in her eyes:

dren,

But the young, young children, O my From the sleep wherein she lieth none brothers,

will wake her They are weeping bitterly!

Crying, 'Get up, little Alice! it is day.' They are weeping in the playtime of the If you listen by that grave, in sun and others,

shower,

45 In the country of the free.

With your ear down, little Alice never

cries; Do you question the young children in Could we see her face, be sure we should the sorrow

not know her, Why their tears are falling so?

For the smile has time for growing The old man may weep for his tomorrow

15

And merry go her moments, lulled and Which is lost in Long Ago;

stilled in The old tree is leafless in the forest,

The shroud by the kirk-chime.

50 The old year is ending in the frost, It is good when it happens,” say the chilThe old wound, if stricken, is the sorest, The old hope is hardest to be lost: 20

“That we die before our time.” But the young, young children, O my brothers,

Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking Do you ask them why they stand Death in life, as best to have: Weeping sore before the bosoms of their They are binding up their hearts away mothers,

from breaking,

55 In our happy Fatherland?

With a cerement from the grave. Go out, children, from the mine and from

the city, They look up with their pale and sunken faces,

Sing out, children, as the little

25 And their looks are sad to see,

thrushes do; For the man's hoary anguish draws and Pluck your handfuls of the meadow

cowslips pretty, presses Down the cheeks of infancy;

Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let “Your old earth," they say, "is very

them through!

60 dreary;

But they answer, “Are your cowslips of Our young feet,” they say, “are very

the meadows weak;

Like our weeds anear the mine?

30 Few paces have we taken, yet are weary

Leave us quiet in the dark of the coalOur grave-rest is very far to seek:

shadows, Ask the aged why they weep, and not the

From your pleasures fair and fine! children, For the outside earth is cold,

“For oh," say the children, "we are And we young ones stand without, in

weary,

65 our bewildering,

And we cannot run or leap;

35 And the graves are for the old.

If we cared for any meadows, it were True," say the children, "it may happen

merely That we die before our time:

To drop down in them and sleep. Little Alice died last year, her grave is

Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping, shapen

We fall upon our faces, trying to go; 70 Like a snowball, in the rime.1

And, underneath our heavy eyelids droup40

ing,

The reddest flower would look as "We looked into the pit prepared to take her:

pale as snow. Was no room for any work in the

For, all day, we drag our burden tiring,

Through the coal-dark, underground; close clay!

Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron 75

In the factories, round and round,

I 20

“For, all day, the wheels are droning, And we hear not (for the wheels in their turning;

resounding) Their wind comes in our faces,

Strangers speaking at the door: 110 Till our hearts turn our heads, with pulses Is it likely God, with angels singing round burning,

Him,
And the walls turn in their places: 80 Hears our weeping any more?
Turns the sky in the high window, blank
and reeling,

"Two words, indeed, of praying we reTurns the long light that drops adown

member; the wall,

And at midnight's hour of harm, Turn the black flies that crawl along the

'Our Father,' looking upward in the ceiling:

chamber,

115 All are turning, all the day, and we

We say softly for a charm. with all.

We know no other words, except 'Our And all day the iron wheels are dron

Father,

And we think that, in some pause of ing:

85 And sometimes we could pray,

angels' song, 'Oye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad God may pluck them with the silence moaning)

sweet to gather, ‘Stop! be silent for to-day!'”

And hold both within His right hand

which is strong. Ay, be silent! Let them hear each other

'Our Father! If He heard us, He would breathing

surely For a moment, mouth to mouth! 90

(For they call Him good and mild) Let them touch each other's hands, in a

Answer, smiling down the steep world fresh wreathing

very purely, Of their tender human youth!

'Come and rest with me, my child.' Let them feel that this cold metallic motion

"But no!" say the children, weeping Is not all the life God fashions or re

faster,

125 veals:

“He is speechless as a stone: Let them prove their living souls against And they tell us, of His image is the the notion

95

master That they live in you, or under you,

Who commands us to work on. 0 wheels!

Go to!" say the children,-"Up in Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,

Heaven, Grinding life down from its mark;

Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are And the children's souls, which God is

all we find:

130 calling sunward,

Do not mock us; grief has made us unSpin on blindly in the dark.

believing:

We look up for God, but tears have Now tell the poor young children, O my

made us blind.” brothers,

Do you hear the children weeping and To look up to Him and pray;

disproving, So the blessed One who blesseth all the

O my brothers, what ye preach? others,

For God's possible is taught by His Will bless them another day.

world's loving,

135 They answer, “Who is God that He

And the children doubt of each. should hear us,

105 While the rushing of the iron wheels And well may the children weep before is stirred?

you! When we sob aloud, the human creatures They are weary ere they run;

They have never seen the sunshine, nor Pass by, hearing not, or answer not

the glory Which is brighter than the sun:

I OO

near us

a word.

140 can

20

They know the grief of man, without its High on the shore sat the great god Pan, wisdom;

While turbidly flowed the river; They sink in man's despair, without And hacked and hewed as a great god its calm;

15 And slaves, without the liberty in Christ-With his hard bleak steel at the patient dom,

reed, Are martyrs, by the pang without Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed the palm:

To prove it fresh from the river. Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly

145 He cut it short, did the great god Pan, The harvest of its memories cannot (How tall it stood in the river!), reap,

Then drew the pith, like the heart of a Are orphans of the earthly love and

man, heavenly.

