THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
PUBLISHED BY
JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW
SnbltBhers to the SnibersitB.
MACMILLAN
New York, - -
London, • -
Cambridge, • -
Edinburgh.,
AND CO., LTD., LONDON.
T/ie Macmillan Co.
Simpkin, Hattiilton and Co.
M actnillan and Bowes.
Douglas and Foulis.
MCMI.
Pro Patria et Regina
BEING
POEMS FROM NINETEENTH CENTURY WRITERS
IN GREAT BRITAIN AND AMERICA
ISSUED IN AID OF
HER MAJESTY QUEEN ALEXANDRA'S
FUND FOR SOLDIERS AND SAILORS
COLLECTED AND EDITED BY
PROFESSOR KNIGHT
St. Andrews
Glasgow-
James MacLehose and Sons
Publishers to the University
I 90 1
GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
EY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO.
1221
K74p
TO
HEK ROYAI, AND IMPERIAL HIGHNESS
QUEEN ALEXANDRA
I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME
IN RESPONSE TO HER APPEAL OF JANUARY I, 1901
IN BEHALF OF HER SOLDIERS' AND
SAILORS' FUND
807276
PREFACE
Thk volume of \'erse, now published under the
title Pro Patria ei Regina^^ originated thus.
On reading the remarkable letter of her Royal
Highness the Princess of Wales, now Queen of
England, — written on the first day of January,
1901, and appealing for fresh contributions in aid
of her Soldiers' and Sailors' Fund — it seemed to
me that the object aimed at might be helped in-
directly through Literature, as well as directly by
gifts of money. Literary men can seldom subscribe
largely in behalf of public charities, but they can
give a portion of their work to assist such national
causes as that so nobly advocated by her Royal
Highness.
For more than a quarter of a century I had in-
tended to collect the poems of many friends, who
have been too modest to issue them in their own
name, and publish them in a small volume. It
was postponed for various reasons. But when I
read the letter of her Royal Highness, I felt sure
that all my friends would allow me to use their
Verses for the purpose which our Princess had at
' It was named Pro Patria at first, and contributions were
sent to it under that title ; but the title Pro Patria having
iKren adopted by another writer while this book was in
preparation, a more distinctive one has now been made
use of.
vii
PREFACE
heart. They agreed most cordially. Her Royal
Highness was graciously pleased that the volume
should be dedicated to her ; and, although I am
not a poet — I wrote a few stanzas on the same
day, in commendation of her purpose. These are
included in this volume.
The scheme grew rapidly ; and the idea was so
cordially responded to that I resolved to include
in it contributions from the greater poets of our
time — English and American — if they were willing
thus to aid the cause. The result surpassed my
anticipations, and the original idea of a small
pocket volume, to be named " For Queen and
Country," had to be abandoned for a larger one.
Then came the sad and world-wide loss — the
death of her Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, —
which made the original title altogether unsuit-
able. That calamity overwhelmed the entire
British nation, with all its colonies and depend-
encies, as no previous event in England's history
had done ; but it also stimulated our people, far
and near, to carry on those great charities to
which a life so unique and gracious, and a
character so unselfish had been devoted. It
added to the wish that this book should see the
light of day ; and it prompted a second brief
utterance, written on the night of her Majesty's
decease, which is included in the volume only
because it is a further explanation of its aim.
It occurred to me soon afterwards that there
might be placed within it contributions from poets
viii
PREFACE
I have known, who have now "joined the
majority"; but who would have been willing, I
am sure, to aid in such a work. This extension
of the anthology was made in the early spring,
but it doubled the size of the book ; and although
now ready for press, its publication must be post-
poned.
The poems are printed in the alphabetical order
of their authors' names ; the work of one or two
who prefer to remain anonymous being reserved
for the close. In the case of our living poets,
whose work will be found in these pages, I have
cither received new Verses written for the occasion,
or been allowed to select what seemed most suit-
able for the purpose. Few things could be more
satisfactory than that American writers have joined
with contemporary English poets in this small con-
tribution to a patriotic purpose ; and that in this,
as in much larger matters, the two great branches
of the Anglo-Saxon race have shewn a common
interest in what is " true, and beautiful, and good."
WTiile the readers of the anthology will find
some old friends within it, and many a poem which
has not till now seen the light of day, the com-
bination of "old and new" may not be displeasing
to any. If its publication helps forward the pur-
pose of our gracious Queen-Consort, I shall feel
honoured in having been allowed to aid it. The
lines referred to in an earlier paragraph follow.
William Knight.
September 1901.
ix
ii
Co HlcjanDra, iprinccss of lUalcs
(On her Appeal for more aid to the Soldiers' and Sailors'
Fund, January i, 1901/
[Written before Queen Victoria's illness was known.]
O Lady who dost sit enthroned,
Though neither Queen nor Empress yet,
High o'er a realm already owned
By thee and thine in prospect, set
To guide and cheer far distant lands
By what thou art, and still shalt be,
Ten thousand wait on thy commands
And rise to meet them joyously.
For all thy noble acts, and those
To poorest people — the distressed —
For all thy gracious charities
By which this mother-isle is blessed.
Thy duteous subjects far and near
Give thanks spontaneous, joyous, free ;
Thine is the name they all revere.
And hail thee, Queen that art to be,
Like that great Hard who wrote his lay.
When first thou touched our Knglish shore,
DEDICATORY VERSES
And sent his " Welcome" on its way,
To reach a myriad million more.
Receive our loyal welcomings
This new-year's day, while far has sped
Thy letter on the silent wings
Of morning unto evening led.
We answer to thee as we can,
Responding to thy regal call,
Rejoicing that thy message ran
Alike to hamlet and to hall.
II.
^0 tbe princess of Males
(Now Queen of England and Empress of India).
