Now the grey mist comes creeping up From the waste ocean's weedy strand And fills the valley, as a cup If filled of evil drink in a wizard's hand; And the trees fade out of sight, Like dreary ghosts unhealthily, Into the damp, pale night, Till you almost think that a clearer eye could see Some shape come up of a demon seeking apart His meat, as Grendel sought in Harte The thanes that sat by the wintry log-- Grendel or the shadowy mass Of Balor, or the man with the face of clay, The grey, grey walker who used to pass Over the rock-arch nightly to his prey. But here at the dumb, slow stream where the willows hang, With never a wind to blow the mists apart, Bitter and bitter it is for thee. O my heart, Looking upon this land, where poets sang, Thus with the dreary shroud Unwholesome, over it spread, And knowing the fog and the cloud In her people's heart and head Even as it lies for ever upon her coasts Making them dim and dreamy lest her sons should ever arise And remember all their boasts; For I know that the colourless skies And the blurred horizons breed Lonely desire and many words and brooding and never a deed. VI. Spooks Last night I dreamed that I was come again Unto the house where my beloved dwells After long years of wandering and pain. And I stood out beneath the drenching rain And all the street was bare, and black with night, But in my true love's house was warmth and light. Yet I could not draw near nor enter in, And long I wondered if some secret sin Or old, unhappy anger held me fast; Till suddenly it came into my head That I was killed long since and lying dead-- Only a homeless wraith that way had passed. So thus I found my true love's house again And stood unseen amid the winter night And the lamp burned within, a rosy light, And the wet street was shining in the rain. VII. Apology If men should ask, Despoina, why I tell Of nothing glad nor noble in my verse To lighten hearts beneath this present curse And build a heaven of dreams in real hell, Go you to them and speak among them thus: "There were no greater grief than to recall, Down in the rotting grave where the lithe worms crawl, Green fields above that smiled so sweet to us." Is it good to tell old tales of Troynovant Or praises of dead heroes, tried and sage, Or sing the queens of unforgotten age, Brynhild and Maeve and virgin Bradamant? How should I sing of them? Can it be good To think of glory now, when all is done, And all our labour underneath the sun Has brought us this-and not the thing we would?