 | Flower o' the thorn |  |
NOON.
HIGH noon's begun;
Sad London languishes beneath the sun.
The air is ambient fire; the heavens are brass:
Dead in the gardens is the dried-up grass:
A fiery haze above each suffering street
Floats, the red furnace-breath of the relentless heat.
Sad London languishes beneath the sun.
The air is ambient fire; the heavens are brass:
Dead in the gardens is the dried-up grass:
A fiery haze above each suffering street
Floats, the red furnace-breath of the relentless heat.
In the grim glare,
Fainting, along the shadeless streets men fare,
With blank, bewildered brains and aimless eyes,
As the fierce flame from the unsheltered skies
Rains down, relentless, on the pavements white,
That store its ardours up against the sleepless night.
Fainting, along the shadeless streets men fare,
With blank, bewildered brains and aimless eyes,
As the fierce flame from the unsheltered skies
Rains down, relentless, on the pavements white,
That store its ardours up against the sleepless night.
Yonder, in the fields,
No whit of shade the yellowing harvest yields:
The wheat, rejoicing in its ripening ears,
Stands fearless up and shakes its feathery spears
In the triumphant tyrant's flaming face:
The drowsing sun-steeped earth gapes in the God's embrace.
No whit of shade the yellowing harvest yields:
The wheat, rejoicing in its ripening ears,
Stands fearless up and shakes its feathery spears
In the triumphant tyrant's flaming face:
The drowsing sun-steeped earth gapes in the God's embrace.
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Life's liberal sons,
Red in their veins the blood of Nature runs.
They in her rains rejoice nor fear her snow
Nor grope for shelter from her Summer's glow:
To her sheer sun their heedless health aspires
And draughts of life renewed drinks from his flaming fires.
Red in their veins the blood of Nature runs.
They in her rains rejoice nor fear her snow
Nor grope for shelter from her Summer's glow:
To her sheer sun their heedless health aspires
And draughts of life renewed drinks from his flaming fires.
But we, whose life,
In the dull town and its unseemly strife,
Is lost, are out of favour with the God;
We shun his smile and tremble at his nod:
Phoebus to us a tyrant is; his breath
To us is bane, not boon, his heat not life, but death.
In the dull town and its unseemly strife,
Is lost, are out of favour with the God;
We shun his smile and tremble at his nod:
Phoebus to us a tyrant is; his breath
To us is bane, not boon, his heat not life, but death.
Might we forsake
The cheerless city for the down, the brake,
From the sad streets unto the fields return
And housing with the beasts by hill and burn,
No longer, mouse-like, cower in the dark,
But in the live sun's sight fare fearless with the lark,
The cheerless city for the down, the brake,
From the sad streets unto the fields return
And housing with the beasts by hill and burn,
No longer, mouse-like, cower in the dark,
But in the live sun's sight fare fearless with the lark,
Did we but live
With Nature and what she alone can give,
The sympathy with sun and snow and frost,
Which in our crowded cities we have lost,
We should regain and peace would be our dower,
The peace of rock and rill, of bird and tree and flower.
With Nature and what she alone can give,
The sympathy with sun and snow and frost,
Which in our crowded cities we have lost,
We should regain and peace would be our dower,
The peace of rock and rill, of bird and tree and flower.
Could we but leave
Our lusts and unto these, that ne'er deceive,
Turn for delights that wealth were vain to buy,
Our hopes, our fears, with earth and sea and sky,
With the blithe birds that hover in the air,
The beasts, the trees, the herbs, the waves, the windwafts, share,
Our lusts and unto these, that ne'er deceive,
Turn for delights that wealth were vain to buy,
Our hopes, our fears, with earth and sea and sky,
With the blithe birds that hover in the air,
The beasts, the trees, the herbs, the waves, the windwafts, share,
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Then Nature kind
Once more to us and kindred should we find:
Her rains, her suns, her frosts, her winds, her snows
Once more should friends to us become, not foes;
Birds, beasts, to us again would comrades be
And Heaven and earth would look upon us lovingly.
Once more to us and kindred should we find:
Her rains, her suns, her frosts, her winds, her snows
Once more should friends to us become, not foes;
Birds, beasts, to us again would comrades be
And Heaven and earth would look upon us lovingly.
Then, once again,
There might for us the soft Saturnian reign
Return and with their first ecstatic state,
The old frank gods the fields reanimate;
Zeus might beside us walk the world reborn
And Phoebus favouring be to us, as to the corn.
There might for us the soft Saturnian reign
Return and with their first ecstatic state,
The old frank gods the fields reanimate;
Zeus might beside us walk the world reborn
And Phoebus favouring be to us, as to the corn.
| Flower o' the thorn | |