J. D. C. Fellow
Reading edition
After London
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 Here beside the tumbling Fleet, Apples drop when they are ripe, And when they drop are they most sweet.
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On a Friend who Died Suddenly upon the Seashore
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.
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Tenebræ
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.
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When All is Said
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?
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