VICTORY.
This then—to live and have no joy thereof,
To thirst and hunger and be very tired,
To walk unloved, or know if one should love
It were a bitter thing that he desired,
To have no home in all the earth, to be
Mocked and derided and outcast of men,
To squander love and labour, and to see
No fruit of it, and yet to love, and then
Bearing all slander silently alway,
Serenely when the last reproach is hurled
To look Death in the face alone, and say
“Be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.”
“AH! WILD SWANS!”
“Ah! wild swans winging southward, I would fly with you to-night;
Southward, ever swiftly southward, through the autumn grey twilight.
“You will leave these downs and gullies, and the white cliffs far behind,
Sailing on above the waters in the music of the wind.
“And the seamen on their highway looking up will see you fly,
Like a misty shadow moving o’er the moon-illumined sky.
“Day and night and all things changing,—sunny skies and overcast,—
Till the cloud-engirdled mountains and the snowy peaks are passed.
“We should near the lands of laughter and the vines and olive trees,
Watch the little sails at sundown sparkle out on summer seas;
“Day and night and ever flying till we reached the wonderland,
And the seaward branching river, and the desert ways of sand;