Four Songs

Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!
Rescue my castle before the hot day
Brightens to blue from its silvery grey,
  Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!

Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say;
Many's the friend there, will listen and pray
God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay,
  "Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"

Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay,
Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array:
Who laughs, "Good fellows ere this, by my fay,
  Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"

Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest and gay,
Laughs when you talk of surrendering, "Nay!
I've better counsellors; what counsel they?
  Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"

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[If I were loved]1, as I desire to be, 
What is there in the great sphere of the earth,
And range of evil between death and birth, 
That I should fear -- if I were loved by thee? 
All the inner, all the outer world of pain 
Clear Love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine,
As I have heard that, somewhere in the main, 
Fresh water-springs come up through bitter brine.
'Twere joy, not fear, clasped hand in hand with thee,
To wait for death -- mute -- careless of all ills, 
Apart upon a mountain, though the surge 
Of some new deluge from a thousand hills 
Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge
Below us, as far on as eye could see.