I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses
All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,
All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing.
Let cowards and laggards fall back! but alert to the saddle
Weather-worn and abreast, go men of our galloping legion,
With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him.
The trail is through dolour and dread, over crags and morasses;
There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us:
What odds? We are Knights of the Grail, we are vowed to the riding.
Thought's self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb,
And friendship a flower in the dust, and glory a sunbeam:
Not here is our prize, nor, alas! after these our pursuing.
A dipping of plumes, a tear, a shake of the bridle,
A passing salute to this world and her pitiful beauty:
We hurry with never a word in the track of our fathers.
(I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses
All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,
All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing.)
We spur to a land of no name, out-racing the storm-wind;
We leap to the infinite dark like sparks from the anvil.
Thou leadest, O God! All's well with Thy troopers that follow.
[Bedesfolk]
Who is good enough to be
Near the never-stainèd sea?
Ah, not I,
Who thereby
Only sigh:
Pray for me.
Standing underneath some free
Innocent magnanimous tree,
To be true,
There anew
Must I sue:
Pray for me.
Ere I pass on hilly lea
Fellow-lives of glad degree,
Without shame,
Name by name
These I claim:
Pray for me.
Fail not, then, thou kingly sea!
Aid the needy, sister tree!
March herds,
Ye have words!
April birds,
Pray for me!
[In a City Street]
Though sea and mount have beauty and this but what it can,
Thrice fairer than their life the life here battling in the van,
The tragic gleam, the mist and grime,
The dread endearing stain of time,
The sullied heart of man.
Mine is the clotted sunshine, a bubble in the sky,
That where it dare not enter steals in shrouded passion by;
And mine the saffron river-sails,
And every plane-tree that avails
To rest an urban eye;
The bells, the dripping gable, the tavern's corner glare;
The cab in firefly darting; the barrel-organ air,
While one by one, or two by two
The hatless babes are waltzing through
The gutters of the Square.
Not on Thessalian headlands of song and old desire
My spirit chose her pleasure-house, but in the London mire:
Long, long alone she loves to pace,
And find a music in this place
As in a minster choir.
O names of awe and rapture! O deeds of legendry!
Still is it most of joy within your altered pale to be,
Whose very ills I fain would slake
Mine angels are, and help to make
In Hell a Heaven for me.