[Written on the night of January 22nd, when the muffled minute-
bells tolling at St. Andrews announced the Queen's decease.]
O Lady, since these words 1 were penned
On new year's morn, three weeks have fled.
Thy message still its way doth wend.
Our gracious Sovereign is dead.
To-morrow, when the runners come.
And news the wide world o'er is spread,
One line — before which all is dumb —
Will chronicle, "Victoria Dead."
Still everywhere abroad will sound
A paean in the midst of woe,
A clarion-note of triumph found
Within the sorrow that we know.
1 The previous lines " To Alexandra," etc.
xii
DEDICATORY VERSES
The glorious Queen of England, blest
Above all rulers of the world,
Has gained the long eternal rest
From labour, peace around her furled.
No nobler life, no steadier will,
The thrones of empire ever knew.
Her great example liveth still
In lives made beautiful and true.
Go, search the Ages. Seek out King
And Conqueror, no potentate
In England's line can history bring
To match the lustre of her State.
The gracious work which she began,
Young Princess of an English race,
Its course more gladsome onward ran,
Expanding with a regal grace.
She had, we know, one richest gem.
The love within her people's heart ;
A more than royal diadem.
That love from which our praises start.
Our Queen is dead. Long live the Queen
In lives made better by her own.
Still lives she there, august, serene.
We reap the harvests she hath sown.
O gracious Princess, thrice revered
By all the people of this land,
Receive their homage, more endeared
By what they newly understand.
Our sorrow hath not made us mute,
Or sealed our lips from praise ; while we.
By all we love and grieve, compute
The measure of our debt to thee,
xiii
DEDICATORY VERSES
Hail Princess ! Queen of all our hearts,
Hail Sovereign Lady of this realm.
A hymn of reverent homage starts
From lives no grief can overwhelm.
We greet thee, Princess, east to west.
This day remembering not in vain
That Mother of her People blest,
And all the splendour of her reign.
XIV
CONTENTS
Austin, Alfred.
To Arms, ...... i
Allan. William.
Ready, to a Man, . -3
Wauchope. . . . . • 3
Argyll, Duke ok.
Glaniis, ...... 4
.\RNOLD, Sir Edwin.
To H.R.H. the Princess of Wales, on her first
arrival in Kngland, .... 6
The First Distribution of the Victoria Cross, 9
Beale, Dorothea.
Tennyson, . . ii
The Agnostic, . 13
Bridges, Robert.
Coronation Hymn, . . 14
Rejoice, O Land, . 15
Brooke, Stopford .\.
Grasincre Bridge, . .16
CONTENTS
Courtney, William Leonard.
FACE 1
Death, .....
21
Crewe, Earl of.
A Distant Cousin, ....
21
Davidson, John.
A New Song of Empire,
• 23
Dobson, .\ustin.
Rank and File, ....
• 25
A Gentleman of the Old School, .
. 26
Dowden, Edward.
In the Shadow, ....
• 30
The Singer's Plea, ....
• 30
Dufferin and Ava, Marquis of.
A Lament, .....
• 31
Garnett, Richard.
The Harp begins to murmur of itself,
• 31
Gilder, Richard Watson.
A Lady to a Knight,
• 32
War.
32
Glehn, Maria von.
Horizons, .....
34
Sanctus Spiritus, ....
• 35
GossE, Edmund.
Life in Death, ....
• 36
To my Daughter, ....
• 38
Hastie, William.
A Freemason's Song,
• 39
Haymaking among the Hills,
. 40
The Birth of Beauty,
• 41
XVI
CONTENTS
Henley, William Ernest. page
Life and Death, . . -42
Life and Death, . . . -43
Howe, Julia Ward,
Battle Hymn of the Republic, . . -43
Our Orders, . . . -45
Hunt, Violet.
The Crusader, . . .46
Lovers in London, . . -47
The Doubting Heart, . . .48
Jack, William R.
Cupid and Psyche, . . . . -49
Japp, Alexander.
Self-Completeness, . , . . • 5°
The Two Grenadiers (from Heine), . 50
Johnson, R. Underwood.
An English Mother, . . . -52
Johnson-Brown, A.
Myths of the Dawn, . . . . ':4
Myths of the Dawn, . . -55
Fulfilment,
57
Kipling, Rudyard.
The Song of the Women, . . . 58
Lang, Andrew.
Tusitala, , . . . . .60
The Last Cast. The Angler's Apology, . 61
Man, and the Ascidian, . . . -63
Lawrie, Henrv.
The Open Secret, . . . . 65
xvii
CONTENTS
Lawkie, Henry. page
An Evening Dream, . . . -67
St. Mary's Loch : A Reminiscence, . . 68
A Christmas Greeting from Australia, . . 70
From the Sea, . . . . -72
The Singers, . . , .75
The Poet's Cup, . . . . .76
Lecky, William Edward Hartpole.
On an Old Song, . . . . .78
Undeveloped Lives, . . . .81
Lindsay, Lady Blanche.
For England, . . . . .82
Linn, Edith Willis.
Aspiration, . . . . . .88
Lyall, Sir Alfred.
Somnia, India, 1857, . . . -89
MacDonald, George.
Rondel, . . . . . .9°
Baby, ...... 90
Martin, Sir Theodore.
The Queen at St. Paul's, June 22, 1897, . . 92
The Queen at Kensington, June 28, 1897, . . 93
A Birthday Meditation, Balmoral, May 24, 1900, . 94
Menzies, George Kenneth.
II Pigro, . . . . . -94
L'Occupato, . . . . . -97
Meredith, George.
England before the Storm, . . . -99
xviii
CONTENTS
Morris, Lewis. page
A Memory, ...... loo
MouLTON, Louise Chandler.
The Voice of Spring, .... loi
Newbolt, Henry.
Admirals AH, . , . 102
San Stefano, ...... 104
" Punch."
