Kate saith “the world is void of might”. Kate saith “the men are gilded flies”. Kate snaps her fingers at my vows; Kate will not hear of lover’s sighs. I would I were an armèd knight, Far famed for wellwon enterprise, And wearing on my swarthy brows The garland of new-wreathed emprise: For in a moment I would pierce The blackest files of clanging fight, And strongly strike to left and right, In dreaming of my lady’s eyes. Oh! Kate loves well the bold and fierce; But none are bold enough for Kate, She cannot find a fitting mate. Sonnet—“Blow ye the trumpet, gather from afar...” _Written, on hearing of the outbreak of the Polish Insurrection._ Blow ye the trumpet, gather from afar The hosts to battle: be not bought and sold. Arise, brave Poles, the boldest of the bold; Break through your iron shackles—fling them far. O for those days of Piast, ere the Czar Grew to this strength among his deserts cold; When even to Moscow’s cupolas were rolled The growing murmurs of the Polish war! Now must your noble anger blaze out more Than when from Sobieski, clan by clan, The Moslem myriads fell, and fled before— Than when Zamoysky smote the Tartar Khan, Than earlier, when on the Baltic shore Boleslas drove the Pomeranian. Poland Reprinted without alteration in 1872, except the removal of italics in “now” among the _Early Sonnets_. How long, O God, shall men be ridden down, And trampled under by the last and least Of men? The heart of Poland hath not ceased To quiver, tho’ her sacred blood doth drown The fields; and out of every smouldering town Cries to Thee, lest brute Power be increased, Till that o’ergrown Barbarian in the East Transgress his ample bound to some new crown:— Cries to thee, “Lord, how long shall these things be? How long this icyhearted Muscovite Oppress the region?” Us, O Just and Good, Forgive, who smiled when she was torn in three; Us, who stand now, when we should aid the right— A matter to be wept with tears of blood! To—— (“As when, with downcast eyes...”) Reprinted without alteration as first of the _Early Sonnets_ in 1872; subsequently in the twelfth line “That tho’” was substituted for “Altho’,” and the last line was altered to— “And either lived in either’s heart and speech,” and “hath” was not italicised. As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood, And ebb into a former life, or seem To lapse far back in some confused dream To states of mystical similitude; If one but speaks or hems or stirs his chair, Ever the wonder waxeth more and more, So that we say, “All this hath been before, All this _hath_ been, I know not when or where”. So, friend, when first I look’d upon your face, Our thought gave answer each to each, so true— Opposed mirrors each reflecting each— Altho’ I knew not in what time or place, Methought that I had often met with you, And each had lived in the other’s mind and speech. O Darling Room I