Complete Works of William Morris, page 347
His life shall bear! His old love cast away,
His new love dead upon that fearful day,
Childless, dishonoured, must his days go by.
For in another chamber did there lie
Two little helpless bodies side by side,
Smiling as though in sweet sleep they had died,
And feared no ill. And she who thus had slain
Those fruits of love, the folk saw not again,
Nor knew where she was gone; yet she died not,
But fleeing, somehow, from that fatal spot,
She came to Athens, and there long did dwell,
Whose after life I list not here to tell.
BUT as for Jason; Creon now being slain,
And Corinth kingless, every man was fain,
Remembering Jason’s wisdom and sharp sword,
To have the hero for their king and lord.
So on his weary brows they set the crown,
And he began to rule that noble town.
And ‘midst all things, somewhat his misery
Was dulled unto him, as the days went by,
And he began again to cast his eyes
On lovely things, and hope began to rise
Once more within his heart. But on a day
From out the goodly town he took his way,
To where, beneath the cliffs of Cenchreæ,
Lay Argo, looking o’er the ridgy sea.
Being fain once more to ponder o’er past days,
Ere he should set his face to winning praise
Among the shouts of men and clash of steel.
But when he reached the well-remembered keel
The sun was far upon his downward way,
At afternoon of a bright summer day.
Hot was it, and still o’er the long rank grass,
Beneath the hull, a widening shade did pass;
And further off, the sunny daisied sward,
The raised oars with their creeping shadows barred;
And grey shade from the hills of Cenchreæ
Began to move on toward the heaving sea.
So Jason, lying in the shadow dark
Cast by the stem, the warble of the lark,
The chirrup of the cricket, well could hear;
And now and then the sound would come anear
Of peasants shouting o’er the laden wain.
But looking o’er the blue and heaving plain,
Sailless it was, and beaten by no oar,
And on the yellow edges of the shore
The ripple fell in murmur soft and low,
As with wide-sweeping wings the gulls did go
About the breakers crying plaintively.
But Jason, looking out across the sea,
Beheld the signs of wind a-drawing nigh,
Gathering about the clear cold eastern sky,
And many an evening then he thought upon
Ere yet the quays of Aea they had won,
And yearnings that had long been gathering
Stirred in his heart, and now he felt the sting
Of life within him, and at last he said:
Why should I move-about as move the dead,
And take no heed of what all men desire?
Once more I feel within my heart the fire
That drave me forth unto the white-wailed town,
Leaving the sunny slopes, and thick-leaved crown
Of grey old Pelion, that alone I knew,
Great deeds and wild, and desperate things to do.
Ah! the strange life of happiness and woe
That I have led, since my young feet did go
From that grey, peaceful, much-beloved abode,
But now, indeed, will I cast off the load
Of memory of vain hopes that came to nought,
Of rapturous joys with biting sorrows bought.
The past is past, though I cannot forget
Those days, with long life laid before me yet.
Ah, but one moment, ere I turn the page,
And leave regret to white hairs and to age.
Once did I win a noble victory,
I won a kingdom, and I cast it by
For rest and peace, and rest and peace are gone.
I had a fair love, that loved me alone,
And made me that I am in all men’s eyes;
And like my hard-earned kingdom, my fair prize,
I cast my tender heart, my Love away;
Yet failed I not to love, until a day,
A day I nigh forget, took all from me
That once I had…And she is gone, yea, she
Whose innocent sweet eyes and tender hands
Made me a mocking unto distant lands:
Alas, poor child! yet is that as a dream,
And still my life a happy life I deem,
But ah! so short, so short! for I am left
Of love, of honour, and of joy bereft,
And yet not dead; ah, if I could but see
But once again her who delivered me
From death and many troubles, then no more
Would I turn backward from the shadowy shore,
And all my life would seem but perfect gain.
Alas! what hope is this? is it in vain
I long to see her? Lo, am I not young?
In many a song my past deeds have been sung,
And these my hands that guided Argo through
The blue Symplegades, still deeds may do,
For now the world has swerved from truth and right,
Cumbered with monsters, empty of delight;
And, ‘midst all this, what honour I may win,
That she may know of and rejoice therein,
And come to seek me, and upon my throne
May find me sitting worshipped and alone?
Ah! if it should be, how should I rejoice
To hear once more that once beloved voice
Rise through the burden of dull words well-known:
How should I clasp again my love, mine own,
And set the crown upon her golden head,
And with the eyes of lovers newly wed,
How should we gaze each upon each again.
