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

O if ye laugh, then am I grown,
O Gods, as here I stand alone
The body of a ceaseless moan,
Yet better than ye are, a part
Of the world's woe and the world's heart.

For the world laughed not on the morn
When my full woe from night was born
When first I called on you forlorn:
The world laughed not, although I feared
When first its waking breath I heard.

O me! the morn was bright enow;
A little westering wind did blow
Across the rye-field's outer row,
Across her white breast no more warm,
Across my numbed enfolding arm.

259

The July morn was bright and clear,
No more the cock's cry did I hear,
Now when the sparrows wakened there,
Now when all things awoke around
Mine arms about her heart enwound.

Then o'er the edge of earth and sky
The sun arose, and silently
Lit up the lily-heads anigh;
The sun stole through the room to light
Her arm hung down, her fingers white.

Higher and higher arose the sun
Until unto our breasts it won
And burned there till the noon was done;
Upon my head the sun was hot
And scorched me sore, but harmed her not.

Then toward the west it 'gan to wend,
No wind was left the rye to bend
Till drew the day unto an end;
No wind until the night grew cold
Above the face my hands did hold.

Yet all that bright day mocked me nought,
Through sunny hours its end was wrought
Yet was it sad enow methought;
Its end was wrought mid calm and peace
Yet mournfully did it decrease.

And if men went upon their ways
E'en as in other summer days,
Surely they toiled with no glad face,
Amid the bright day did they seem
To toil as in a hapless dream.

260

And so at first I thought indeed
The world was kind to help my need;
No thing therein, from man to weed,
But it was kind my love to lack,
To help my need and wish her back.

But ye help not nor know how I
Would help the whole world's misery
And give it bliss ne'er passing by,
Ne'er passing by, if I might sit
Above the world, and yearn to it.