William Morris Poems

I KNOW a little garden-close
Set thick with lily and red rose,
Where I would wander if I might
From dewy dawn to dewy night,
...

It was Goldilocks woke up in the morn
At the first of the shearing of the corn.

There stood his mother on the hearth
...

Draw not away thy hands, my love,
With wind alone the branches move,
And though the leaves be scant above
The Autumn shall not shame us.
...

Hast thou longed through weary days
For the sight of one loved face?
Mast thou cried aloud for rest,
Mid the pain of sundering hours;
...

Hellelil sitteth in bower there,
None knows my grief but God alone,
And seweth at the seam so fair,
...

Shall we wake one morn of spring,
Glad at heart of everything,
Yet pensive with the thought of eve?
Then the white house shall we leave,
...

O treacherous scent, O thorny sight,
O tangle of world’s wrong and right,
What art thou ’gainst my armour’s gleam
...

The Briarwood.

The fateful slumber floats and flows
About the tangle of the rose;
...

It is the longest night in all the year,
Near on the day when the Lord Christ was born;
Six hours ago I came and sat down here,
And ponder'd sadly, wearied and forlorn.
...

Had she come all the way for this,
To part at last without a kiss?
Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain
That her own eyes might see him slain
...