O hope not vain! O surely not quite vain!
For, with the next returning light will I
Cast off my moody sorrow utterly,
And once more live my life as in times past,
And ‘mid the chance of war the die will cast.
And surely, whatso great deeds have been done,
Since with my fellows the Gold Fleece I won,
Still here some wild bull clears the frightened fields;
There a great lion cleaves the sevenfold shields;
There dwells some giant robber of the land;
There whirls some woman-slayer’s red right hand.
Yea, what is this they speak of even now,
That Theseus, having brought his conquering prow
From lying Crete unto the fair-walled town,
Now gathers folk, since there are coming down
The shielded women of the Asian plain,
Myriads past counting, in the hope to gain
The mastery of this lovely land of Greece?
So be it, surely shall I snatch fair peace
From out the hand of war, and calm delight
From the tumultuous horror of the fight.
SO saying, gazing still across the main,
Heavy with days and nights of restless pain,
His eyes waxed dim, and calmer still he grew,
Still pondering over times and things he knew,
While now the sun had sunk behind the hill,
And from a white-thorn nigh a thrush did fill
The balmy air with echoing minstrelsy,
And cool the night-wind blew across the sea,
And round about the soft-winged bats did sweep.
SO ‘midst all this at last he fell asleep,
Nor did his eyes behold another day,
For Argo, slowly rotting all away,
Had dropped a timber here, and there an oar,
All through that year, but people of the shore
Set all again in order as if fell.
But now the stempost, that had carried well,
The second rafter in King Pelias’ hall,
Began at last to quiver towards its fall,
And whether it were loosed by God’s own hand,
Or that the rising sea-wind smote the land
And drave full on it, surely I know not…
But, when the day dawned, still on the same spot,
Beneath the ruined stem did Jason lie
Crushed, and all dead of him that here can die.
WHAT more?...Some shepherd of the lone grey slope,
Drawn to the sandy sea-beach by the hope
Of trapping quick-eared rabbits, found him there,
And running back, called from the vineyards fair,
Vine-dressers and their mates who through the town
Ere then had borne their well-filled baskets brown;
These looking on his dead face straight way knew
This was the king that all men kneeled unto,
Who dwelt between the seas; therefore they made
A bier of white-thorn boughs, and thereon laid
The dead man, straightening every drawn up-limb;
And, casting flowers and green leaves over him,
They bore him unto Corinth, where the folk,
When they knew all, into loud wailing broke,
Calling him mighty hero, crown of kings.
But him ere long to where the sea-wind sings
O’er the grey hill-side did they bear again.
And there, where he had hoped that hope in vain,
They laid him in a marble tomb carved fair
With histories of his mighty deeds; and there
Such games as once he loved yet being alive,
They held for ten days, and withal did give
Gifts to the Gods with many a sacrifice,
But chiefest, among all the things of price.
Argo they offered to the Diety
Who shakes the hard earth with the rolling sea.
And now is all that ancient story told
Of him who won the guarded Fleece of Gold.
THE EARTHLY PARADISE
Composed between 1865 and 1870, The Earthly Paradise is an epic poem, in conscious homage to the structures of well-known Mediaeval European narrative poetry. Designed in homage to Chaucer, it consists of twenty-four stories, adopted from an array of different cultures, each told by a different narrator. Set in the late fourteenth century, the framing narrative, revolving around a group of Norsemen who flee the Black Death by sailing away from Europe, on the way discovering an island where the inhabitants continue to venerate the ancient Greek gods, is also reminiscent of a fantastical version of Boccaccio’s Decameron.
By this point, Morris had begun to make a name for himself as a poet, with the success of his retelling of the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece (The Life and Death of Jason, 1867). The Earthly Paradise consolidated this success. Published in four parts by F. S. Ellis, it soon gained a cult following and established Morris’ reputation as a major poet.
The first edition
CONTENTS
AN APOLOGY
PROLOGUE — THE WANDERERS.
MARCH.
APRIL.
MAY.
JUNE.
JULY.
AUGUST.
SEPTEMBER.
OCTOBER.
NOVEMBER.
DECEMBER.
JANUARY.
FEBRUARY.
EPILOGUE.
Title page of an early edition
AN APOLOGY
OF Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing,
I cannot ease the burden of your fears,
Or make quick-coming death a little thing,
Or bring again the pleasure of past years,
Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears,
Or hope again for aught that I can say,
The idle singer of an empty day.
