October O love, turn from the changing sea and gaze, Down these grey slopes, upon the year grown old, A-dying 'mid the autumn-scented haze That hangeth o'er the hollow in the wold, Where the wind-bitten ancient elms infold Grey church, long barn, orchard, and red-roofed stead, Wrought in dead days for men a long while dead. Come down, O love; may not our hands still meet, Since still we live today, forgetting June, Forgetting May, deeming October sweet? - - Oh, hearken! hearken! through the afternoon The grey tower sings a strange old tinkling tune! Sweet, sweet, and sad, the toiling year's last breath, To satiate of life, to strive with death. And we too -will it not be soft and kind, That rest from life, from patience, and from pain, That rest from bliss we know not when we find, That rest from love which ne'er the end can gain? - Hark! how the tune swells, that erewhile did wane! Look up, love! -Ah! cling close, and never move! How can I have enough of life and love?

Morris decided to become an architect. Together they read theology ecclesiastical history and medieval poetry; studied art and during the long vacations visited English churches and the Continental cathedrals. When he returned to poetry in the late 1860s it was with The Life and Death of Jason which was publiWilliam Morrisd with great success in 1867.

He was also a major contributor to reviving traditional textile arts and methods of production and one of the founders of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings now a statutory element in the preservation of historic buildings in the UK. He was an important figure in the emergence of socialism in Britain founding the Socialist League in 1884 but breaking with that organization over goals and methods by the end of the decade. His best-known works include The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems (1858) The Earthly Paradise (1868–1870) A Dream of John Ball (1888) the utopian News from Nowhere (1890) and the fantasy romance The Well at the World's End (1896).