SUSSEX 113 



Then we turned from the blossoms, and cold were they grown : 



In the trees the wind westering moved ; 



Till over the threshold back fluttered her gown, 



And in the dark house was I loved. 



There is a humanity of this world and moment in 

 Morris's feeling for Nature with which no other poet's 

 except Whitman's can be compared. Except in the great- 

 est — the unaccomplished things — in " Leaves of Grass " 

 there is no earth-feeling in the literature of our language 

 so majestic and yet so tender as in " The Message of the 

 March Wind." With him poetry was not, as it has tended 

 more and more to be in recent times, a matter as exclusive 

 as a caste. Pie was not half-angel or half-bird, but a 

 man on close terms with life and toil, with the actual, 

 troublous life of every day, with toil of the hands and 

 brain together; in short, a many-sided citizen. He was 

 one whom Skarphedin the son of Njal of Bergthorsknoli 

 would not have disdained, and when he spoke he seemed 

 indignant at the feebleness of words, one that should have 

 used a sword and might have lamented with the still later 

 poet — 



The Spirit stands and looks on infamy, 

 And unashamed the faces of the pit 



Snarl at their enemy ; 

 Finding him wield no insupportable light, 

 And no whirled edge of blaze to hit 

 Backward their impudence, and hammer them to flight ; 



Although ready is he. 

 Wearing the same righteous steel 

 Upon his limbs, helmed as he was then 



When he made olden war ; 

 Yet cannot now with foulness fiercely deal. 

 There is no indignation among men. 



The Spirit has no scimitar 



