The Haystack in the Floods
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"The Haystack in the Floods", is a narrative poem of some 150 lines by William Morris, first published in The Defence of Guenevere, and Other Poems in 1858. It is probably these days his best-known poem. It is a grimly realistic piece set during the Hundred Years' War in which the doomed lovers Jehane and Robert, having been chased down by Godmar and his knights, have a last parting in a convincingly portrayed rain swept French countryside.
Three passages from it are most often quoted:
The in medias res opening:
- Had she come all the way for this,
- To part at last without a kiss?
- Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain
- That her own eyes might see him slain
- Beside the haystack in the floods?
Godmar's threat to Jehane:
- Eh? lies my Jehane? by God's head,
- At Paris folks would deem them true!
- Do you know, Jehane, they cry for you,
- 'Jehane the brown! Jehane the brown!
- Give us Jehane to burn or drown!'
And the forlorn conclusion, following Robert's brutal slaying by Godmar:
- She shook her head and gazed awhile
- At her cold hands with a rueful smile,
- As though this thing had made her mad.
- This was the parting that they had
- Beside the haystack in the floods.
The poem succeeds because of its narrative pace, rather than ostentatiously-crafted language. It was one of the poems from Morris' early romantic period which were brought to the fore by historian E. P. Thompson (himself a published poet) in his 1955 biography of Morris.
