‘The stars are threshed, and the souls are threshed from their busks.’—William Blake
| The woods of Arcady are dead, |
| And over is their antique joy; |
| Of old the world on dreaming fed; |
| Grey Truth is now her painted toy; |
| Yet still she turns her restless head: |
| But O, sick children of the world, |
| Of all the many changing things |
| In dreary dancing past us whirled, |
| To the cracked tune that Chronos sings, |
| Words alone are certain good. |
| Where are now the warring kings, |
| Word be-mockers?—By the Rood |
| Where are now the warring kings? |
| An idle word is now their glory, |
| By the stammering schoolboy said, |
| Reading some entangled story: |
| The kings of the old time are dead; |
| The wandering earth herself may be |
| Only a sudden flaming word, |
| In clanging space a moment heard, |
| Troubling the endless reverie. |
| Then nowise worship dusty deeds, |
| Nor seek, for this is also sooth, |
| To hunger fiercely after truth, |
| Lest all thy toiling only breeds |
| New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth |
| Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then, |
| No learning from the starry men, |
| Who follow with the optic glass |
| The whirling ways of stars that pass— |
| Seek, then, for this is also sooth, |
| No word of theirs—the cold star-bane |
| Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain, |
| And dead is all their human truth. |
| Go gather by the humming sea |
| Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell, |
| And to its lips thy story tell, |
| And they thy comforters will be, |
| Rewarding in melodious guile |
| Thy fretful words a little while, |
| Till they shall singing fade in ruth |
| And die a pearly brotherhood; |
| For words alone are certain good: |
| Sing, then, for this is also sooth. |
| I must be gone: there is a grave |
| Where daffodil and lily wave, |
| And I would please the hapless faun, |
| Buried under the sleepy ground, |
| With mirthful songs before the dawn. |
| His shouting days with mirth were crowned; |
| And still I dream he treads the lawn, |
| Walking ghostly in the dew, |
| Pierced by my glad singing through, |
| My songs of old earth’s dreamy youth: |
| But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou! |
| For fair are poppies on the brow: |
| Dream, dream, for this is also sooth. |