As an example of the beauty of the verse we would take this from the song
of the Wood-Sun. It at least shows how perfectly the poetry harmonises
with the prose, and how natural the transition is from the one to the
other:

In many a stead Doom dwelleth, nor sleepeth day nor night:
The rim of the bowl she kisseth, and beareth the chambering light
When the kings of men wend happy to the bride-bed from the board.
It is little to say that she wendeth the edge of the grinded sword,
When about the house half builded she hangeth many a day;
The ship from the strand she shoveth, and on his wonted way
By the mountain hunter fareth where his foot ne'er failed before:
She is where the high bank crumbles at last on the river's shore:
The mower's scythe she whetteth; and lulleth the shepherd to sleep
Where the deadly ling-worm wakeneth in the desert of the sheep.
Now we that come of the God-kin of her redes for ourselves we wot,
But her will with the lives of men-folk and their ending know we not.
So therefore I bid thee not fear for thyself of Doom and her deed,
But for me: and I bid thee hearken to the helping of my need.
Or else--Art thou happy in life, or lusteth thou to die
In the flower of thy days, when thy glory and thy longing bloom on
high?

The last chapter of the book in which we are told of the great feast made
for the dead is so finely written that we cannot refrain from quoting
this passage:

Now was the glooming falling upon the earth; but the Hall was bright
within even as the Hall-Sun had promised. Therein was set forth the
Treasure of the Wolfings; fair cloths were hung on the walls, goodly
broidered garments on the pillars: goodly brazen cauldrons and fair-
carven chests were set down in nooks where men could see them well,
and vessels of gold and silver were set all up and down the tables of
the feast. The pillars also were wreathed with flowers, and flowers
hung garlanded from the walls over the precious hangings; sweet gums
and spices were burning in fair-wrought censers of brass, and so many
candles were alight under the Roof, that scarce had it looked more
ablaze when the Romans had litten the faggots therein for its burning
amidst the hurry of the Morning Battle.

There then they fell to feasting, hallowing in the high-tide of their
return with victory in their hands: and the dead corpses of Thiodolf
and Otter, clad in precious glittering raiment, looked down on them
from the High-seat, and the kindreds worshipped them and were glad;
and they drank the Cup to them before any others, were they Gods or
men.

In days of uncouth realism and unimaginative imitation, it is a high
pleasure to welcome work of this kind. It is a work in which all lovers
of literature cannot fail to delight.

A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and all the Kindreds of the Mark.
Written in Prose and in Verse by William Morris. (Reeves and Turner.)

ADAM LINDSAY GORDON

(Pall Mall Gazette, March 25, 1889.