When, after dawn, the lordly houses hide Till you fall foul of it, some piteous guest, (Some girl the damp stones gather to their breast, Her gold hair rough, her rebel garment wide, Who sleeps, with all that luck and life denied Camped round, and dreams how seaward and southwest Blue over Devon farms the smoke-rings rest, And sheep and lambs ascend the lit hillside,) Dear, of your charity, speak low, step soft, Pray for a sinner. Planet-like and still, Best hearts of all are sometimes set aloft Only to see and pass, nor yet deplore Even Wrong itself, crowned Wrong inscrutable, Which cannot but have been, for evermore. XI. YORK STAIRS. Many a musing eye returns to thee, Against the formal street disconsolate, Who kept in green domains thy bridal state, With young tide-waters leaping at thy knee; And lest the ravening smoke, and enmity Corrode thee quite, thy lover sighs, and straight Desires thee safe afar, too graceful gate! Throned on a terrace of the Boboli. Nay, nay, thy use is here. Stand queenly thus Till the next fury; teach the time and us Leisure and will to draw a serious breath: Not wholly where thou art the soul is cowed, Nor the fooled capital proclaims aloud Barter is god, while Beauty perisheth. XII. IN THE DOCKS. Where the bales thunder till the day is done, And the wild sounds with wilder odours cope; Where over crouching sail and coiling rope, Lascar and Moor along the gangway run; Where stifled Thames spreads in the pallid sun, A hive of anarchy from slope to slope; Flag of my birth, my liberty, my hope, I see thee at the masthead, joyous one! O thou good guest! So oft as, young and warm, To the home-wind thy hoisted colours bound, Away, away from this too thoughtful ground, Sodden with human trespass and despair, Thee only, from the desert, from the storm, A sick mind follows into Eden air. OXFORD: SONNETS WRITTEN THERE IN 1890 AND 1895. _TO LIONEL JOHNSON._ I. THE TOW-PATH. Furrow to furrow, oar to oar succeeds, Each length away, more bright, more exquisite; The sister shells that hither, thither flit, Strew the long stream like dropping maple-seeds. A comrade on the marge now lags, now leads, Who with short calls his pace doth intermit: An angry Pan, afoot; but if he sit, Auspicious Pan among the river reeds. West of the glowing hay-ricks, (tawny-black, Where waters by their warm escarpments run), Two lovers, slowly crossed from Kennington, Print in the early dew a married track, And drain the aroma’d eve, and spend the sun, Ere, in laborious health, the crews come back. II. THE OLD DIAL OF CORPUS.