Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke
William Morris (18341896)Extracts from Poems by the Way: The Day Is Coming
C
for a tale there is to tell,
Of the wonderful days a-coming,
when all shall be better than well.
a land in the midst of the sea,
And folk shall call it England
in the days that are going to be.
in the days that are yet to come,
Shall have some hope of the morrow
some joy of the ancient home.
to this strange tale of mine,
All folk that are in England
shall be better lodged than swine.
and rejoice in the deeds of his hand,
Nor yet come home in the even
too faint and weary to stand.
shall work and have no fear
For to-morrow’s lack of earning
and the hunger-wolf anear.
that no man then shall be glad
Of his fellow’s fall and mishap
to snatch at the work he had.
shall then be his indeed,
Nor shall half be reaped for nothing
by him that sowed no seed.
But for whom shall we gather the gain?
For ourselves and for each of our fellows,
and no hand shall labour in vain.
and no more shall any man crave
For riches that serve for nothing
but to fetter a friend for a slave.
when none shall gather gold
To buy his friend in the market,
and pinch and pine the sold?
and the little house on the hill,
And the wastes and the woodland beauty,
and the happy fields we till;
the tombs of the mighty dead;
And the wise men seeking out marvels,
and the poet’s teeming head;
and the marvellous fiddle-bow,
And the banded choirs of music:
all those that do and know.
nor shall any lack a share
Of the toil and the gain of living
in the days when the world grows fair.