To the Queen, on her Eightieth Birthday, . 107
Rawnsley, Hardwick D.
Hymns, in Grateful and Loyal Memory of the
Queen, ...... 108
The Way of Peace. London, Feb. 2, . . no
In Memory, . . . . . .111
Rhoades, Hardwicke T.
lo Triumphe, ..... m
Love and Life, . 114
Rhoades, James.
An Old Mill, . . . .115
Bv the Graves on the Veldt, . 116
A Spring Song, . . . .117
Sinclair, May.
Euthanasia, . . .118
Sappho, . . . . .118
Possession, . . . . .119
Smith, Walter C.
Orwell, ...... lao
xix
CONTENTS
SouTHESK, Earl of. page
Leaves and Waters, .... i2i
Clear Vision, . . . . .123
Swinburne, Algernon Charles.
East to West, . . . . .123
A Moss-Rose, ..... 124
England : An Ode, ..... 125
TODHUNTER, JOHN.
To an Old Long-Bow, .... 126
The Nightingale, ..... 127
TOLLEMACHE, THE HON. BEATRIX L.
On the Death of the Emperor Frederick, . . 128
St. Moritz in July, ..... 129
TOLLEMACHE, ThE HON. LIONEL A.
The Epicurist's Lament, .... 131
Vere, Aubrey De.
Alfred Tennyson. The Land's Vigil, . . 131;
The Poet, ...... 132
Giotto's Campanile at Florence, . . . 133
Watson, William.
England, my Mother, . . , "133
The First Skylark of Spring, . . . 137
Watts-Dunton, Theodore.
To Britain and America on the Death of James
Russell Lowell, .... 139
The Angel of the Channel, (Jubilee Greeting at
Spithead, to the Men of Greater Britain, 1897), 140
XX
COATEA'TS
WOODBERRY, GEORGE EDWAKD. PAGE
America to England, .... 142
At Gibraltar, . . -143
From my Country, ..... 144
Wordsworth, Elizabeth.
Dunmail Raize, ..... 146
Anonymous.
To E. B. B., . . . 149
To my Friend, ..... 149
Reminiscences of Childhood, . . . 150
Lux in Tenebris, ..... 156
PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
To Arms.
Now let the cry, " To Arms ! To Arms ! "
Go ringing round the world ;
And swift a wave-wide Empire swarms
Round Battle-flag unfurled.
Wherever glitters Britain's might,
Or Britain's banner flies,
Leap up mailed myriads with the light
Of manhood in their eyes ;
Calling from farmstead, mart, and strand,
" We come ! And we ! And we !
That British steel may hold the land,
And British keels the sea ! "
From English hamlet, Irish hill,
Welsh hearths, and Scottish byres.
They throng to show that they are still
Sons worthy of their sires :
That what these did, we still can do.
That what they were, we are,
Whose fathers fought at Waterloo,
And died at Trafalgar I
PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
Shoulder to shoulder see them stand,
Wherever menace be,
To guard the lordship of the land
And the Trident of the sea.
Nor in the parent isle alone
Spring squadrons from the ground ;
Canadian shore and Austral zone
With kindred cry resound :
" From shimmering plain and snow-fed stream,
Across the deep we come,
Seeing the British bayonets gleam,
Hearing the British drum.
Foot in the stirrup, hilt in hand.
Free men, to keep men free,
All, all will help to hold the land
While England guards the sea ! "
Comrades in arms, from every shore
Where thundereth the main,
On to the front they press and pour
To face the rifles' rain ;
To force the foe from covert crag.
And chase them till they fall.
Then plant for ever England's Flag
Upon the rebel wall !
What ! wrench the sceptre from her hand.
And bid her bow the knee !
Not while her Yeomen guard the land,
And her ironclads the sea !
Alfred Austin.
December 23, 1899.
2 I
PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
Ready ! to a Man.
Still in her might Britannia stands,
Calm is her eye and proud her scan,
War's thunderbohs are in her hands.
Her sons are ready to a man !
To meet her foes by land or sea,
No matter who or where they be.
.Age makes her ever great and strong,
No power can thwart her Empire's plan,
.Around the world is heard this song : —
Her sons are ready to a man !
To fight for every British home
The foes who dare 'gainst her to come.
Not yet ! not yet ! are we decayed,
Or withered 'neath vile Faction's ban.
In danger's hour we're not afraid, —
Our sons are ready to a man !
To do the deeds that we have done,
In every clime beneath the sun.
William Allan.
Wauchope.
Magersfontein, December ii, 1899.
Over the camp of the Highland Brigade,
The coronach's weird notes of sorrow were wailing,
Over the veldt where the war demon played.
The echoes, like Autumn's wind-whispers, were
trailing.
3
PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
Oh ! 'twas the sound of the music of grief,
Which Old Caledonia's children were feeling,
Silent they stood by the grave of their Chief,
While down their bronzed cheeks sorrow's tear-
drops were stealing.
Wrapt in the tartan he honoured in life.
They gave the brave hero to Africa's keeping.
Gone from the thunders of red battle strife.
They gazed on the warrior placidly sleeping.
Sad was each heart, and uncovered each head,
As his comrades' farewell from their rifles was
ringing,
Loving hands tenderly over him spread
Earth's coverlet cord for the wild flowers new-
springing.
Far from the land of the glen and the glade.
Far from the land that is proud of his story.
Sleeps the old Chief of the Highland Brigade,
Who fought for his country and fell for its glory.
William Allan.
Glamis.
From marts where Indian Hemp is found.
Mid whirr of wheeling gear,
And whalers, for the Ice-blink bound.
Past heaps of citrons steer,
4
I
.,
PRO PATH I A ET REG IN A
From Scotland's oldest Town, whose gold
Was won from every sea,
We went to Scotland's ancient Hold
Of kindliest memory.
