Where still they call and answer, still they play, And summer is ever there; But I--I never dare Pass through those fields, retrace the well-known way,
Lest I might meet a lad whom once I knew, Whose eyes accusingly Should make demand of me: "Where are those dreams I left in charge with you?"
There comes a ghostly space 'Twixt midnight and the dawn, When from the heart of London Town The tides of life are drawn.
What time, when Spring is due, The captives dungeoned deep Beneath the stones of London Town Grow troubled in their sleep,
And wake--mint, mallow, dock, Brambles in bondage sore, And grasses shut in London Town A thousand years and more.
Yet though beneath the stones They starve, and overhead The countless feet pace London Town Of men who hold them dead,
Like Samson, blind and scorned, In pain their time they bide To seize the roots of London Town And tumble down its pride.
Now well by proof and sign, By men unheard, unseen, They know that far from London Town The woods once more are green.
But theirs is still to wait, Deaf to the myriad hum, Beneath the stones of London Town A Spring that needs must come.
Fellow-travellers here with me, Loose for good each other's loads! Here we come to the cross-roads: Here must parting be.
Where will you five be to-night? Where shall I? we little know: Loosed from you, I let you go Utterly from sight.
Far away go taste and touch, Far go sight, and sound, and smell. Fellow-Travellers, fare you well,-- You I loved so much.
How green the earth, how blue the sky, How pleasant all the days that pass, Here where the British settlers lie Beneath their cloaks of grass!
Here ancient peace resumes her round, And rich from toil stand hill and plain; Men reap and store; but they sleep sound, The men who sowed the grain.
Hard to the plough their hands they put, And wheresoe'er the soil had need The furrow drave, and underfoot They sowed themselves for seed.
Ah! not like him whose hand made yield The brazen kine with fiery breath, And over all the Colchian field Strewed far the seeds of death;
Till, as day sank, awoke to war The seedlings of the dragon's teeth, And death ran multiplied once more Across the hideous heath.
But rich in flocks be all these farms, And fruitful be the fields which hide Brave eyes that loved the light, and arms That never clasped a bride!