The primroses were out, The aislèd oaks were green, The cow-bells pleasantly Tinked between; The brook was beaded gold, The thorn was burgeoning, Where evil Ascobert Slew the King. He hid him in the ground, Nor washed away the dyes, Nor smoothed the fallen curls From his eyes. No father had the babe To bless his bed forlorn; No mother now to weep By the thorn. There fell upon that place A shaft of heavenly light; The thorn in Mercia spake Ere the night: “Beyond, a sister sees Her crownèd period, But at my root a lamb Seeth God.” Unto each, even so. As dew before the cloud, The guilty glory passed Of the proud. Boy Kenelm has the song, Saint Kenelm has the bower; His thorn a thousand years Is in flower! [Illustration] _Vergniaud in the Tumbril_ I THE wheels are silent, the cords are slack, The terrible faces are surging back. France, they too love thee! bid that keep plain; The wrath and carnage I stayed afar Colleagues of my white conscience are: Accept my slayers, accept me slain! Shed for days, in its olden guise The quiet delicate snake-skin lies To cheat a boy on his woodland stroll: What if he crush it? Others see Beauty’s miracle under a tree Supple in mail, and adroit, and whole; The shaper rid of a shape, and thence (Growth of an outgrown excellence), Mounted with infinite might and speed, Freed like a soul to the heaven it dreamed; Over life that was, and death that seemed A victory and a revenge indeed! As the serpent moves to the open spring, The while a mock, a delusive thing Sole in sight of the crowd may be, So ye, my martyrs, arise, advance! For what is left at the feet of France It is our failure, it is not we. II Not to ourselves our strength we brought: Inexpiable the Hand that wrought In us the ruin of no redress, The storm, the effort, the pang, the fire, The premonition, the vast desire, The primal passion of righteousness! Scarce by the pitiful thwarted plan, The haste, or the studious fears of man Drawing a discord from best delight, The measure is meted of God most wise; Nor the future, with her adjusted eyes, Shall speak us false in our dying fight. But e’en to me now some use is clear In the builded truth down-beaten here For any along the way to spurn, Since ever our broken task may stand Disaster’s college in one saved land, Whence many a stripling state shall learn. Out of the human shoots the divine: Be the Republic our only sign, For whose life’s glory our lives have been Ambassadors on a noble way Tempest-driven, and sent astray The first and the final good between. Close to the vision undestroyed, The hope not compassed and yet not void, We perish so; but the world shall mark On the hilltop of our work we died, With joy of the groom before the bride, With a dawn-cry thro’ the battle’s dark. III