Shame and scorn may we thole that mourn, Though sair be they to dree: But ill may we bide the thoughts we hide, Mair keen than wind and sea. Ill may we thole the night’s watches, And ill the weary day: And the dreams that keep the gates of sleep, A waefu’ gift gie they; For the sangs they sing us, the sights they bring us, The morn blaws all away. On Aikenshaw the sun blinks braw, The burn rins blithe and fain: There’s nought wi’ me I wadna gie To look thereon again. On Keilder-side the wind blaws wide: There sounds nae hunting-horn That rings sae sweet as the winds that beat Round banks where Tyne is born. The Wansbeck sings with all her springs, The bents and braes give ear; But the wood that rings wi’ the sang she sings I may not see nor hear; For far and far thae blithe burns are, And strange is a’ thing near. The light there lightens, the day there brightens, The loud wind there lives free: Nae light comes nigh me or wind blaws by me That I wad hear or see. But O gin I were there again, Afar ayont the faem, Cauld and dead in the sweet, saft bed That haps my sires at hame! We’ll see nae mair the sea-banks fair, And the sweet grey gleaming sky, And the lordly strand of Northumberland, And the goodly towers thereby; And none shall know but the winds that blow The graves wherein we lie. _Algernon Charles Swinburne._ XCVI NEW YEAR’S DAY New Year, be good to England. Bid her name Shine sunlike as of old on all the sea: Make strong her soul: set all her spirit free: Bind fast her home-born foes with links of shame More strong than iron and more keen than flame: Seal up their lips for shame’s sake: so shall she Who was the light that lightened freedom be, For all false tongues, in all men’s eyes the same. O last-born child of Time, earth’s eldest lord, God undiscrowned of godhead, who for man Begets all good and evil things that live, Do thou, his new-begotten son, implored Of hearts that hope and fear not, make thy span Bright with such light as history bids thee give. _Algernon Charles Swinburne._ XCVII TO WILLIAM MORRIS Truth, winged and enkindled with rapture And sense of the radiance of yore, Fulfilled you with power to recapture What never might singer before-- The life, the delight, and the sorrow Of troublous and chivalrous years That knew not of night or of morrow, Of hopes or of fears. But wider the wing and the vision That quicken the spirit have spread Since memory beheld with derision Man’s hope to be more than his dead. From the mists and the snows and the thunders Your spirit has brought for us forth Light, music, and joy in the wonders And charms of the North.