Ere upon Tay the setting sun
Could paint the winding shore.
We saw whereon light loveliest shone
— Thy valley vast — " Strathmore " !
How bright the fields late-harvested,
How gleamed the autumn beech.
How beauteously cloud-shadows sped,
A benison on each !
What peaceful wealth the landscape fills
— The jewelled Lowland Plain, —
To where blue waves of Highland Hills
Frown, like a foam-flecked main !
With dialled lawns, and forest framed,
Glamis' lofty turrets stood ;
Its windows with the sunset flamed.
Red glowed its towers and wood.
As though the ancient times again
With blood had dyed the lands ;
•Again a guilty Queen in vain
Had wrung her dripping hands !
And when the fierce light waned, and spent,
I thought, the tints of day ;
The walls were still with russet blent —
Life's hue with Evening's grey !
5
PRO P ATRIA ET RE GIN A
As though the light of battle past,
Each stone were conscious yet
Of honours that forever last,
Of memories none forget.
Of Duty in our day, and part
Done nobly, joyously.
With love's simplicity of heart,
And stateliest courtesy.
Argyll.
To H.R.H. the Princess of Wales
on her first arrival in England.
Fierce, brown-bearded, enclad in the spoils of wolf
and of wild-cat,
Keener in ravine than wolves, than wild-cats wilder
in onset,
Came, in the days gone by, the Danes to the shores
of the Angles,
Came on an errand of blood — to beleaguer, to burn,
and to ravage.
Ploughing up furrows of foam on the grass-green
meads of the North Sea
Steered the old Vikings their course, one hand on
the helm of their galley,
One on the helve of their axe ; and when from
Flamborough's foreland.
Shading his eyes from the glimmer of sunrise, the
watcher beheld them
6
PRO P ATRIA ET REGINA
Holding right on for the coast, with the signs and
the standards of battle,
Loud thro' the wolds ran the cry, " The Dane ! the
Dane conieth hither ! "
Flickered with warning flames the crests of the
hills, and the cressets.
Mothers and maidens fled inland — fast gathered
the bowmen and billmen.
Grim the welcome awaiting those strangers ! — such
greeting as arrows
Carry on wings of wrath, such kisses as edge of
sword renders ; —
All their room in the land as much as the length of
their lances.
Nay, or beneath its turf, the length of the Chieftains
who bore them.
Fair, golden-haired, and glad with the joy of her
youth and her beauty.
Daughter herself of a Prince, of a Prince the loved
and the chosen,
Comes in these happier days the Dane to the shores
of the Angles,
Comes on an errand of love, to the music of soft
hymenaeals.
Over the silver-green seas, which kiss the keel of
her vessel,
Bending their foreheads on this side and that to
the Maiden of Norseland
(Rightfully Queen of the waves by her Father's
right and her Husband's),
7
PRO P ATRIA ET REGINA
Speeds the sweet Princess to land ; and all the
voices of gladness
Tell that she is arrived whose hand the Prince of
the English
Takes in the sight of God and man for the hand of
his consort —
Consort in splendours and cares, in the gloom and
the glitter of ruling.
Warm the welcome awaiting this lovely and winning
invader !
Such as men give with the lips when the heart has
gone forward before them ;
Such as a nation of freemen, not apt to flatter for
fashion,
Make, when the innocent past is a pledge of the
happy to-morrows.
Princess ! weak is one voice in the throng and
clamour of voices.
Poor one flower in the rain of the roses that shower
at thy footsteps.
Faint one prayer in the anthem of litanies uttered
to bless thee ;
Yet to thy young fair face I make an Englishman's
greeting.
On thy path to the altar I lay this wreath from a
singer.
Unto the God of the altar we pray for blessings
together.
We — of the men whose fathers encountered thy
fathers with battle,
8
I
PRO PATRIA ET REG IN A
These — of the women whose mothers turned pale
at the galleys of Denmark,
Heralds of happiness now, sea-birds that bring from
the Norland
Unto our Prince his Bride — and to England omens
of gladness.
Edwin Arnold.
The First Distribution of the Victoria
Cross.
To-day the people gather from the streets.
To-day the soldiers muster near and far ;
Peace, with a glad look and a grateful, meets
Her rugged brother War.
To-day the Queen of all the English land.
She who sits high o'er Kaisers and o'er Kings,
Gives with her royal hand — th' Imperial hand
Whose grasp the earth en-rings —
Her Cross of Valour to her worthiest ; —
No golden toy with milky pearls besprent,
But simple bronze, and for a warrior's breast
A fair, fit ornament.
And richer than red gold that dull bronze seems,
Since it was bought with lavish waste of worth
Whereto the wealth of Earth's gold-sanded streams
Were but a lack, and dearth.
9
PRO P ATRIA ET REGINA
Muscovite metal makes this English Cross,
Won in a rain of blood and wreath of flame ;
The guns that thundered for their brave lives' loss
Are worn hence, for their fame !
For, listen ! all ye maidens laughing-eyed,
And all ye English mothers, be aware !
Those who shall pass before ye at noon-tide
Your friends and champions are.
The men of all the army and the fleet,
The very bravest of the very brave.
Linesman and Lord — these fought with equal feet
Firm-planted on their grave.
The men who, setting light their blood and breath
So they might win a victor's haiight renown.
Held their steel straight against the face of Death,
And frowned his frowning down.
And some that grasped the bomb, all fury-fraught.
And hurled it far, to spend its spite away—
Between the rescue and the risk, no thought —
Shall pass our Queen this day.
And some who climbed the deadly glacis-side,
For all that steel could stay, or savage shell ;
And some, whose blood upon the Colours dried
Tells if they bore them well !
Some, too, who, gentle-hearted even in strife,
Seeing their fellow or their friend go down,
10
PRO P ATRIA ET REGINA
Saved his, at peril of their own dear life,
And won the Civic Crown.
