’Tis the time o’ the year I turn upon the height To watch from my harrow the dance of going light; And if before the sun be hid, come slowly up the vale Honora with her dimpled throat, Honora with her pail, Hey, but there’s many a March for me, and many and many a lass! I fall to work and song again, and let Honora pass. IN A RUIN, AFTER A THUNDERSTORM. Keep of the Norman, old to flood and cloud! Thou dost reproach me with thy sunset look, That in our common menace, I forsook Hope, the last fear, and stood impartial proud: Almost, almost, while ether spake aloud, Death, from the smoking stones, my spirit shook Into thy hollow as leaves into a brook, No more than they by heaven’s assassins cowed. But now thy thousand-scarrèd steep is flecked With the calm kisses of the light delayed, Breathe on me better valour: to subject My soul to greed of life, and grow afraid Lest, ere her fight’s full term, the Architect See downfall of the stronghold that He made. TO A CHILD. Dear Owain, when you are minded To gather the perfect thing, Over Abergavenny Climb in the evening!— I have seen where orchis dances A saraband with the Spring; Where samphire leans to ocean, And shakes in the word he saith; Or the brood of the peasant ragweed, Innocent, sweet of breath, Runs with a wild Welsh river That never has heard of death; Where thrift, with a foot shell-tinted, On the dark coast-road delays; And foxglove flames in a ruin; And campion meekly lays On a crag’s uneven shoulder Her satiny cheek, for days. Well: these in their mortal beauty, And these in their youth, abound. But over Abergavenny, Past sunset-hour, I found (O Holy Grail of a flower!) The sun on the hilltop ground. IN A PERPENDICULAR CHURCH. The slackened arches never lose their beauty of alarm; The tall lines frown along the wall, like angels, sword in arm; And where the vaults diverge, a grove with fancied snow o’erspread, Goes light among a myriad panes, with dust upon her head. England of old most innocent, whose flower of skill achieved Failed quick as Lammas lilies, when thy hand no more believed, What hast thou here, beloved but dead, held to thy childless heart? Alas, thy human all of heaven: thine own and only Art. A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SONG. She alone of Shepherdesses With her blue disdayning eyes, Wo’d not hark a Kyng that dresses All his lute in sighes: Yet to winne Katheryn, I elect for mine Emprise. None is like her, none above her, Who so lifts my youth in me, That a little more to love her Were to leave her free! But to winne Katheryn, Is mine utmost love’s degree.