Let dead hearts tarry and trade and marry,
And trembling nurse their dreams of mirth,
While we the living our lives are giving
To bring the bright new world to birth.

Come, shoulder to shoulder ere earth grows older! 
The Cause spreads over land and sea;
Now the world shaketh, and fear awaketh,
And joy at last for thee and me.

GUNNAR’S HOWE ABOVE THE HOUSE AT LITHEND

Ye who have come o’er the sea to behold this grey minster of lands, Whose floor is the tomb of time past, and whose walls by the toil of dead hands Show pictures amidst of the ruin of deeds that have overpast death, Stay by this tomb in a tomb to ask of who lieth beneath.  Ah! the world changeth too soon, that ye stand there with unbated breath, As I name him that Gunnar of old, who erst in the haymaking tide Felt all the land fragrant and fresh, as amidst of the edges he died.  Too swiftly fame fadeth away, if ye tremble not lest once again The grey mound should open and show him glad-eyed without grudging or pain.  Little labour methinks to behold him but the tale-teller laboured in vain.  Little labour for ears that may hearken to hear his death-conquering song, Till the heart swells to think of the gladness undying that overcame wrong.  O young is the world yet meseemeth and the hope of it flourishing green, When the words of a man unremembered so bridge all the days that have been, As we look round about on the land that these nine hundred years he hath seen.

Dusk is abroad on the grass of this valley amidst of the hill:  Dusk that shall never be dark till the dawn hard on midnight shall fill The trench under Eyiafell’s snow, and the grey plain the sea meeteth grey.  White, high aloft hangs the moon that no dark night shall brighten ere day, For here day and night toileth the summer lest deedless his time pass away.

THE DAY IS COMING

Come hither, lads, and hearken, for a tale there is to tell, Of the wonderful days a-coming, when all shall be better than well.

And the tale shall be told of a country, a land in the midst of the sea, And folk shall call it England in the days that are going to be.

There more than one in a thousand in the days that are yet to come, Shall have some hope of the morrow, some joy of the ancient home.

For then, laugh not, but listen to this strange tale of mine, All folk that are in England shall be better lodged than swine.

Then a man shall work and bethink him, and rejoice in the deeds of his hand, Nor yet come home in the even too faint and weary to stand.

Men in that time a-coming shall work and have no fear For to-morrow’s lack of earning and the hunger-wolf anear.

I tell you this for a wonder, that no man then shall be glad Of his fellow’s fall and mishap to snatch at the work he had.