<h2><SPAN name="page105"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>THE PILGRIMS</h2>
<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Who</span> is your lady of
love, O ye that pass<br/>
Singing? and is it for sorrow of that which was<br/>
That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be?<br/>
For gladly at once and sadly it
seems ye sing.<br/>
—Our lady of love by you is unbeholden;<br/>
For hands she hath none, nor eyes, nor lips, nor golden<br/>
Treasure of hair, nor face nor form; but we<br/>
That love, we know her more fair
than anything.</p>
<p class="poetry">—Is she a queen, having great gifts to
give?<br/>
—Yea, these; that whoso hath seen her shall not live<br/>
Except he serve her sorrowing, with strange pain,<br/>
Travail and bloodshedding and
bitterer tears;<br/>
And when she bids die he shall surely die.<br/>
And he shall leave all things under the sky<br/>
And go forth naked under sun and rain<br/>
And work and wait and watch out
all his years.</p>
<p class="poetry">—Hath she on earth no place of
habitation?<br/>
—Age to age calling, nation answering nation,<br/>
Cries out, Where is she? and there is none to
say;<br/>
For if she be not in the spirit of
men,<br/>
<SPAN name="page106"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>For if
in the inward soul she hath no place,<br/>
In vain they cry unto her, seeking her face,<br/>
In vain their mouths make much of her; for they<br/>
Cry with vain tongues, till the
heart lives again.</p>
<p class="poetry">—O ye that follow, and have ye no
repentance?<br/>
For on your brows is written a mortal sentence,<br/>
An hieroglyph of sorrow, a fiery sign,<br/>
That in your lives ye shall not
pause or rest,<br/>
Nor have the sure sweet common love, nor keep<br/>
Friends and safe days, nor joy of life nor sleep.<br/>
—These have we not, who have one thing, the
divine<br/>
Face and clear eyes of faith and
fruitful breast.</p>
<p class="poetry">—And ye shall die before your thrones be
won.<br/>
—Yea, and the changed world and the liberal sun<br/>
Shall move and shine without us, and we lie<br/>
Dead; but if she too move on earth
and live,<br/>
But if the old world with all the old irons rent<br/>
Laugh and give thanks, shall we be not content?<br/>
Nay, we shall rather live, we shall not die,<br/>
Life being so little and death so
good to give.</p>
<p class="poetry">—And these men shall forget
you.—Yea, but we<br/>
Shall be a part of the earth and the ancient sea,<br/>
And heaven-high air august, and awful fire,<br/>
And all things good; and no
man’s heart shall beat<br/>
But somewhat in it of our blood once shed<br/>
Shall quiver and quicken, as now in us the dead<br/>
Blood of men slain and the old same life’s
desire<br/>
Plants in their fiery footprints
our fresh feet.</p>
<p class="poetry"><SPAN name="page107"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
107</span>—But ye that might be clothed with all things
pleasant,<br/>
Ye are foolish that put off the fair soft present,<br/>
That clothe yourselves with the cold future air;<br/>
When mother and father and tender
sister and brother<br/>
And the old live love that was shall be as ye,<br/>
Dust, and no fruit of loving life shall be.<br/>
—She shall be yet who is more than all these
were,<br/>
Than sister or wife or father unto
us or mother.</p>
<p class="poetry">—Is this worth life, is this, to win for
wages?<br/>
Lo, the dead mouths of the awful grey-grown ages,<br/>
The venerable, in the past that is their prison,<br/>
In the outer darkness, in the
unopening grave,<br/>
Laugh, knowing how many as ye now say have said,<br/>
How many, and all are fallen, are fallen and dead:<br/>
Shall ye dead rise, and these dead have not
risen?<br/>
—Not we but she, who is
tender and swift to save</p>
<p class="poetry">—Are ye not weary and faint not by the
way,<br/>
Seeing night by night devoured of day by day,<br/>
Seeing hour by hour consumed in sleepless fire?<br/>
Sleepless: and ye too, when shall
ye too sleep?<br/>
—We are weary in heart and head, in hands and feet,<br/>
And surely more than all things sleep were sweet,<br/>
Than all things save the inexorable desire<br/>
Which whoso knoweth shall neither
faint nor weep.</p>
<p class="poetry">—Is this so sweet that one were fain to
follow?<br/>
Is this so sure where all men’s hopes are hollow,<br/>
<SPAN name="page108"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
108</span>Even this your dream, that by much tribulation<br/>
Ye shall make whole flawed hearts,
and bowed necks straight?<br/>
—Nay, though our life were blind, our death were
fruitless,<br/>
Not therefore were the whole world’s high hope rootless;<br/>
But man to man, nation would turn to nation,<br/>
And the old life live, and the old
great word be great.</p>
<p class="poetry">—Pass on then and pass by us and let us
be,<br/>
For what light think ye after life to see?<br/>
And if the world fare better will ye know?<br/>
And if man triumph who shall seek
you and say?<br/>
—Enough of light is this for one life’s span,<br/>
That all men born are mortal, but not man:<br/>
And we men bring death lives by night to sow,<br/>
That man may reap and eat and live
by day.</p>
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