Is his house built up in heaven aloft?
Doth he make the sun rise oft and oft?
Doth he hold the rain in his hollow hand?
Hath he cleft this water through the land?
Or doth he stay the summer-tide,
And make the winter days abide?
O children, Who is the lord? ye say,
Have we heard his name before to-day?
O children, if his name I know,
He hight Earl Hugh of the Shivering Low:
For that herald bore on back and breast
The Black Burg under the Eagle’s Nest.”
* * * * *
As the voice of the winter wind that tears
At the eaves of the thatch and its emptied ears,
E’en so was the voice of laughter and scorn
By the water-side in the mead new-shorn;
And over the garden and the wheat
Went the voice of women shrilly-sweet.