Or whether war's avenging rod Till you should turn to dearer matters, How best to help the slender store, Come, Maurice, come: the lawn as yet Is hoar with rime, or spongy-wet; But when the wreath of March has blossom'd, Crocus, anemone, violet, Or later, pay one visit here, For those are few we hold as dear; Nor pay but one, but come for many, Many and many a happy year. January, 1854. WILL. 1. O WELL for him whose will is strong! He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong: For him nor moves the loud world's random mock, Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound, Who seems a promontory of rock, That, compass'd round with turbulent sound, 2. But ill for him who, bettering not with time, Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will, And ever weaker grows thro' acted crime, Or seeming-genial venial fault, Recurring and suggesting still! He seems as one whose footsteps halt, Toiling in immeasurable sand, And o'er a weary sultry land, Far beneath a blazing vault, Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill, The city sparkles like a grain of salt. IDYLLS OF THE KING. DEDICATION. THESE to His Memory - since he held them dear, Perchance as finding there unconsciously Some image of himself — I dedicate, I dedicate, I consecrate with tears These Idylls. : And indeed He seems to me Scarce other than my own ideal knight, "Who reverenced his conscience as his king; Whose glory was, redressing human wrong; Who spake no slander, no, nor listen'd to it; Who loved one only and who clave to her Her over all whose realms to their last isle, Commingled with the gloom of imminent war, The shadow of His loss drew like eclipse, Darkening the world. We have lost him he is gone: We know him now: all narrow jealousies Are silent; and we see him as he moved, How modest, kindly, all-accomplish'd, wise, With what sublime repression of himself, And in what limits, and how tenderly; Not swaying to this faction or to that; Not making his high place the lawless perch Of wing'd ambitions, nor a vantage-ground For pleasure; but thro' all this tract of years Wearing the white flower of a blameless life, Before a thousand peering littlenesses, In that fierce light which beats upon a throne, And blackens every blot for where is he, Who dares foreshadow for an only son A lovelier life, a more unstain'd, than his ? Or how should England dreaming of his sons Hope more for these than some inheritance Break not, O woman's-heart, but still endure; Break not, for thou art Royal, but endure, Remembering all the beauty of that star Which shone so close beside Thee, that ye made One light together, but has past and leaves The Crown a lonely splendor. May all love, His love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow Thee, |