With other names do we name pain,
The long years wear our hearts in vain. 
Mock not our loss grown into gain,
Mock not our lost hope lying dead. 
Our eyes gaze for no morning-star,
No glimmer of the dawn afar;
Full silent wayfarers we are
Since ere the noon-tide hope lay dead. 
Behold with lack of happiness
The master, Love, our hearts did bless
Lest we should think of him the less: 
Love dieth not, though hope is dead!”

ERROR AND LOSS

Upon an eve I sat me down and wept,
Because the world to me seemed nowise good;
Still autumn was it, and the meadows slept,
The misty hills dreamed, and the silent wood
Seemed listening to the sorrow of my mood: 
I knew not if the earth with me did grieve,
Or if it mocked my grief that bitter eve.

Then ’twixt my tears a maiden did I see,
Who drew anigh me on the leaf-strewn grass,
Then stood and gazed upon me pitifully
With grief-worn eyes, until my woe did pass
From me to her, and tearless now I was,
And she mid tears was asking me of one
She long had sought unaided and alone.

I knew not of him, and she turned away
Into the dark wood, and my own great pain
Still held me there, till dark had slain the day,
And perished at the grey dawn’s hand again;
Then from the wood a voice cried:  “Ah, in vain,
In vain I seek thee, O thou bitter-sweet! 
In what lone land are set thy longed-for feet?”

Then I looked up, and lo, a man there came
From midst the trees, and stood regarding me
Until my tears were dried for very shame;
Then he cried out:  “O mourner, where is she
Whom I have sought o’er every land and sea? 
I love her and she loveth me, and still
We meet no more than green hill meeteth hill.”

With that he passed on sadly, and I knew
That these had met and missed in the dark night,
Blinded by blindness of the world untrue,
That hideth love and maketh wrong of right. 
Then midst my pity for their lost delight,
Yet more with barren longing I grew weak,
Yet more I mourned that I had none to seek.

THE HALL AND THE WOOD

’Twas in the water-dwindling tide
When July days were done,
Sir Rafe of Greenhowes ’gan to ride
In the earliest of the sun.

He left the white-walled burg behind,
He rode amidst the wheat. 
The westland-gotten wind blew kind
Across the acres sweet.

Then rose his heart and cleared his brow,
And slow he rode the way: 
“As then it was, so is it now,
Not all hath worn away.”

So came he to the long green lane
That leadeth to the ford,
And saw the sickle by the wain
Shine bright as any sword.

The brown carles stayed ’twixt draught and draught,
And murmuring, stood aloof,
But one spake out when he had laughed: 
“God bless the Green-wood Roof!”