The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Hollow Land, by William Morris

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Title: The Hollow Land

Author: William Morris

Release Date: May 31, 2005 [eBook #15948]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOLLOW LAND***

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The Hollow Land

William Morris

"We find in ancient story wonders many told,
Of heroes in great glory, with spirit free and bold;
Of joyances and high-tides, of weeping and of woe,
Of noble reckon striving, mote ye now wonders know."
- Niebelungen Lied (see Carlylefs Miscellanies)

STRUGGLING IN THE WORLD.

Do you know where it is -- the Hollow Land?

I have been looking for it now so long, trying to find it again the
Hollow Land for there I saw my love first.

I wish to tell you how I found it first of all; but I am old, my
memory fails me: you must wait and let me think if I perchance can
tell you how it happened. Yea, in my ears is a confused noise of
trumpet-blasts singing over desolate moors, in my ears and eyes a
clashing and clanging of horse-hoofs, a ringing and glittering of
steel; drawn-back lips, set teeth, shouts, shrieks, and curses.

How was it that no one of us ever found it till that day? for it is
near our country: but what time have we to look for it, or any good
thing; with such biting carking cares hemming us in on every
side-cares about great things-mighty things: mighty things, 0 my
brothers! or rather little things enough, if we only knew it. Lives
passed in turmoil, in making one another unhappy; in bitterest
misunderstanding of our brothers' hearts, making those sad whom God
has not made sad, alas, alas! What chance for any of us to find the
Hollow Land? What time even to look for it?

Yet who has not dreamed of it? Who, half miserable yet the while, for
that he knows it is but a dream, has not felt the cool waves round his
feet, the roses crowning him, and through the leaves of beech and lime
the many whispering winds of the Hollow Land?

Now, my name was Florian, and my house was the house of the Lilies;
and