POSTHUMOUS POEMS
Stand midway with those iron seas in face
Far up the straitened shallows of the firth.
Far up the straitened shallows of the firth.
VIII
So winter-bound in such disastrous place,
Doubtless the time seemed heavier and more hard
Than elsewhere in all scape and range of space,
Doubtless the backward thought and broad regard
Was bitter to their souls, remembering
How in soft England the warm lands were starred
With gracious flowers in the green front of spring,
And all the branches' tender over-growth,
Where the quick birds took sudden heart to sing;
And how the meadows in their sweet May sloth
Grew thick with grass as soft as song or sleep;
So, looking back, their hearts grew sere and loath
And their chafed pulses felt the blood to creep
More vexed and painfully; yea and this too
Possessed perchance their eyes with thirst to weep
More than green fields or the May weather's blue—
So winter-bound in such disastrous place,
Doubtless the time seemed heavier and more hard
Than elsewhere in all scape and range of space,
Doubtless the backward thought and broad regard
Was bitter to their souls, remembering
How in soft England the warm lands were starred
With gracious flowers in the green front of spring,
And all the branches' tender over-growth,
Where the quick birds took sudden heart to sing;
And how the meadows in their sweet May sloth
Grew thick with grass as soft as song or sleep;
So, looking back, their hearts grew sere and loath
And their chafed pulses felt the blood to creep
More vexed and painfully; yea and this too
Possessed perchance their eyes with thirst to weep
More than green fields or the May weather's blue—
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