RICHARD WATSON DIXON Born 1833 SONG The feathers of the willow And wild the clouded gleam. The thistle now is older, His head is white as snow; The robin pipeth now. FROM "CHRIST'S COMPANY" THE HOLY MOTHER AT THE CROSS Of Mary's pains may now learn whoso will, When she stood underneath the groaning tree Round which the true Vine clung: three hours the mill Of hours rolled round; she saw in visions three The shadows walking underneath the sun, And these seemed all so very faint to be, That she could scarcely tell how each begun, And went its way, minuting each degree That it existed on the dial stone: For drop by drop of wine unfalteringly, Not stroke by stroke in blood, the three hours gone Three hours she stood beneath the cross; it seemed Upon the grades, and the king crowned the pile, In Zion town, that most miraculous plat On which the shadow backward did defile; And now towards the third hour the sun enorme Dressed up all shadow to a bickering smile I' the heat, and in its midst the form of form Because that time so heavily beat and slow That fancy in each beat was come and gone; Because that light went singing to and fro, A blissful song in every beam that shone; Because that on the flesh a little tongue Instantly played, and spake in lurid tone; Because that saintly shapes with harp and gong Told the three hours, whose telling made them one; Half hid, involved in alternating beams, Half mute, they held the plectrum to the zone, Therefore, as God her senses shield, it seems A dial stone. Three hours she stood beside the cross; it seemed A splendid flower; for red dews on the edge Stood dropping; petals doubly four she deemed Shot out like steel knives from the central wedge, Which quadranted their perfect circle so As if four anthers should a vast flower hedge Into four parts, and in its bosom, lo, The form lay, as the seed-heart holding pledge Of future flowers; yea, in the midst was borne The head low drooped upon the swollen ledge Of the torn breast; there was the ring of thorn This flower was fledge. Because her woe stood all about her now, No longer like a stream as ran the hour; Because her cleft heart parted into two, No more a mill-wheel spinning to time's power; Because all motion seemed to be suspense; Because one ray did other rays devour; Because the sum of things rose o'er her sense, She standing 'neath its dome as in a bower; Because from one thing all things seemed to spume, As from one mouth the fountain's hollow shower; Therefore it seemed His and her own heart's bloom, A splendid flower. Now it was finished; shrivelled were the leaves Born of the inner on the sky's wide room, WILLIAM MORRIS Born 1834 THE CHAPEL IN LYONESS SIR OZANA LE CURE HARDY. SIR GALAHAD. SIR BORS DE GANYS SIR OZANA All day long and every day, From Christmas-Eve to Whit-Sunday, And no man came a-near. Naked to the waist was I, And deep within my breast did lie, No meat did ever pass my lips. Those days (Alas! the sunlight slips |