University of Virginia Library

THE WILLOW AND THE RED CLIFF

[_]

William Morris' first attempt at verse.

About the river goes the wind
And moans through the sad grey willow,
And calls up sadly to my mind
The heave and the swell of the billow.

For the sea heaves up beneath the moon,
And the river runs down to it:
It will meet the sea by the red cliff soon,
Salt water running through it.

---

xxxj

That cliff it rises steep from the sea
On its top a thorn-tree stands,
With its branches blown away from the sea,
As if praying with outstretched hands,

To be saved from the wind, from the merciless west
That moaneth through it always
And very seldom giveth it rest
When the dark is falling pallwise.

One day when the wind moaned through that tree
As it moans now through the willow
On the cliff sat a woman clasping her knee
O'er the rise and fall of the billow.

And as she sits there without a moan
With her hand clasped round her knee,
The shadows go over her sitting alone,
And the shadows go over the sea,

And the clouds go over the face of the moon
That looketh down on the sea:
They will close around her very soon,
That you cannot tell where she be.

And the woman sits with her head bent down,
And thinketh of happy days;
Of the days when in the bright summer sun
She lifted her fair, fair face.

And the woman thought, sitting over the sea,
Of a glorious summer eve,
How—under the boughs of the willow tree—
Ah! no tears fall for her grief.

The dark clouds now have closed over the moon,
That you cannot tell where she be:
And, from the face of the bright moon thrown,
Not a shadow goes over the sea.

---

xxxij

And the woman sat while the night went on,
And she never unclasped her hands:
And the woman sat till the clouds were gone,
And the sun rose over the lands.

Then she sang in the light of the rising sun,
While the waves looked green and white:
She sang in the sunlight this mournful song,
While the red cliff turned from the light.

“Sun that lookest straight at me
As I turn me from the sea,
Dost thou know my misery?
Dost thou know the willow tree
Underneath whose branches he
Plighted well his troth to me?
O! the happy willow tree
With the river by it sighing,
And the swallow by it flying,
And the thrush singing to it from the thorn-bush.
O! the happy willow tree,
For the river sigheth for it,
And the swallow flyeth to it,
And the thrush sings of love from the thorn-bush.
In the spring the thrush singeth,
From the bough the leaf springeth,
To hear him sing of love from the thorn-bush.
In the summer he is still;
From the river to the hill
No song of bird cometh to the thorn-bush.
But the happy willow tree
He is full as full can be
Of the song of love that rang out from the thorn-bush.
When the autumn cometh round,
All the air is filled with sound
That cometh from the sick yellow thorn-bush.
And the willow branches wave

---

xxxiij

O'er the fallen leaves that pave
The dull earth all about the thorn-bush.
And the autumn passeth by,
And the dead leaves round it lie:
Red berries look out fairly from the thorn-bush.
And the willow swingeth heavily,
Thinking of the days gone by:
And he thinketh of the spring
And the song that shall outring
From the loving thrush a-sitting in the thorn-bush.”

---

xxxiv

The clouds are over the face of the sun,
There is no wind below them:
But above the west-wind presses them on,
Nor ever rest will give them.

No living thing on the cliff does stand:
No face from the red cliff looks:
But the thorn-bush stretches out his hand
To the leaves in the little nooks.

And from the thorn-bush far away
Doth the thrush to the willow sing:

---

xxxv

And on the willow branch alway
Glitters a golden ring.