LITMIR.BIZ

      Lord Rameses of Egypt sighed

      Because a summer evening passed;

      And little Ariadne cried

      That summer fancy fell at last

      To dust; and young Verona died

      When beauty’s hour was overcast.

      Theirs was the bitterness we know

      Because the clouds of hawthorn keep

      So short a state, and kisses go

      To tombs unfathomably deep,

      While Rameses and Romeo

      And little Ariadne sleep.

      Green shoots, we break the morning earth

      And flourish in the morning’s breath;

      We leave the agony of birth

      And soon are all midway to death.

      While yet the summer of her year

      Brings life her marvels, she can see

      Far off the rising dust, and hear

      The footfall of her enemy.

      If all the carts were painted gay,

      And all the streets swept clean,

      And all the children came to play

      By hollyhocks, with green

      Grasses to grow between,

      If all the houses looked as though

      Some heart were in their stones,

      If all the people that we know

      Were dressed in scarlet gowns,

      With feathers in their crowns,

      I think this gaiety would make

      A spiritual land.

      I think that holiness would take

      This laughter by the hand,

      Till both should understand.

      A shining city, one

      Happy in snow and sun,

      And singing in the rain

      A paradisal strain…

      Here is a dream to keep,

      O Builders, from your sleep.

      O foolish Builders, wake,

      Take your trowels, take

      The poet’s dream, and build

      The city song has willed,

      That every stone may sing

      And all your roads may ring

      With happy wayfaring.

      Go, thieves, and take your riches, creep

      To corners out of honest sight;

      We shall not be so poor to keep

      One thought of envy or despite.

      But know that in sad surety when

      Your sullen will betrays this earth

      To sorrows of contagion, then

      Beelzebub renews his birth.

      When you defile the pleasant streams

      And the wild bird’s abiding-place,

      You massacre a million dreams

      And cast your spittle in God’s face.

      Christ for a dream was given from the dead

      To walk one Christmas night on earth again,

      Among the snow, among the Christmas bells.

      He heard the hymns that are his praise: Noël,

      And Christ is Born, and Babe of Bethlehem.

      He saw the travelling crowds happy for home,

      The gathering and the welcome, and the set

      Feast and the gifts, because he once was born,

      Because he once was steward of a word.

      And so he thought, “The spirit has been kind;

      So well the peoples might have fallen from me,

      My way of life being difficult and spare.

      It is beautiful that a dream in Galilee

      Should prosper so. They crucified me once,

      And now my name is spoken through the world,

      And bells are rung for me and candles burnt.

      They might have crucified my dream who used

      My body ill; they might have spat on me

      Always as in one hour on Golgotha.” …

      And the snow fell, and the last bell was still,

      And the poor Christ again was with the dead.

      As pools beneath stone arches take

      Darkly within their deeps again

      Shapes of the flowing stone, and make

      Stories anew of passing men,

      So let the living thoughts that keep,

      Morning and evening, in their kind,

      Eternal change in height and deep,

      Be mirrored in my happy mind.

      Beat, world, upon this heart, be loud

      Your marvel chanted in my blood,

      Come forth, O sun, through cloud on cloud

      To shine upon my stubborn mood.

      Great hills that fold above the sea,

      Ecstatic airs and sparkling skies,

      Sing out your words to master me,

      Make me immoderately wise.

      When other beauty governs other lips,

      And snowdrops come to strange and happy springs,

      When seas renewed bear yet unbuilded ships,

      And alien hearts know all familiar things,

      When frosty nights bring comrades to enjoy

      Sweet hours at hearths where we no longer sit,

      When Liverpool is one with dusty Troy,

      And London famed as Attica for wit …

      How shall it be with you, and you, and you,

      How with us all who have gone greatly here

      In

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