Read my little fable: He that runs may read. Most can raise the flowers now, For all have got the seed.

So much to do, so little done, such things to be.

When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him.

My people too were scared with eerie sounds, A footstep, a low throbbing in the walls. A noise of falling weights that never fell, Weird whispers, bells that rang without a hand, Door-handles turn'd when none was at the door, And bolted doors that open'd of themselves; And one betwixt the dark and light had seen Her, bending by the cradle of her babe.

Authority forgets a dying king, Laid widow'd of the power in his eye That bow'd the will.

Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land; Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow.

Ring out, will bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light.

O Blackbird! sing me something well: While all the neighbors shoot thee round, I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, Where thou may'st warble, eat and dwell.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.

And so the Word had breath, and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds In loveliness of perfect deeds, More strong than all poetic thoughts; Which he may read that binds the sheaf, Or builds the house, or digs the grave, And those wild eyes that watch the waves In roarings round the coral reef.

The time draws near the birth of Christ: The moon is hid; the night is still; The Christmas bells from hill to hill Answer each other in the mist.

So runs the round of life from hour to hour.

And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance.

Ours not to reason why Ours but to do and die.

And ye talk together still, In the language wherewith Spring Letters cowslips on the hill.

And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers.

As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home.

Then the face of night is fair in the dewy downs And the shining daffodil dies.