terrestrial
stress;
Chill detraction stirs no sigh;
Fear of death has even bygone us: death gave all that we
possess.’
W. D.—‘Ye mid burn the old bass-viol that set I such value
by.’
Squire.—‘You may hold the manse in
fee,
You may wed my spouse, may let my children’s memory
of me die.’
Lady.—‘You may have my rich brocades, my laces; take each
household key;
Ransack coffer, desk, bureau;
Quiz
the few poor treasures hid there, con the letters kept by me.’
Far.—‘Ye mid zell my favourite heifer, ye mid let the
charlock grow,
Foul the grinterns, give up thrift.’
Wife.—‘If
ye break my best blue china, children, I shan’t
care or ho.’
All.—‘We’ve no wish to hear the tidings, how the people’s
fortunes shift;
What your daily doings are;
Who
are wedded, born, divided; if your lives beat slow or swift.
‘Curious not the least are we if our intents you make or
mar,
If you quire to our old tune,
If the City stage
still passes, if the weirs still roar afar.’
—Thus, with very gods’ composure, freed those crosses
late and soon
Which, in life, the Trine allow
(Why,
none witteth), and ignoring all that haps beneath the moon,
William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at
plough,
Robert’s kin, and John’s, and Ned’s,
And
the Squire, and Lady Susan, murmur mildly to me
now.
822 In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’1
ONLY a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.
Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.
Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by:
War’s annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.