces
That pleasured Queen Semiramis.
Our toil it was and burdened brain
That set the Pyramids o'er the plain.
And drilled the ranks and fed them all;
But never Eschol's wine drank we,--
Our bones lay 'twixt the sand and sea.
We officered the brazen bands
That rode the far and desert lands;
We bore the Roman eagles forth
And made great roads from south to north;
White cities flowered for holidays,
But we, forgot, died far away.
And when the Lord called folk to Him,
And some sat blissful at His feet,
Ours was the task the bowl to brim,
For on this earth even saints must eat.
The serfs have little need to think,
Only to work and sleep and drink;
A rover's life is boyish play,
For when cares press he rides away;
The king sits on his ruby throne,
And calls the whole wide world his own.
But we, the plain folk, noon and night
No surcease of our toil we see;
We cannot ease our cares by flight,
For Fortune holds our loves in fee.
We are not slaves to sell our wills,
We are not kings to ride the hills,
But patient men who jog and dance
In the dull wake of circumstance;
Loving our little patch of sun,
Too weak our homely dues to shun,
Too nice of conscience, or too free,
To prate of rights--if rights there be.
The Scriptures tell us that the meek
The earth shall have to work their will;
It may be they shall find who seek,
When they have topped the last long hill.
Meantime we serve among the dust
For at the best a broken crust,
A word of praise, and now and then
The joy of turning home again.
But freemen still we fall or stand,
We serve because our hearts command.
Though kings may boast and knights cavort,
We broke the spears at Agincourt.
When odds were wild and hopes were down,
We died in droves by Leipsic town.
Never a field was starkly won
But ours the dead that faced the sun.
The slave will fight because he must,
The rover for his ire and lust,
The king to pass an idle hour
Or feast his fatted heart with power;
But we, because we choose, we choose,
Nothing to gain and much to lose,
Holding it happier far to die
Than falter in our decency.
The serfs may know an hour of pride
When the high flames of tumult ride.
The rover has his days of ease
When he has sacked his palaces.
A king may live a year like God
When prostrate peoples drape the sod.
We ask for little,-leave to tend
Our modest fields: at daylight's end
The fires of home: a wife's caress:
The star of children's happiness.
Vain hope! 'Tis ours for ever and aye
To do the job the slaves have marred,
To clear the wreckage of the fray,
And please our kings by working hard.
Daily we mend their blunderings,
Swachbucklers, demagogues, and kings!
What if we rose?--If some fine morn,
Unnumbered as the autumn corn,
With all the brains and all the skill
Of stubborn back and steadfast will,
We rose and, with the guns in train,
Proposed to deal the cards again,
And, tired of sitting up o' nights,
Gave notice to our parasites,
Announcing that in future they
Who paid the piper should call the lay!
Then crowns would tumble down like nuts,
And wastrels hide in water-butts;
Each lamp-post as an epilogue:
Would hold a pendent demagogue:
Then would the world be for the wise!--
But ah! the plain folk never rise.
"An ape and a lion lie side by side in the heart of a man."
hill-station in Persia to which I had been sent post-haste by an
passion of the Red Gods are in its pages.
deucedly comfortable, and the water's better."
"What did he actually do?"  I asked after a short silence.
"'The Kings of Orion have come to earth,'"  I quoted.
"His wife was my cousin, and when she died Tommy was left a very
experiences, and I had hopes of big game.
railway had been built, and there were several biggish mining
representative of the sovereign people, that I was a member of an
zinc-lined boxes--your big paper-backed German books which mean
"But, oddly enough, there was one thing which stirred him with an
civilisation, and natural barriers against all invasion.'
"'I suppose they never found the man,' I said.
"He agreed.  'Their princes were sots, or they were barbarians of
property, but perfectly careless about any danger to himself.
Governor, he would take his orders from me.
"For three days I had a baddish time.  We steered by the stars,
travelling chiefly by night, and we showed extraordinary skill in
interfered with us, and the nearer we got the greater grew my
"'He made this laddie put on his braws, and he commandeered this
wouldna say but what I would have gone.
awaited our coming in a silence like the tomb.
Governor stopped them.
"'And so we left him.  I will not describe how I spent last night
war-paint complete.  After him trooped about thirty of the great
shanties and the hot sky."
(The Song of NEHEMIAH'S Workmen)
How many miles to Babylon?
'Three score and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?
Yes, and back again.
We are come back from Babylon,
Out of the plains and the glare,
To the little hills of our own country
And the sting of our kindred air;
To the rickle of stones on the red rock's edge
Which Kedron cleaves like a sword.
We will build the walls of Zion again,
To the glory of Zion's lord.
Now is no more of dalliance
By the reedy waters in spring,
When we sang of home, and sighed, and dreamed,
And wept on remembering.
Now we are back in our ancient hills
Out of the plains and the sun;
But before we make it a dwelling-place
There's a wonderful lot to be done.
The walls are to build from west to east,
Waters to lead and wells to clear,
And the garden furrows to set.
Is a welter of mire and mess;
And southward over the common lands
'Tis a dragon's wilderness.
The Courts of the Lord are a heap of dust
Where the hill winds whistle and race,
And the noble pillars of God His House
Stand in a ruined place
In the Holy of Holies foxes lair,
And owls and night-birds build.
There's a deal to do ere we patch it anew
As our father Solomon willed.
Now is the day of the ordered life
And the law which all obey.
We toil by rote and speak by note
And never a soul dare stray.
Ever among us a lean old man
Keepeth his watch and ward,
Crying, "The Lord hath set you free:
A goodly task we are called unto,
A task to dream on o' nights,
--Work for Judah and Judah's God,
Setting our lands to rights;
Everything fair and all things square
And straight as a plummet string.
--Is it mortal guile, if once in a while
Our thoughts go wandering?...
We were not slaves in Babylon,
For the gate of our souls lay free,
There in that vast and sunlit land
On the edges of mystery.
Daily we wrought and daily we thought,
And we chafed not at rod and power,
For Sinim, Ssabea, and dusky Hind
Talked to us hour by hour.
The man who lives in Babylon
May poorly sup and fare,
But loves and lures from the ends of the earth
Beckon him everywhere.
Next year he too may have sailed strange seas
And conquered a diadem;
For kings are as common in Babylon
As crows in Bethlehem.
Here we are bound to the common round
In a land which knows not change
Nothing befalleth to stir the blood
Or quicken the heart to range;
Never a hope that we cannot plumb
Or a stranger visage in sight,--
At the most a sleek Samaritan
Or a ragged Amorite.
Here we are sober and staid of soul,
Working beneath the law,
Settled amid our father's dust,
Seeing the hills they saw.
All things fixed and determinate,
Chiselled and squared by rule;
Is it mortal guile once in a while
To try and escape from school?
We will go back to Babylon,
Silently one by one,
Out from the hills and the laggard brooks
To the streams that brim in the sun.
Only a moment, Lord, we crave,
To breathe and listen and see.--
Then we start anew with muscle and thew
To hammer trestles for Thee.
Once upon a time, says the tale, there was a Great Godly Man, a
hunting the deer and rinnin' on the high moors, and bidin' in the
"Can ye sing it, bird?" said the man, "for I am keen to hear it."
"I am willing and brawly willing," said the man.
Then the melody changed to a fiercer and sadder note.  He saw his
The next morning the man rose and went to the manse.
whigmaleeries."
"And where would ye go?" asked the minister, aghast.
"And will ye bide there?" she asked.
And the old wife shook with her coughing.  So the man put up his