Once on a time, a Dawn, all red and bright Leapt on the conquered ramparts of the Night, And flamed, one brilliant instant, on the world, Then back into the historic moat was hurled And Night was King again, for many years. -- Once on a time the Rose of Spring blushed out But Winter angrily withdrew it back Into his rough new-bursten husk, and shut The stern husk-leaves, and hid it many years. -- Once Famine tricked himself with ears of corn, And Hate strung flowers on his spiked belt, And glum Revenge in silver lilies pranked him, And Lust put violets on his shameless front, And all minced forth o' the street like holiday folk That sally off afield on Summer morns. -- Once certain hounds that knew of many a chase, And bare great wounds of antler and of tusk That they had ta'en to give a lord some sport, -- Good hounds, that would have died to give lords sport -- Were so bewrayed and kicked by these same lords That all the pack turned tooth o' the knights and bit As knights had been no better things than boars, And took revenge as bloody as a man's, Unhoundlike, sudden, hot i' the chops, and sweet. -- Once sat a falcon on a lady's wrist, Seeming to doze, with wrinkled eye-lid drawn, But dreaming hard of hoods and slaveries And of dim hungers in his heart and wings. Then, while the mistress gazed above for game, Sudden he flew into her painted face And hooked his horn-claws in her lily throat And drove his beak into her lips and eyes In fierce and hawkish kissing that did scar And mar the lady's beauty evermore. -- And once while Chivalry stood tall and lithe And flashed his sword above the stricken eyes Of all the simple peasant-folk of France: While Thought was keen and hot and quick, And did not play, as in these later days, Like summer-lightning flickering in the west -- As little dreadful as if glow-worms lay In the cool and watery clouds and glimmered weak -- But gleamed and struck at once or oak or man, And left not space for Time to wave his wing Betwixt the instantaneous flash and stroke: While yet the needs of life were brave and fierce And did not hide their deeds behind their words, And logic came not 'twixt desire and act, And Want-and-Take was the whole Form of life: While Love had fires a-burning in his veins, And hidden Hate could flash into revenge: Ere yet young Trade was 'ware of his big thews Or dreamed that in the bolder afterdays He would hew down and bind old Chivalry And drag him to the highest height of fame And plunge him thence in the sea of still Romance To lie for aye in never-rusted mail Gleaming through quiet ripples of soft songs And sheens of old traditionary tales; -- On such a time, a certain May arose From out that blue Sea that between five lands Lies like a violet midst of five large leaves, Arose from out this violet and flew on And stirred the spirits of the woods of France And smoothed the brows of moody Auvergne hills, And wrought warm sea-tints into maidens' eyes,