Don’t you wait where trees are,
When the lightnings play,
Nor don’t you hate where Bees are,
Or else they’ll pine away.
Pine away—dwine
away—
Anything to leave
you!
But if you never grieve your
Bees,
Your Bees’ll
never grieve you.
THE RETURN OF THE CHILDREN
Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs’
dove-winged races—
Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath
the Dome,
Plucking the splendid robes of the passers-by, and
with pitiful faces
Begging what Princes and Powers refused:—’Ah,
please will you let us go home?’
Over the jewelled floor, nigh weeping, ran to them
Mary the Mother,
Kneeled and caressed and made promise with kisses,
and drew them along to the gateway—
Yea, the all-iron unbribeable Door which Peter must
guard and none other.
Straightway She took the Keys from his keeping, and
opened and freed them straightway.
Then, to Her Son, Who had seen and smiled, She said:
’On the night that I bore Thee,
What didst Thou care for a love beyond mine or a heaven
that was not my arm?
Didst Thou push from the nipple, O Child, to hear
the angels adore Thee?
When we two lay in the breath of the kine?’
And He said:—’Thou hast done no harm.’
So through the Void the Children ran homeward merrily
hand in hand,
Looking neither to left nor right where the breathless
Heavens stood still.
And the Guards of the Void resheathed their swords,
for they heard the Command:
‘Shall I that have suffered the children to
come to Me hold them against their will?’
MERROW DOWN
I
There runs a road by Merrow Down—
A grassy track to-day it is—
An hour out of Guildford town,
Above the river Wey it is.
Here, when they heard the horse-bells ring,
The ancient Britons dressed and rode
To watch the dark Phoenicians bring
Their goods along the Western Road.
Yes, here, or hereabouts, they met
To hold their racial talks and such—
To barter beads for Whitby jet,
And tin for gay shell torques and such.
But long and long before that time
(When bison used to roam on it)
Did Taffy and her Daddy climb
That Down, and had their home on it.
Then beavers built in Broadstonebrook
And made a swamp where Bramley stands;
And bears from Shere would come and look
For Taffimai where Shamley stands.
The Wey, that Taffy called Wagai,
Was more than six times bigger then;
And all the Tribe of Tegumai
They cut a noble figure then!
II
Of all the Tribe of Tegumai
Who cut that figure, none remain,—
On Merrow Down the cuckoos cry—
The silence and the sun remain.