Steadily from the outside ring, Let them weep! let them weep! And notched the poor dry empty thing

In holes, as he sat by the river. They look up with their pale and sunken faces,

“This is the way,” laughed the great god And their look is dread to see,

150
Pan

25 For they mind you of their angels in high (Laughed while he sat by the river), places,

"The only way, since gods began With eyes turned on Deity.

To make sweet music, they could succeed." “How long," they say, “how long, O cruel Then dropping his mouth to a hole in the nation,

reed, Will you stand, to move the world, He blew in power by the river. 30

on a child's heart, Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpita- Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan! tion,

155 Piercing sweet by the river! And tread onward to your throne Blinding sweet, O great god Pan! amid the mart?

The sun on the hill forgot to die, Our blood splashes upward, 0 gold- | And the lilies revived, and the dragonheaper,

fly

35 And your purple shows your path! Came back to dream on the river. But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan Than the strong man in his wrath."160 To laugh, as he sits by the river, Making a poet out of a man:

39 The true gods sigh for the cost and painA MUSICAL INSTRUMENT For the reed which grows never more again

As a reed with the reeds of the river. What was he doing, the great god Pan,

Down in the reeds by the river? Spreading ruin and scattering ban,

EDWARD FITZGERALD (1809–1883) Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,

RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM And breaking the golden lilies afloat 5 With the dragon-fly on the river?

Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, flight

From the deep cool bed of the river; The Stars before him from the Field of The limpid water turbidly ran

Night, And the broken lilies a-dying lay,

Drives Night along with them from And the dragon-fly had fled away,

Heav'n, and strikes Ere he brought it out of the river. The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light.

a

I

IO

III

X

IO

II

The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by Before the phantom of False morning

drop, died,

The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.

5 Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,

IX “When all the Temple is prepared Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you within,

say; Why nods the drowsy Worshipper out- | Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterside?"

day?

And this first Summer month that And, as the Cock crew, those who stood Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobád away.

brings the Rose

35 before The Tavern shouted—“Open then the

Door! You know how little while we have to Well, let it take them! What have we to stay,

do And, once departed, may return no more." With Kaikobád the Great, or Kaikhosrú?

Let Zál and Rustum bluster as they IV

will, Now the New Year reviving old Desires,

Or Hátim call to Supper-heed not you. 40 The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires, Where the WHITE HAND OF Moses on

XI the Bough

15

With me along the strip of Herbage strown Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground sus- That just divides the desert from the pires.

sown,

Where name of Slave and Sultán is V

forgotIram indeed is gone with all his Rose,

And Peace to Mahmúd on his golden And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where

Throne! no one knows;

XII But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine, And many a Garden by the Water blows.20 A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 45

A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread-and

Thou And David's lips are lockt; but in divine

Beside me singing in the WildernessHigh-piping Pehlevi, with “Wine! Wine! Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

Wine!
Red Wine!”- the Nightingale cries to

XIII
the Rose

Some for the Glories of This World; and That sallow cheek of hers to incarnadine. some

Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come; 50 VII

Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of go, Spring

Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!

25 Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way

XIV To flutter-and the Bird is on the Wing.

Look to the blowing Rose about us—"Lo,

Laughing,” she says, “into the world I VIII

blow, Whether at Naishápúr or Babylon,

At once the silken tassel of

my

Purse 55 Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden run,

30

throw."

VI

a

XV

To-morrowl-Why, To-morrow I may And those who husbanded the Golden

be Grain,

Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand And those who flung it to the winds like

Years. Rain,

XXII Alike to no such aureate Earth are For some we loved, the loveliest and the turn'd

best

85 As, buried once, Men want dug up again.60 That from his Vintage rolling Time hath

prest, XVI

Have drunk their Cup a Round or two The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts

before,

And one by one crept silently to rest. upon Turns Ashes or it prospers; and anon,

XXIII
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty
Face,

And we that now make merry in the Room Lighting a little hour or two—was gone.

They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom,

90 Ourselves must we beneath the Couch XVII

of Earth Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai? 65

Descend-ourselves to make a couch-for Whose Portals are alternate Night and

whom? Day,

XXIV How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp Abode his destin'd Hour, and went his Ah, make the most of what we yet may way.

spend,

Before we too into the Dust descend; XVIII

Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie, 95 They say the Lion and the Lizard keep Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, andThe Courts where Jamshyd gloried and

sans End! drank deep:

70

XXV And Bahrám, that great Hunter-the

Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare, Wild Ass

And those that after some To-MORROW Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break

stare, his Sleep.

A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness XIX

cries, I sometimes think that never blows so red

“Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor

There." The Rose as where some buried Cæsar

100 bled;

XXVI That every Hyacinth the Garden wears Why, all the Saints and Sages who disDropt in her Lap from some once lovely

cuss'd Head.

76
Of the Two Worlds so wisely—they are

thrust
XX

Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words And this reviving Herb whose tender

to Scorn Green

Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean

with Dust. Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows

XXVII From what once lovely Lip it springs un

Myself when young did eagerly frequent seen!

80
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argu-

ment Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears About it and about: but evermore To-Day of past Regrets and future Fears: Came out by the same door where in I

XXI

106