 Morris began publishing poetry and short stories in 1856 through the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine which he founded with his friends and financed while at university . His first volume , The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems ( 1858 ) , was the first book of Pre @-@ Raphaelite poetry to be published . The dark poems , set in a sombre world of violence , were coolly received by the critics , and he was discouraged from publishing more for a number of years . " The Haystack in the Floods " , one of the poems in that collection , is probably now one of his better @-@ known poems . It is a grimly realistic piece set during the Hundred Years War in which the doomed lovers <unk> and Robert have a last parting in a convincingly portrayed rain @-@ swept countryside . One early minor poem was " Masters in this Hall " ( 1860 ) , a Christmas carol written to an old French tune . Another Christmas @-@ themed poem is " The Snow in the Street " , adapted from " The Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon " in The Earthly Paradise . 
