The moon shone in on the turret stair
(Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea,
The dead are bound with a chain.)
And touched her cheek and brightened her hair,
And found naught else in the world so fair,
So ghostly fair as the mad ladye,
While the bird in the bower sang lonesomely.
(Hark to the wind and the rain.)
The weary days and the months crept on,
(Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea,
The words of the dead are vain)
At last the summer was over and gone,
And still she sat in her turret alone,
Her white hands clasping about her knee,
And the bird was mute in the rowan tree.
(Hark to the wind and the rain.)
Wild was the sound of the wind and the sleet,
(Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea.
The dead—do they walk again?)
Wilder the roar of the surf that beat;
Whose was the form that it bore to her feet
Swayed with the swell of the unquiet sea,
While the raven croaked in the rowan tree.
(Hark to the wind and the rain.)
Oh Lady, strange is the silent guest—
(Flotsam and jetsam cast up by the sea,
Can the dead feel sorrow or pain?)
With the sea-drenched locks and the pulseless breast
And the close-shut lips which thine have pressed
And the wide sad eyes that heed not thee,
While the raven croaks in the rowan tree.
(Hark to the wind and the rain.)
The tower is dark, and the doors are wide,
(Flotsam and jetsam cast up by the sea,
The dead are at peace again.)
Into the harbour the fisher boats ride,
But two went out with the ebbing tide,
Without sail, without oar, full fast and free,
And the raven croaks in the rowan tree.
(Hark to the wind and the rain.)
THE COMING OF THE KING.
"O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children." Isaiah, liv. 11-13.
As the sand of the desert is smitten
By hoof-beats that strike out a light,
A flash by which dumb things are litten,
The children of night;
So Thou who of old did'st create us,
Among the high gods the Most High,
Strike us with Thy brightness, and let us
Behold Thee, and die.
Grown old in blind anguish and travail,
Thy world thou mad'st sinless and free
Gropes on, with no power to unravel
The clue back to Thee:
Since his feet from Thy ways torn and bleeding
The long march of ages began,
And the gates of Thy sword-guarded Eden
Were closed upon man.
Fates thicken, and prophecies darken,
Grown up into blossom and fruit;
And we lean in these last days to hearken
The sound of Thy foot.
Not now as a star-fallen stranger,
By shepherds, and pilgrims adored,
As couched among kine in a manger,
An undeclared lord: