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upon the Unemployed

Tom–garlanded with squat and surly steel

Tom; then Tom’s fallowbootfellow piles pick

By him and rips out rockfire homeforth–sturdy Dick;

Tom Heart-at-ease, Tom Navvy: he is all for his meal

Sure, ‘s bed now. Low be it: lustily he his low lot (feel

That ne’er need hunger, Tom; Tom seldom sick,

Seldomer heartsore; that treads through, prickproof,

thick

Thousands of thorns, thoughts) swings though. Common-

weal

Little I reck ho! lacklevel in, if all had bread:

What! Country is honour enough in all us–lordly head,

With heaven’s lights high hung round, or, mother-ground

That mammocks, mighty foot. But no way sped,

Nor mind nor mainstrength; gold go garlanded

With, perilous, O nó; nor yet plod safe shod sound;

Undenizened, beyond bound

Of earth’s glory, earth’s ease, all; no one, nowhere,

In wide the world’s weal; rare gold, bold steel, bare

In both; care, but share care–

This, by Despair, bred Hangdog dull; by Rage,

Manwolf, worse; and their packs infest the age.

The fine delight that fathers thought; the strong

Spur, live and lancing like the blowpipe flame,

Breathes once and, quenchèd faster than it came,

Leaves yet the mind a mother of immortal song.

Nine months she then, nay years, nine years she long

Within her wears, bears, cares and combs the same:

The widow of an insight lost she lives, with aim

Now known and hand at work now never wrong.

Sweet fire the sire of muse, my soul needs this;

I want the one rapture of an inspiration.

O then if in my lagging lines you miss

The roll, the rise, the carol, the creation,

My winter world, that scarcely breathes that bliss

Now, yields you, with some sighs, our explanation.

Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum: verumtamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prosperatur? &c.

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend

With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.

Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must

Disappointment all I endeavour end?

 

Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,

How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost

Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust

Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,

Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes

Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again

With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes

Them; birds build—but not I build; no, but strain,

Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.

Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

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To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-

dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstacy! then off, off forth on swing,

As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

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