Well done for them ; and, fair Isle, well for thee 1
While that thy bosom beareth sons like those
" The little i^em set in the silver sea "
Shall never fear her foes.
Edwin Arnold.
Tennyson.
' ' What went ye out into the wilderness to see ? A reed
shaken by the wind? "
Art for Art's sake ! This our motto ;
Vex us not with moral song !
Let us rest beside the river !
Speak no more of right and wrong !
Here the pan-pipes' murmur sighing,
As the winds around them sweep ;
And the drops of water falling
Sound like tears that women weep.
Let us feel the throbbing pulses,
Know the sympathetic thrill.
When from out the broken reed-pipe
Discords float — then all is still I
To the wretched rhymers chanted,
Warbling forth their shallow lays,
1 1
PRO P ATRIA ET REG IN A
Drinking from the lotus-fountain,
Clothed in purple, crowned with bays.
Then I saw a stately figure
Sitting, too, beside the stream.
Mourning seemed he, weeping, doubting.
Asking was this life a dream ?
Storm-clouds gathered, and he listened.
Voices reached him from the height ;
Far into the darkness gazed he.
And beyond — he saw the light.
Never once to idle dreamers
Would he bend his lofty head ;
Never listen to the murmuring
Whispers in the river bed. li
But the storm-winds changed to music
For this Beethoven of song,
And he told the joy, the glory
Won through conflict against wrong.
Long he chanted — and I heard him —
Now I hear him from afar —
Down the river to the ocean
He has passed, and crossed the bar.
Dorothea Beale.
12
PRO PATRIA ET REG IN A
The Agnostic.
"Who hath opened thine eyes?"
Between two lofty Alps a river flowed.
In that deep night,
No sound nor sight
The source the strength of that vast river showed.
T)Ut when a rock or isle stood in its road.
The noise, the spray
Did then display
How deep and strong that mighty river flowed.
Above the firmament vast currents rolled
Silent and dark,
Nor sound nor spark
Of latent light and heat the mystery told.
But, when a planet stayed, the mighty stream
Then broke its spray.
Then shone the day ;
Then spoke aloud to sense the mute sunbeam.
To me this Universe was dead and cold,
Nor any love
Shone from above,
No signs of tender care could I behold,
Till a soul bathed in light, with garment bright,
Rejoicing told
How manifold
The grace and glory of the heavenly light.
PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
Thus to my opened ears, and wondering gaze,
Revealed hath been
A world unseen,
And all the earth is vocal with God's praise.
Dorothea Beale.
Coronation Hymn.
The King, O God, his heart to thee upraiseth ;
With him the nation bows before Thy face :
With high thanksgiving Thee Thy glad Church
praiseth ;
Our strength Thy spirit, our trust and hope Thy
grace.
Unto great honour, glory undeserved,
Hast Thou exalted us, and drawn Thee nigh :
Nor, from Thy judgments when our feet had
swerved.
Didst Thou forsake, nor leave us. Lord most
high.
In Thee our fathers trusted and were savfed,
In Thee destroyed thrones of tyrants proud :
From ancient bondage freed the poor enslaved :
To sow Thy truth pour'd out their saintly blood.
Us now, we pray, O God, in anger scorn not,
Nor to vainglorying leave, nor brutish sense.
In time of trouble Thy face from us turn not,
Who art our rock, our stately sure defence.
14
PRO P ATRIA ET REG IN A
Unto our minds give freedom and uprightness ;
Let strength and courage lead o'er land and
wave.
To our souls' armour grant celestial brightness,
Joy to our hearts and faith beyond the grave.
Our plenteous nation still in power extending,
Increase our joy, uphold us by Thy Word :
Beauty and wisdom all our ways attending,
Goodwill to man and peace thro' Christ our
Lord.
Robert Bridges.
Rejoice, O Land.
Rejoice, O land, in God thy might.
His will obey, Him serve aright.
For thee the saints uplift their voice.
Fear not, O land, in God rejoice.
Glad shalt thou be, with blessing crown'd.
With joy and peace thou shalt abound.
Yea, love with thee shall make his home.
Until thou see God's kingdom come.
He shall forgive thy sins untold.
Remember thou His love of old.
Walk in His way. His word adore,
And keep His truth for evermore.
(As sung at Wells.)
Robert Bridges.
15
PRO P ATRIA ET RE GIN A
Grasmere Bridge.
Autumn with murmuring voices had begun
To tinge the fells with russet and with gold,
When, on the bridge of Grasmere in the sun,
Leaning, I looked upon the churchyard fold.
There Wordsworth lay, and with him Mary slept,
As in their life— and near him Dora was ;
And a grave's length apart, sweet Dorothy,
For whose wild eyes the winds of Grasmere wept ;
They hear the river pass,
Resting in peace, a goodly company !
One lies afar beside the sounding tide ;
John, whom the restless channel tossed so long ;
Pity, he sleeps not by his brother's side !
Yet is he with him ; in immortal song
That happy warrior lives for evermore ;
Far on the hill the fir grove that he loved,
Moved by the mountain winds, repeats his dirge,
And the lake mourns upon its grassy shore
That seaman unreproved ;
Ravished from Grasmere in the envious surge.
Would that a stone were to his memory here !
There is a space between the Poet's head
And Dorothy's : that soft-tongued mariner
Would smile among the blessed who are led
From joy to joy, if o'er his name there fell
The umbered foliage of his brother's yews,
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PRO P ATRIA ET REGINA
And, with them, Autumn's arrow-flakes of flame
From the tall ash that Rothay feeds so well
With ever changing dews
And visions of the mountains whence it came.
O soft and still the evening, hushed the tune
The slow wind wakes within the sycamore.
That half embrowned, half golden as the moon,
Shadows the churchyard, and the entrance door.
