J. D. C. Fellow

London Bridge is broken down;
    Green is the grass on Ludgate Hill;
I know a farmer in Camden Town
    Killed a brock by Pentonville.

I have heard my grandam tell
    How some thousand years ago
Houses stretched from Camberwell
    Right to Highbury and Bow.

Down by Shadwell's golden meads
    Tall ships' masts would stand as thick
As the pretty tufted reeds
    That the Wapping children pick.

All the kings from end to end
    Of all the world paid tribute then,
And meekly on their knees would bend
    To the King of the Englishmen.

Thinks I while I dig my plot,
    What if your grandam's tales be true?
Thinks I, be they true or not,
    What's the odds to a fool like you?

Thinks I, while I smoke my pipe

Quiet he lived, and quietly died;
Nor, like the unwilling tide,
Did once complain or strive
To stay one brief hour more alive.
But as a summer wave
Serenely for a while
Will lift a crest to the sun,
Then sink again, so he
Back to the bright heavens gave
An answering smile;
Then quietly, having run
His course, bowed down his head,
And sank unmurmuringly,
Sank back into the sea,
The silent, the unfathomable sea
Of all the happy dead.

They say that I shall find him if I go
Along the dusty highways, or the green
Tracks of the downland shepherds, or between
The swaying corn, or where cool waters flow;
And others say, that speak as if they know,
That daily in the cities, in the mean
Dark streets, amid the crowd he may be seen,
With thieves and harlots wandering to and fro.

But I am blind. How shall a blind man dare
Venture along the roaring crowded street,
Or branching roads where I may never hit
The way he has gone? But someday if I sit
Quietly at this corner listening, there
May come this way the slow sound of his feet.

Between the erect and solemn trees
I will go down upon my knees;
    I shall not find this day
    So meet a place to pray.

Haply the beauty of this place
May work in me an answering grace,
    The stillness of the air
    Be echoed in my prayer.

The worshipping trees arise and run,
With never a swerve, towards the sun;
    So may my soul's desire
    Turn to its central fire.

With single aim they seek the light,
And scarce a twig in all their height
    Breaks out until the head
    In glory is outspread.

How strong each pillared trunk; the bark
That covers them, how smooth; and hark,
    The sweet and gentle voice
    With which the leaves rejoice!

May a like strength and sweetness fill
Desire, and thoug...

When all is said
And all is done
Beneath the Sun,
And Man lies dead;

When all the earth
Is a cold grave,
And no more brave
Bright things have birth;

When cooling sun
And stone-cold world,
Together hurled,
Flame up as one,

O Sons of Men,
When all is flame,
What of your fame
And splendour then?

When all is fire
And flaming air,
What of your rare
And high desire

To turn the clod
To a thing divine,
The earth a shrine,
And Man the God?