{"collection":"Northern European Mythology","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/morris/ep3/ep305.htm","path":"neu/morris/ep3/ep305.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/neu/morris/ep3/ep305.htm","text":"The Earthly Paradise, (December-February), by William Morris, [1870]\nFROM this dull rainy undersky and low,\n This murky ending of a leaden day,\n That never knew the sun, this half-thawed snow,\n These tossing black boughs faint against the grey\n Of gathering night, thou turnest, dear, away\n Silent, but with thy scarce-seen kindly smile\n Sent through the dusk my longing to beguile.\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There, the lights gleam, and all is dark without!\n And in the sudden change our eyes meet dazed\u2014\n O look, love, look again! the veil of doubt\n Just for one flash, past counting, then was raised!\n O eyes of heaven, as clear thy sweet soul blazed\n On mine a moment! O come back again\n Strange rest and dear amid the long dull pain!\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Nay, nay, gone by! though there she sitteth still,\n With wide grey eyes so frank and fathomless\u2014\n Be patient, heart, thy days they yet shall fill\n With utter rest\u2014Yea, now thy pain they bless,\n And feed thy last hope of the world's redress\u2014\n O unseen hurrying rack! O wailing wind!\n What rest and where go ye this night to find? p. 88\nTHE year has changed its name since that last tale;\n Yet nought the prisoned spring doth that avail.\n Deep buried under snow the country lies;\n Made dim by whirling flakes the rook still flies\n South-west before the wind; noon is as still\n As midnight on the southward-looking hill,\n Whose slopes have heard so many words and loud\n Since on the vine the woolly buds first showed.\n The raven hanging o\u2019er the farmstead gate,\n While for another death his eye doth wait,\n Hears but the muffled sound of crowded byre\n And winds\u2019 moan round the wall. Up in the spire\n The watcher set high o\u2019er the half-hid town\n Hearkens the sound of chiming bells fall down\n Below him; and so dull and dead they seem\n That he might well-nigh be amidst a dream\n Wherein folk hear and hear not.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Such a tide,\n With all work gone from the hushed world outside,\n Still finds our old folk living, and they sit\n Watching the snow-flakes by the window flit\n Midmost the time \u2019twixt noon and dusk; till now\n One of the elders clears his knitted brow,\n And says:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\"Well, hearken of a man who first\n In every place seemed doomed to be accursed; p. 89\n To tell about his ill hap lies on me;\n Before the winter is quite o\u2019er, maybe\n Some other mouth of his good hap may tell;\n But no third tale there is, of what befell\n His fated life, when he had won his place;\n And that perchance is not so ill a case\n For him and us; for we may rise up, glad\n At all the rest and triumph that he had\n Before he died; while he, forgetting clean\n The sorrow and the joy his eyes had seen,\n Lies quiet and well famed\u2014and serves to-day\n To wear a space of winter-tide away.\"","title":"The Earthly Paradise (December-February): January: Introduction","type":"page"}