But softer, sweeter, Wordsworth's songs that lie,
Like undisturbing dew upon the heart,
To soothe the troubled, and set free the soul,
By marriage with the simple earth and sky,
From idols of the mart.
And from the passions' tyrannous control.
The river curves to wash the churchyard wall.
Wishful it is to sing within his ear
Its murmuring, quiet, changeful madrigal.
Sober in colour, swift of pace, and clear.
Enamoured of the shadows, yet awake
To capture sunlights ere they can depart.
And to itself a pleasure. — So thy song.
Loved Poet, runs through England, so the lake
Of the still human heart
Receives it from thy mountains, fresh and strong !
Poor was thy life : a cottage housed thee ; yet
The riches of the golden woods were thine ;
Landless thy state, but where thine eyes were set
All things, belonged to thee through joy. Divine
Thy right to mountain, wood, and stream ; and thou,
B 17
PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
Through this possession of them, made them ours.
High thoughts, good books, few friends, and home,
filled high
Thy daily wants ; and Coleridge did endow
With magic talk the hours.
Till the small room seemed widened to the sky.
He was a creature of the sunny mist,
And willingly in phantom lands he strayed ;
Who was not silent when he bade them list
To Christabel, or how the Mariner prayed ?
Old books he read, and great enchantments had,
Charming the world with thought— but in his love.
And in his rule of self, and in his life,
Soft weakness lured and made him over-glad.
His wish abode above,
His will below, and fruitless was his strife.
But thou wert made of other stuff than he.
Hewn from the Cumbrian rock, and hearing still
Loud passions in thee roaring like the sea ;
Fears fought with thee, and dreadful shapes of ill :
Fierce wrath was thine, and, rugged-built, thy heart
Suffered the mountain storms ; the mountain powers
Swept over thee in darkness. Paris, torn
With massacre and vengeance, cried, " Thou art
One with us, thou art ours " ;
But passing from that Doom, he claimed the morn^
Morn of the soul, a clear untroubled light !
But grim and silent was the inward strife
By which he tamed his soul, till on his sight
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PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
Nature unveiled appeared, and human life.
Then, all the harshness vanished, but the power
To feel and shape was in the victory made
More forceful, delicate and varied ; fit
To weave within his quiet orchard bower
A web whose sunny braid
Was half of Man and half of Nature knit —
Close knit together, woven without seam,
And through it fled the shuttle. Poesy ;
And in it lay the woods and hills, the dream
Youth sees of passionate Philosophy,
Manhood's endeavour, failure, hopes, and death ;
The love and sorrow of the patient poor ;
Sweet natural womanhood, and solemn awe
Midst the great mountains ; and the voiceful breath
Of freedom on the moor ;
And steady faith in God, and love of law.
But we on dark hills wander to and fro.
Lost in the mists of knowledge, or pursue
Pleasures that pass from weariness to woe ;
Or climb ambition's eagle crag to view
With dying eyes a barren land, or drive.
Lashed by our vices, down precipitous ways ;
Or, hoarding wealth, grow careful of the base,
And find the more we have the less we give,
While some the world amaze
With barren show, and love tlie common-place.
Thou hadst the secret of a nobler life.
Splendour was thine which could not pass away —
19
PRO P ATRIA ET REGINA
Nature's eternal pleasure and her strife
To make the loveliest : in rich array,
Spring served thine eyes with glories that out-shine
The Orient thrones : and Autumn's gold was laid
Upon the hills and woods for thy delight :
Summer's content and fulness— they were thine :
And Winter, that white maid.
For thee, clothed all the vale with chrysolite.
O teach us how to live, admire, rejoice ;
To find our joy within, and then without ;
To hear with meekness the immediate voice ;
To lose the weary feebleness of doubt ;
To find in faith our fortitude, and live
Content in poverty ; to gain the wealth
Of love immortal and of fadeless thought.
And all desire to lose but that to give.
Thine was this inward health,
And deep the healing it to England brought.
See, as I write, the moon arising clear
Behind the mass of Fairfield burns like fire,
And by her side the Planet. Night is near ;
The river sighs, the wind has made a lyre
Of the dark yews ; the missel-thrush that dwells
Beside the Church uplifts his psalm to sing
Of God in whom all poetry is born. —
Soft flows the stream, and soft the sleepy bells
Up Easdale Valley ring.
And Helm Crag listens from his rocky horn.
Stopford a. Brooke.
20
PRO PATRIA ET REG IN A
Death.
Grief and the ache of things which pass and fade,
The stately pomp, the pall, the open grave,
These and the solemn thoughts which cannot
save
Our eyes from tears or leave us less afraid
Of that dread mystery that God has made : —
How many thousand thousand men, who wave
Speechless farewells with hearts forlornly brave,
Know well the mockery of Death's parade ?
This cannot help us to transgress the bounds
Or give us wings to overpass the steep
Ramparts of Heaven which God's angels keep :
Wide is " the great gulf fixed " : for us, the mounds
Of fresh-burned earth : above, sweet peace
surrounds
The painless patience of eternal sleep.
W. L. Courtney.
A Distant Cousin.
(To Miss , of New York, in return for some family
papers of the seventeenth century.)
Fair cousin, yet unknown, — unseen, —
Across the waves that rage between,
Brave memories of what has been
Your greetings bring,
21
PRO P ATRIA ET REGINA
To where our Cheshire fields are green
With flush of spring.
And though the years have withered fast,
A welcome Ruth you come at last,
Your gracious gleaning of the past
To garner in ;
Asunder far our fates are cast,
But yet akin.
Our fathers loved the people's side ;
For common weal they lived and died,
The frown of tyranny defied
And spurned disgrace ;
To you and me a loftier pride
Than length of race.
And as our English freedom grew,
A widening stream, from old to new.
They carried high the Buff and Blue
Through praise and blame ;
Had you been there, fair cousin, you
Had done the same.