But rather, when aweary of your mirth,
From full hearts still unsatisfied ye sigh,
And, feeling kindly unto all the earth,
Grudge every minute as it passes by,
Made the more mindful that the sweet days die —
Remember me a little then I pray,
The idle singer of an empty day.
The heavy trouble, the bewildering care
That weighs us down who live and earn our bread,
These idle verses have no power to bear;
So let me sing of names remembered,
Because they, living not, can ne’er be dead,
Or long time take their memory quite away
From us poor singers of an empty day.
Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?
Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme
Beats with light wing against the ivory gate,
Telling a tale not too importunate
To those who in the sleepy region stay,
Lulled by the singer of an empty day.
Folk say, a wizard to a northern king
At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show,
That through one window men beheld the spring,
And through another saw the summer glow,
And through a third the fruited vines a-row,
While still, unheard, but in its wonted way,
Piped the drear wind of that December day.
So with this Earthly Paradise it is,
If ye will read aright, and pardon me,
Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss
Midmost the beating of the steely sea,
Where tossed about all hearts of men must be;
Whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay,
Not the poor singer of an empty day.
PROLOGUE — THE WANDERERS.
ARGUMENT.
CERTAIN gentlemen and mariners of Norway, having considered all that they had heard of the Earthly Paradise, set sail to find it, and after many troubles and the lapse of many years came old men to some Western land, of which they had never before heard: there they died, when they had dwelt there certain years, much honoured of the strange people.
FORGET six counties overhung with smoke,
Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke,
Forget the spreading of the hideous town;
Think rather of the pack-horse on the down,
And dream of London, small, and white, and clean,
The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green;
Think, that below bridge the green lapping waves
Smite some few keels that bear Levantine staves,
Cut from the yew wood on the burnt-up hill,
And pointed jars that Greek hands toiled to fill,
And treasured scanty spice from some far sea,
Florence gold cloth, and Ypres napery,
And cloth of Bruges, and hogsheads of Guienne;
While nigh the thronged wharf Geoffrey Chaucer’s pen
Moves over bills of lading — mid such times
Shall dwell the hollow puppets of my rhymes.
A nameless city in a distant sea,
White as the changing walls of faërie,
Thronged with much people clad in ancient guise
I now am fain to set before your eyes;
There, leave the clear green water and the quays,
And pass betwixt its marble palaces,
Until ye come unto the chiefest square;
A bubbling conduit is set midmost there,
And round about it now the maidens throng,
With jest and laughter, and sweet broken song,
Making but light of labour new begun
While in their vessels gleams the morning sun.
On one side of the square a temple stands,
Wherein the gods worshipped in ancient lands
Still have their altars, a great market-place
Upon two other sides fills all the space,
And thence the busy hum of men comes forth;
But on the cold side looking toward the north
A pillared council-house may you behold,
Within whose porch are images of gold,
Gods of the nations who dwelt anciently
About the borders of the Grecian sea.
Pass now between them, push the brazen door,
And standing on the polished marble floor
Leave all the noises of the square behind;
Most calm that reverent chamber shall ye find,
Silent at first, but for the noise you made
When on the brazen door your hand you laid
To shut it after you — but now behold
The city rulers on their thrones of gold,
Clad in most fair attire, and in their hands
Long carven silver-banded ebony wands;
Then from the dais drop your eyes and see
Soldiers and peasants standing reverently
Before those elders, round a little band
Who bear such arms as guard the English land,
But battered, rent, and rusted sore, and they,
The men themselves, are shrivelled, bent, and grey;
And as they lean with pain upon their spears
Their brows seem furrowed deep with more than years;
For sorrow dulls their heavy sunken eyes,
Bent are they less with time than miseries.
Pondering on them the city grey-beards gaze
Through kindly eyes, midst thoughts of other days,
And pity for poor souls, and vague regret
For all the things that might have happened yet,
Until, their wonder gathering to a head,
The wisest man, who long that land has led,
Breaks the deep silence, unto whom again
A wanderer answers. Slowly as in pain,
And with a hollow voice as from a tomb
At first he tells the story of his doom,
But as it grows and once more hopes and fears,
Both measureless, are ringing round his ears,
His eyes grow bright, his seeming days decrease,
For grief once told brings somewhat back of peace.
THE ELDER OF THE CITY.
From what unheard-of world, in what strange keel,
