In the last glowing of the sunset’s gold We looked our last upon that pirate hold; The palace gilding shone awhile like fire, We were at sea with all our heart’s desire, Beauty and friendship and the dream fulfilled: The golden answer to the deeply willed, The purely longed-for, hardly tried-for thing. Into the dark our sea-boat dipped her wing; Polaris climbed out of the dark and shone, Then came the moon, and now Saffee was gone, With all hell’s darkness hidden by the sea. * * * * * Oh, beautiful is love, and to be free Is beautiful, and beautiful are friends. Love, freedom, comrades, surely make amends For all these thorns through which we walk to death! God let us breathe your beauty with our breath. * * * * * All early in the Maytime, when daylight comes at four, We blessed the hawthorn blossom that welcomed us ashore. Oh, beautiful in this living that passes like the foam, It is to go with sorrow, yet come with beauty home! * * * * * THE HOUNDS OF HELL About the crowing of the cock, When the shepherds feel the cold, A horse’s hoofs went clip-a-clock Along the hangman’s wold. The horse-hoofs trotted on the stone, The hoof-sparks glittered by, And then a hunting horn was blown And hounds broke into cry. There was a strangeness in the horn, A wildness in the cry, A power of devilry forlorn Exulting bloodily. A power of night that ran a prey Along the hangman’s hill. The shepherds heard the spent buck bray And the horn blow for the kill. They heard the worrying of the hounds About the dead beast’s bones; Then came the horn, and then the sounds Of horse-hoofs treading stones. “What hounds are these that hunt the night?” The shepherds asked in fear. “Look, there are calkins clinking bright; They must be coming here.” The calkins clinkered to a spark, The hunter called the pack; The sheep-dogs’ fells all bristled stark And all their lips went back. “Lord God!” the shepherds said, “they come; And see what hounds he has: All dripping bluish fire, and dumb, And nosing to the grass, “And trotting scatheless through the gorse, And bristling in the fell. Lord, it is Death upon the horse, And they’re the hounds of hell!” They shook to watch them as they sped, All black against the sky; A horseman with a hooded head And great hounds padding by. When daylight drove away the dark And larks went up and thrilled, The shepherds climbed the wold to mark What beast the hounds had killed. They came to where the hounds had fed, And in that trampled place They found a pedlar lying dead, With horror in his face.