William Morris

“If I could but see a day of it,” he said to himself; “if I could but see it!”

Ever it is the wont of fathers to depart this world before their sons.

It was men who had made that Isle in the woodland.

Narrow is the Dale and the World is wide; I would it were dawn and daylight, that I might be afoot again.

And the uneasy lads and lasses sitting at high-mass of the Sunday in the grey church would see the tall masts amidst the painted saints of the aisle windows, and their minds would wander from the mass-hackled priest and the words and the gestures of him, and see visions of far countries and outlandish folk

Therein was neither highway nor byway, nor wood-reeve nor way-warden; never came chapman thence into Utterhay; no man of Utterhay was so poor or so bold that he durst raise the hunt therein; no outlaw durst flee thereto; no man of God had such trust in the saints that he durst build him a cell in that wood.

Now, welcome world, and be thou blessed from one end to the other, from the ocean sea to the uttermost mountains!

The date shut my mouth as if a key had been turned in a padlock fixed to my lips;

I am a man; I hight Golden Walter; I come from Langton; I want victual.

Who wotteth of Weird, and what she is till the weird is accomplished?

Thou art openhanded in thy proffers: he might have asked the like concerning thee but a minute ago.

Wherefore all the dealings which the folk on the east Dale and the west might have with each other was but shouting and crying across the swirling and gurgling eddies of the black water, which themselves the while seemed to be talking together in some dread and unknown tongue.

If thou try it and fail, thou shalt rue it once only, to wit, lifelong; and thou canst but fail.

Thou art merciful, my Queen, though not to me, and a churl were I if I were less merciful than thou.

They wore amongst other garments, breeches made of worsted velvet, that stuff which used to be called plush some years ago.

Who shall deliver me from this death in life?

For when all is done that a man may, ’tis the hour for a man to fall.

I was seeking something, but I knew not what⁠—meseemeth that now I have found it.

“O thou beauteous creature, what art thou?”

Are we not well met then in the wildwood? and we both as two children whom the earth loveth.