What service have ye paid them,

Oh jealous steeds and strong?
Save we that throw their weaklings,
Is none dare work them wrong;
While thick around the homestead
Our snow-backed leaders graze-
A guard behind their plunder,
And a veil before their ways.

With march and countermarchings-
With weight of wheeling hosts-
Stray mob or bands embattled-
We ring the chosen coasts:
And, careless of our clamour
That bids the stranger fly,
At peace within our pickets
The wild white riders lie.

Trust ye the curdled hollows-
Trust ye the neighing wind-
Trust ye the moaning groundswell-
Our herds are close behind!

To bray your foeman's armiesTo chill and snap his swordTrust ye the wild White Horses, The Horses of the Lord!

THE SECOND VOYAGE

WE'VE sent our little Cupids all ashore

They were frightened, they were tired, they

were cold;

Our sails of silk and purple go to store,

And we've cut away our mast of beaten gold

(Foul weather!)

Oh 'tis hemp and singing pine for to stand

against the brine,

But Love he is the master as of old!

The sea has shorn our galleries away,

The salt has soiled our gilding past remede; Our paint is flaked and blistered by the spray, Our sides are half a fathom furred in weed

(Foul weather!)

And the doves of Venus fled and the petrels came

instead,

But Love he was our master at our need!

'Was Youth would keep no vigil at the bow, 'Was Pleasure at the helm too drunk to steerWe've shipped three able quartermasters now, Men call them Custom, Reverence, and Fear (Foul weather!)

They are old and scarred and plain, but we'll run no risk again

From any Port o' Paphos mutineer!

We seek no more the tempest for delight,

We skirt no more the indraught and the

shoal

We ask no more of any day or night

Than to come with least adventure to our goal

(Foul weather!)

What we find we needs must brook, but we do

not go to look,

Nor tempt the Lord our God that saved us whole !

Yet, caring so, not overly we care

To brace and trim for every foolish blast, If the squall be pleased to sweep us unaware, He may bellow off to leeward like the last

(Foul weather!)

We will blame it on the deep (for the watch must have their sleep),

And Love can come and wake us when 'tis past.

Oh launch them down with music from the beach,

Oh warp them out with garlands from the

quays

Most resolute-a damsel unto each

New prows that seek the old Hesperides!

(Foul weather!)

Though we know the voyage is vain, yet we see

our path again

In the saffroned bridesails scenting all the

seas!

(Foul weather!)