Your semblance then in tints undimmed—
Reynolds or Romney would have limned.
In white simplicity betrimmed
(So decked the most).
And O what bumpers would have brimmed
With you the toast !
22
PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
Enough — those suns have set ;
The years, alas, are withering yet,
And nought avails our fond regret
With frosty time ;
But keep, until our hands have met.
This grateful rhyme.
Crewe.
A New Song of Empire.
(" Who are the founders of England, of Imperial Britain?
They are those co-seekers, cottquastores, who came with
Cerdic and with Cymric, the chosen men, that is to say, the
most adventurous, most daring, most reckless — the fittest
men of the whole Teutonic kindred. . . . Into England as
into some vast crucible, the valour of the earth pours itself
for six hundred years, till molten and fused together, it
arises at last one and undivided, the English Nation. . . .
As the artist by the very law of his being is compelled to
body forth his conceptions in colour, in words, or in marble,
so the race dowered with the genius for Empire is compelled
to dare all, to suffer all, to sacrifice all for the fulfilment of
its fate-appointed task. . . . Britain conquers less for her-
self than for humanity. ' The Earth is Man's ' might be her
watchword."— Professor Cramb's Reflections on the Origins
and Destiny of Imperial Britain.)
A THOUSAND years of war,
Behind our banners throng ;
Empire Britain battled for
Against heroic wrong,
Unconscious of her fate, exalts
Our new imperial song.
2^
PRO P ATRIA ET REG IN A
And still we make our ancient boast
At home or by the battle's hearth —
" We venture furthest, dare the most,
The chosen valour of the earth."
Our doom is written thus,
So may our souls find grace !
Empire is the gift of us.
The genius of the race —
An empire winning for the World
A nobler power and place.
Establishing our ancient boast
That Freedom lights their genial hearth.
Who venture furthest, dare the most,
And are the valour of the earth.
Who fall in Britain's wars,
How fortunate are they.
Sepulchred as conquerors
In Britain's memory !
And those who mourn, how sweet their tears
How proud their grief shall be,
When of their glorious dead they boast
Who shone upon the battle's hearth,
Who ventured furthest, dared the most.
And were the valour of the earth !
No sacrifice shall tame.
No terror daunt our will ;
Destiny's immortal aim
Our conquering arms fulfil,
24
PRO P ATRIA ET REGINA
Redeem the Earth for Man and make
Our boast a surety still ;
While women dry their tears, and run
To feed the battle's glowing hearth
With husband, brother, lover, son,
The chosen valour of the earth.
A thousand years of war
In front of Britain throng :
Empire Britain battled for
Against heroic wrong,
The sword that won must guard and beat
The measure of her song ;
While Britons make their ancient boast
By every battle's glowing hearth —
" We venture furthest, dare the most.
The chosen valour of the earth."
John Davidson.
Rank and File.
O UNDISTINGUISHED Dead !
Whom the bent covers, or the rock-strewn steep
Shows to the stars, for you I mourn— I weep,
O undistinguished Dead 1
None knows your name.
Blackened and blurred in the wild battle's brunt.
Hotly you fell . . . with all your wounds in front
This is your fame !
Austin Dobson.
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PRO P ATRIA ET REGINA
A Gentleman of the Old School.
He lived in that past Georgian day,
When men were less inclined to say
That " Time is Gold," and overlay
With toil their pleasure ;
He held some land, and dwelt thereon, —
Where, I forget, — the house is gone ;
His Christian name, I think, was John, —
His surname, Leisure.
Reynolds has painted him, — a face
Filled with a fine, old-fashioned grace.
Fresh-coloured, frank, with ne'er a trace
Of trouble shaded ;
The eyes are blue, the hair is drest
In plainest way, — one hand is prest
Deep in a flapped canary vest.
With buds brocaded.
He wears a brown old Brunswick coat.
With silver buttons, — round his throat,
A soft cravat ; — in all you note
An elder fashion, —
A strangeness, which, to us who shine
In shapely hats, — whose coats combine
All harmonies of hue and line.
Inspires compassion.
He lived so long ago, you see !
Men were untravelled then, but we,
26
PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
Like Ariel, post o'er land and sea
With careless parting ;
He found it quite enough for him
To smoke his pipe in " garden trim,"
And watch, about the fish tank's brim.
The swallows darting.
He liked the well-wheel's creaking tongue,—
He liked the thrush that stopped and sung,—
He liked the drone of flies among
His netted peaches ;
He liked to watch the sunlight fall
Athwart his ivied orchard wall ;
Or pause to catch the cuckoo's call
Beyond the beeches.
His were the times of Paint and Patch,
And yet no Ranelagh could match
The sober doves that round his thatch
Spread tails and sidled ;
He liked their ruffling, puffed content, —
For him their drowsy wheelings meant
More than a Mall of Beaux that bent.
Or Belles that bridled.
Not that, in truth, when life began
He shunned the flutter of the fan ;
He too had maybe "pinked his man"
In Beauty's quarrel ;
But now his " fervent youth " had flown
Where lost things go ; and he was grown
As staid and slow-paced as his own
Old hunter. Sorrel.
27
PRO P ATRIA ET REG IN A
Yet still he loved the chase, and held
That no composer's score excelled
The merry horn, when Sweetlip swelled
Its jovial riot ;
But most his measured words of praise
Caressed the angler's easy ways, —
His idly meditative days, —
His rustic diet.
Not that his " meditating" rose
Beyond a sunny summer doze ;
He never troubled his repose
With fruitless prying ;
But held, as law for high and low.
What God withholds no man can know,
And smiled away inquiry so,
Without replying.
We read — alas, how much we read ! —
The jumbled strifes of creed and creed
With endless controversies feed
Our groaning tables ;
His books— and they sufficed him— were
Cotton's " Montaigne," "The Grave" of Blair,
A " Walton " — much the worse for wear.
