press the olives that are mine,
Reap all the corners of my harvest-field,
And make their fat hearts wanton with my wine;
To them my trees, to them my gardens yield
Their sweets and spices and their tender green,
O'er them in noontide heat outspread their shield.
Yet these are they whose fathers had not been
Housed with my dogs; whom hip and thigh we smote
And with their blood washed their pollutions clean,
Purging the land which spewed them from its throat;
Their daughters took we for a pleasant prey,
Choice tender ones on whom the fathers dote:
Now they in turn have led our own away;
Our daughters and our sisters and our wives
Sore weeping as they weep who curse the day,
To live, remote from help, dishonoured lives,
Soothing their drunken masters with a song,
Or dancing in their golden tinkling gyves--
Accurst if they remember through the long
Estrangement of their exile, twice accursed
If they forget and join the accursed throng.
How doth my heart that is so wrung not burst
When I remember that my way was plain,
And that God's candle lit me at the first,
Whilst now I grope in darkness, grope in vain,
Desiring but to find Him Who is lost,
To find him once again, but once again!
His wrath came on us to the uttermost,
His covenanted and most righteous wrath.
Yet this is He of Whom we made our boast,
Who lit the Fiery Pillar in our path,
Who swept the Red Sea dry before our feet,
Who in His jealousy smote kings, and hath
Sworn once to David: One shall fill thy seat
Born of thy body, as the sun and moon
'Stablished for aye in sovereignty complete.
O Lord, remember David, and that soon.
The Glory hath departed, Ichabod!
Yet now, before our sun grow dark at noon,
Before we come to nought beneath Thy rod,
Before we go down quick into the pit,
Remember us for good, O God, our God:--
Thy Name will I remember, praising it,
Though Thou forget me, though Thou hide Thy face,
And blot me from the Book which Thou hast writ;
Thy Name will I remember in my praise
And call to mind Thy faithfulness of old,
Though as a weaver Thou cut off my days
And end me as a tale ends that is told.

PARADISE.

Once in a dream I saw the flowers
That bud and bloom i