Уильям Моррис - The Pilgrims of Hope

And the white roads threading the acres, and the sun-warmed meadows athirst.

Once all was the work of sorrow and the life without reward,

And the toil that fear hath bidden, and the folly of master and lord;

But now are all things changing, and hope without a fear

Shall speed us on through the story of the changes of the year.

Now spring shall pluck the garland that summer weaves for all,

And autumn spread the banquet and winter fill the hall.

O earth, thou kind bestower, thou ancient fruitful place,

How lovely and beloved now gleams thy happy face!

And O mother, mother, I said, hadst thou known as I lay in thy lap,

And for me thou hopedst and fearedst, on what days my life should hap,

Hadst thou known of the death that I look for, and the deeds wherein I

should deal,

How calm had been thy gladness! How sweet hadst thou smiled on my weal!

As some woman of old hadst thou wondered, who hath brought forth a god of the earth,

And in joy that knoweth no speech she dreams of the happy birth.

Yea, fair were those hours indeed, whatever hereafter might come,

And they swept over all my sorrow, and all thought of my wildered home.

But not for dreams of rejoicing had we come across the sea:

That day we delivered the letters that our friends had given to me,

And we craved for some work for the cause. And what work was there indeed,

But to learn the business of battle and the manner of dying at need?

We three could think of none other, and we wrought our best therein;

And both of us made a shift the sergeant's stripes to win,

For diligent were we indeed: and he, as in all he did,

Showed a cheerful ready talent that nowise might be hid,

And yet hurt the pride of no man that he needs must step before.

But as for my wife, the brancard of the ambulance-women she wore,

And gently and bravely would serve us; and to all as a sister to be -

A sister amidst of the strangers-and, alas! a sister to me.

So we dwelt in the war-girdled city as a very part of its life.

Looking back at it all from England, I an atom of the strife,

I can see that I might have seen what the end would be from the first,

The hope of man devoured in the day when the Gods are athirst.

But those days we lived, as I tell you, a life that was not our own;

And we saw but the hope of the world, and the seed that the ages had sown,

Spring up now a fair-blossomed tree from the earth lying over the dead;

Earth quickened, earth kindled to spring-tide with the blood that her lovers have shed,

With the happy days cast off for the sake of her happy day,

With the love of women foregone, and the bright youth worn away,

With the gentleness stripped from the lives thrust into the jostle of war,

With the hope of the hardy heart forever dwindling afar.

O Earth, Earth, look on thy lovers, who knew all thy gifts and thy gain,

But cast them aside for thy sake, and caught up barren pain!

Indeed of some art thou mindful, and ne'er shalt forget their tale,

Till shrunk are the floods of thine ocean and thy sun is waxen pale.

But rather I bid thee remember e'en these of the latter days,

Who were fed by no fair promise and made drunken by no praise.

For them no opening heaven reached out the martyr's crown;

No folk delivered wept them, and no harvest of renown

They reaped with the scythe of battle; nor round their dying bed

Did kindly friendly farewell the dew of blessing shed;

In the sordid streets of the city mid a folk that knew them not,

In the living death of the prison didst thou deal them out their lot,

Yet foundest them deeds to be doing; and no feeble folk were they

To scowl on their own undoing and wail their lives away;

But oft were they blithe and merry and deft from the strife to wring

Some joy that others gained not midst their peaceful wayfaring.

So fared they, giftless ever, and no help of fortune sought.

Their life was thy deliverance, O Earth, and for thee they fought;

Mid the jeers of the happy and deedless, mid failing friends they went

To their foredoomed fruitful ending on the love of thee intent.

Yea and we were a part of it all, the beginning of the end,

That first fight of the uttermost battle whither all the nations wend;

And yet could I tell you its story, you might think it little and mean.

For few of you now will be thinking of the day that might have been,

And fewer still meseemeth of the day that yet shall be,

That shall light up that first beginning and its tangled misery.

For indeed a very machine is the war that now men wage;

Nor have we hold of its handle, we gulled of our heritage,

We workmen slaves of machines. Well, it ground us small enough

This machine of the beaten Bourgeois; though oft the work was rough

That it turned out for its money. Like other young soldiers at first

I scarcely knew the wherefore why our side had had the worst;

For man to man and in knots we faced the matter well;

And I thought, well to-morrow or next day a new tale will be to tell.

I was fierce and not afraid; yet O were the wood-sides fair,

And the crofts and the sunny gardens, though death they harboured there!

And few but fools are fain of leaving the world outright,

And the story over and done, and an end of the life and the light.

No hatred of life, thou knowest, O Earth, mid the bullets I bore,

Though pain and grief oppressed me that I never may suffer more.

But in those days past over did life and death seem one;

Yea the life had we attained to which could never be undone.

You would have me tell of the fighting? Well, you know it was new to me,

Yet it soon seemed as if it had been for ever, and ever would be.

The morn when we made that sally, some thought (and yet not I)

That a few days and all would be over: just a few had got to die,

And the rest would be happy thenceforward. But my stubborn country blood

Was bidding me hold my halloo till we were out of the wood.

And that was the reason perhaps why little disheartened I was,

As we stood all huddled together that night in a helpless mass,

As beaten men are wont: and I knew enough of war

To know midst its unskilled labour what slips full often are.

There was Arthur unhurt beside me, and my wife come back again,

And surely that eve between us there was love though no lack of pain

As we talked all the matter over, and our hearts spake more than our lips;

And we said, "We shall learn, we shall learn-yea, e'en from disasters and slips."

Well, many a thing we learned, but we learned not how to prevail

O'er the brutal war-machine, the ruthless grinder of bale;

By the bourgeois world it was made, for the bourgeois world; and we,

We were e'en as the village weaver 'gainst the power-loom, maybe.

It drew on nearer and nearer, and we 'gan to look to the end -

We three, at least-and our lives began with death to blend;

Though we were long a-dying-though I dwell on yet as a ghost

In the land where we once were happy, to look on the loved and the lost.

How can I tell you the story of the Hope and its defence?

We wrought in a narrow circle; it was hither and thither and thence;

To the walls, and back for a little; to the fort and there to abide,

Grey-beards and boys and women; they lived there-and they died;

Nor counted much in the story. I have heard it told since then,

And mere lies our deeds have turned to in the mouths of happy men,