A Legend of Camelot, Pictures and Poems, etc/The Fools' Paradise
"Take up your chain together."
THE FOOLS' PARADISE.
I.
IN and about the Honeymoon,
Young Love in his fever gloweth;
He waxeth fast, he waneth soon,
He cometh, and he goeth.
Young Love hath wings that flout his legs,
And soareth, Life unheeding;
Young Love is the goose with the golden Eggs!
And soon he lies a-bleeding!
II.
The road is red with roses sweet,
That leads you to his Dwelling
With shoes of swiftness on your feet,
And Joy there is no telling!
And each a cap about the brow,
But ne'er the Cap of Knowledge:
The Cap of many Bells I trow,
Fits best in Young Love's College!
III.
He weaves his bandage round your eyes,
He casts his blindness o'er you,
That you may dream all Paradise
Doth stretch away before you!
And dreaming each the other blest
With Love's own wings behind you,
You dare the Parson do his best
For aye and a day to bind you!
IV.
For all a month He bids you fain
Go feed among the Posies;
And hides the Padlock and the Chain
For all a Month of Roses;
And gives you nought to care about
But Love, till Truth be minded
That you should find each other out,
And be no longer blinded!
V.
O Love! that all the best of you
Be over with the wooing!
O Wedlock! All the worst of you
That there be no undoing!
It's Hey! Ho! and Welladay
For Youth and Love, and Honey!
It's Heigho! and Workaday
For Bread and Cheese, and Money!
VI.
Weep not, poor Fools, nor hold aloof!
Take up your chain together,
And earthwards pad the wandering hoof
That brought you fooling hither!
O Help each other, and share the load,
For steep the pass and thorny,
That leads you thorough from Love's Abode
To Life, and rough the Journey!
VII.
"—O Dream of Dreams! O was it worth
The pain of this our waking?
O what is there of balm on earth
Can heal us of our aching?
O Love is he dead before the Prime,
Love that was born so newly?" . . .
—Poor Fools, go pin your faith on Time,
And Time shall tell you duly.
VIII.
For Time that scorned Love's earlier ways,
His mellower secrets holdeth;
These, living out our length of Days,
We learn as Truth unfoldeth.
Who knows but in a year or two
That Love may have the kindness
To come without his wings to you,
And holpen of his blindness?