Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough

by William Morris

THE MUSIC

(As the singers enter and stand before the curtain, the player-king and player-maiden in the midst.)

LOVE IS ENOUGH: have no thought for to-morrow

If ye lie down this even in rest from your pain,

Ye who have paid for your bliss with great sorrow:

For as it was once so it shall be again.

Ye shall cry out for death as ye stretch forth in vain.

Feeble hands to the hands that would help but they may not,

Cry out to deaf ears that would hear if they could;

Till again shall the change come, and words your lips say not

Your hearts make all plain in the best wise they would

And the world ye thought waning is glorious and good:

And no morning now mocks you and no nightfall is weary,

The plains are not empty of song and of deed:

The sea strayeth not, nor the mountains are dreary;

The wind is not helpless for any man's need,

Nor falleth the rain but for thistle and weed.

O surely this morning all sorrow is hidden,

All battle is hushed for this even at least;

And no one this noontide may hunger, unbidden

To the flowers and the singing and the joy of your feast

Where silent ye sit midst the world's tale increased.

Lo, the lovers unloved that draw nigh for your blessing!

For your tale makes the dreaming whereby yet they live

The dreams of the day with their hopes of redressing,

The dreams of the night with the kisses they give,

The dreams of the dawn wherein death and hope strive.

Ah, what shall we say then, but that earth threatened often

Shall live on for ever that such things may be,

That the dry seed shall quicken, the hard earth shall soften,

And the spring-bearing birds flutter north o'er the sea,

That earth's garden may bloom round my love's feet and me?

THE EMPEROR

Lo you, my sweet, fair folk are one and all
And with good grace their broidered robes do fall,
And sweet they sing indeed: but he, the King,
Look but a little how his fingers cling
To her's, his love that shall be in the play—
His love that hath been surely ere to-day:
And see, her wide soft eyes cast down at whiles
Are opened not to note the people's smiles
But her love's lips, and dreamily they stare
As though they sought the happy country, where
They two shall be alone, and the world dead.

THE EMPRESS

Most faithful eyes indeed look from the head
The sun has burnt, and wind and rain has beat,
Well may he find her slim brown fingers sweet.
And he—methinks he trembles, lest he find
That song of his not wholly to her mind.
Note how his grey eyes look askance to see
Her bosom heaving with the melody
His heart loves well: rough with the wind and rain
His cheek is, hollow with some ancient pain;
The sun has burned and blanched his crispy hair,
And over him hath swept a world of care
And left him careless, rugged, and her own;
Still fresh desired, still strange and new, though known.

THE EMPEROR

His eyes seem dreaming of the mysteries
Deep in the depths of her familiar eyes,
Tormenting and alluring; does he dream,
As I ofttime this morn, how they would seem
Loved but unloving?—Nay the world's too sweet
That we the ghost of such a pain should meet—
Behold, she goes, and he too, turning round,
Remembers that his love must yet be found,
That he is King and loveless in this story
Wrought long ago for some dead poet's glory.

[Exeunt players behind the curtain.

Enter before the curtain LOVE crowned as a King.

LOVE

All hail, my servants! tremble ye, my foes!
A hope for these I have, a fear for those
Hid in this tale of Pharamond the Freed.
To-day, my Faithful, nought shall be your need
Of tears compassionate:—although full oft
The crown of love laid on my bosom soft
Be woven of bitter death and deathless fame,
Bethorned with woe, and fruited thick with shame.
—This for the mighty of my courts I keep,
Lest through the world there should be none to weep
Except for sordid loss; and not to gain
But satiate pleasure making mock of pain.
—Yea, in the heaven from whence my dreams go forth
Are stored the signs that make the world of worth:
There is the wavering wall of mighty Troy
About my Helen's hope and Paris' joy:
There lying neath the fresh dyed mulberry-tree
The sword and cloth of Pyramus I see:
There is the number of the joyless days
Wherein Medea won no love nor praise:
There is the sand my Ariadne pressed;
The footprints of the feet that knew no rest
While o'er the sea forth went the fatal sign:
The asp of Egypt, the Numidian wine,
My Sigurd's sword, my Brynhild's fiery bed,
The tale of years of Gudrun's drearihead,
And Tristram's glaive, and Iseult's shriek are here,
And cloister-gown of joyless Guenevere.

Save you, my Faithful! how your loving eyes
Grow soft and gleam with all these memories!
But on this day my crown is not of death:
My fire-tipped arrows, and my kindling breath
Are all the weapons I shall need to-day.
Nor shall my tale in measured cadence play
About the golden lyre of Gods long gone,
Nor dim and doubtful 'twixt the ocean's moan
Wail out about the Northern fiddle-bow,
Stammering with pride or quivering shrill with woe.
Rather caught up at hazard is the pipe
That mixed with scent of roses over ripe,
And murmur of the summer afternoon,
May charm you somewhat with its wavering tune
'Twixt joy and sadness: whatsoe'er it saith,
I know at least there breathes through it my breath