Poland

How long, O God, shall men be ridden down,
And trampled under by the last and least
Of men? The heart of Poland hath not ceased
To quiver, tho’ her sacred blood doth drown
The fields; and out of every smouldering town
Cries to Thee, lest brute Power be increased,
Till that o’ergrown Barbarian in the East
Transgress his ample bound to some new crown:—
Cries to thee, “Lord, how long shall these things be?
How long this icyhearted Muscovite
Oppress the region?” Us, O Just and Good,
Forgive, who smiled when she was torn in three;
Us, who stand now, when we should aid the right—
A matter to be wept with tears of blood!

To—— (“As when, with downcast eyes...”)

Reprinted without alteration as first of the Early Sonnets in 1872;
subsequently in the twelfth line “That tho’” was substituted for
“Altho’,” and the last line was altered to—

“And either lived in either’s heart and speech,”

and “hath” was not italicised.

As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood,
And ebb into a former life, or seem
To lapse far back in some confused dream
To states of mystical similitude;
If one but speaks or hems or stirs his chair,
Ever the wonder waxeth more and more,
So that we say, “All this hath been before,
All this hath been, I know not when or where”.
So, friend, when first I look’d upon your face,
Our thought gave answer each to each, so true—
Opposed mirrors each reflecting each—
Altho’ I knew not in what time or place,
Methought that I had often met with you,
And each had lived in the other’s mind and speech.