The Collected Works of William Morris :: :: University of Virginia Library

The wheat is done blooming and rust's on the sickle,
And green are the meadows grown after the scythe.
Come, hands for the dance! For the toil hath been mickle,
And 'twixt haysel and harvest 'tis time to be blithe.

338

And what shall the tale be now dancing is over,
And kind on the meadow sits maiden by man,
And the old man bethinks him of days of the lover,
And the warrior remembers the field that he wan?

Shall we tell of the dear days wherein we are dwelling,
The best days of our Mother, the cherishing Dale,
When all round about us the summer is telling,
To ears that may hearken, the heart of the tale?

Shall we sing of these hands and these lips that caress us,
And the limbs that sun-dappled lie light here beside,
When still in the morning they rise but to bless us,
And oft in the midnight our footsteps abide?

O nay, but to tell of the fathers were better,
And of how we were fashioned from out of the earth;
Of how the once lowly spurned strong at the fetter;
Of the days of the deeds and beginning of mirth.

And then when the feast-tide is done in the morning,
Shall we whet the grey sickle that bideth the wheat,
Till wan grow the edges, and gleam forth a warning
Of the field and the fallow where edges shall meet.

And when cometh the harvest, and hook upon shoulder
We enter the red wheat from out of the road,
We shall sing, as we wend, of the bold and the bolder,
And the Burg of their building, the beauteous abode.

As smiteth the sickle amid the sun's burning
We shall sing how the sun saw the token unfurled,
When forth fared the Folk, with no thought of returning,
In the days when the Banner went wide in the world.

341

[The Song of the Woodland Wolf.]

Now far, far aloof
Standeth lintel and roof,
The dwelling of days
Of the Woodland ways:
Now nought wendeth there
Save the wolf and the bear,
And the fox of the waste
Faring soft without haste.
No carle the axe whetteth on oak-laden hill;
No shaft the hart letteth to wend at his will;
None heedeth the thunder-clap over the glade,
And the wind-storm thereunder makes no man afraid.
Is it thus then that endeth man's days on Mid-earth,
For no man there wendeth in sorrow or mirth?

Nay, look down on the road
From the ancient abode!
Betwixt acre and field
Shineth helm, shineth shield.
And high over the heath
Fares the bane in his sheath;
For the wise men and bold
Go their ways o'er the wold.
Now the Warrior hath given them heart and fair day,
Unbidden, undriven, they fare to the fray.
By the rock and the river the banners they bear,
And their battle-staves quiver 'neath halbert and spear;
On the hill's brow they gather, and hang o'er the Dale
As the clouds of the Father hang, laden with bale.

Down shineth the sun
On the war-deed half done;
All the fore-doomed to die,
In the pale dust they lie.
There they leapt, there they fell,
And their tale shall we tell;
But we, e'en in the gate
Of the war-garth we wait,

342

Till the drift of war-weather shall whistle us on,
And we tread all together the way to be won,
To the dear land, the dwelling for whose sake we came
To do deeds for the telling of song-becrowned fame.
Settle helm on the head then! Heave sword for the Dale!
Nor be mocked of the dead men for deedless and pale.