And " ^sop's Fables."
One more,—" The Bible." Not that he
Had searched its page as deep as we ;
No sophistries could make him see
Its slender credit ;
28
PRO PATRIA ET REG IN A
It may be that he could not count
The sires and sons to Jesse's fount, —
He Hked the " Sermon on the Mount," —
And more, he read it.
Once he had loved, but failed to wed,
A red-cheeked lass who long was dead ;
His ways were far too slow, he said.
To quite forget her ;
And still when time had turned him gray,
The earliest hawthorn buds in May
Would find his lingering feet astray,
Where first he met her.
" In Calo Qutes " heads the stone
On Leisure's grave, — now little known,
A tangle of wild rose has grown
So thick across it ;
The " Benefactions" still declare
He left the clerk an elbow-chair,
And " 12 Pence Yearly to Prepare
A Christmas Posset."
Lie softly, Leisure ? Doubtless you.
With too serene a conscience drew
Your easy breath, and slumbered through
The gravest issue ;
But we, to whom our age allows
Scarce space to wipe our weary brows.
Look down upon your narrow house,
Old friend, and miss you !
Austin Dobson.
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PRO P ATRIA ET RE GIN A
In the Shadow.
I JOY to know I shall rejoice again
Borne upward on the good tide of the world,
Shall mark the cowslip toss'd, the fern uncurl'd,
And hear the enraptured lark high o'er my pain
And o'er green graves ; and I shall love the wane
Of sea-charm'd sunsets with all winds upfurl'd,
And that great gale adown whose stream are whirl'd
Sad autumn dreams, dead hopes, and broodings
vain.
Nor do I fear that I shall faintlier bless
The joy of youth and maid, or the gold hair
Of a wild-hearted child ; then, none the less,
Bow in my hidden shrine, no man aware,
Feed on a living sorrow's sacredness.
And lean my forehead on this altar-stair.
Edward Dowden.
The Singer's Plea.
Why do I sing ? I know not why, my friend.
The ancient rivers, rivers of renown,
A royal largess to the sea roll down,
And on those liberal highways nations send
Their tributes to the world, — stored corn and wine.
Gold-dust, the wealth of pearls, and orient spar,
And myrrh, and ivory, and cinnabar.
And dyes to make a presence-chamber shine.
30
PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
But in the woodlands, where the wild-flowers are,
The rivulets, they must have their innocent will,
Who all the summer hours are singing still ;
The birds care for them, and sometimes a star,
And should a tired child rest beside the stream
Sweet memories would slide into his dream.
Edward Dowden.
A Lament.
So much to do, so little done.
Our thread of life a third part spun,
And yet its labours scarce begun ;
While, stealing downwards sun by sun,
The empty years in silence run
To darkness and oblivion.
Leaving behind them still unwon
A people's benediction.
DUFFERIN AND AVA, 1854.
" The Harp begins to murmur
of itself."
(W. Yeats. The Shadowy Waters.")
If silent hangs in solitude unsought
The lyre that did to life so frequent start
Beneath thy hand, who now, estranged from Art,
Broodest in deedless reverie distraught :
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PRO P ATRIA ET REGINA
Give thy dumb servant voice, and be it fraught
With airs that lulled the cradle of Mozart,
Or wilder strain where Celt abides apart
To Cambria's bard or bard of Erin taught.
But doth thy harpstring, stirred invisibly,
Responsive to a self-begotten tone,
Or tremulous to touch of Deity,
Make with faint note a melody unknown,
Breathed by no wind, resounded by no sea.
Then art thou called, then give us of thine own.
Richard Garnett.
A Lady to a Knight.
Sir Knight, thou lovest not.
If thou wouldst prove too dear ;
And I less worshipful, I wot,
If thou couldst kneel so near.
So must thy shield of flawless fame
Shine clear in honour's light ;
Lest I should know a queenly shame
To find thee less a knight.
Richard Watson Gilder.
November 13, 1899.
War.
Two men on thrones, or crouched behind,
With cunning words the world would blind.
With faces grave, averse from spoils,
32
PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
They weave their thieving, cynic toils.
One thing they mean, another speak ;
Bland phrases utter, tongue in cheek.
Stale truths turn lies on velvet lips ;
The candid heavens are in eclipse ;
From crooked minds, and hearts all black.
Comes WAR upon its flaming track,
And reeking fiends in happy hell
Shout, "All is well!"
Then lives surprise I
While not a devil dares to shirk,
But all his hellish malice plies —
The angels, too, begin their work.
Now every virtue issues forth
And busy is from south to north :
Self-sacrifice, and love, and pity,
Tramp all the rounds in field and city ;
Mercy beyond a price, sweet ruth,
Courage and comradeship and truth,
And gentlest deed and noblest thought,
Into the common day are brought.
Man lives at heaven's gate, and dies
For fellow-man with joyful cries.
And all the while hell's imps are free,
To work their will with fearful glee.
The beast in man anew is born ;
Revenge and lust and pride and scorn.
And glory false and hateful hate.
All join to desecrate the State.
Richard Watson Gilder.
c 33
PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
Horizons.
Green field, and beach and sea, dim clouds and sky,
My dull eyes hold them all as here I lie.
Upon this breezy edge the wind sweeps by.
Green fields, with smile of sunlight on their breast,
Grey stones, by fretful waters worn and pressed,
And that dim line of distance and of rest.
My eyes scale Heaven's vast canopy complete,
Then sink where bend the grasses at my feet,
Can Earth touch Heaven, so far? and shall they
meet?
Earth with its ceaseless life of joy and pain.
And that blue vault of silence ? ah ! in vain
We stretch our arms to draw Heaven down again.
In vain with passionate entreaty cry
To Heaven above — vainly on earth we lie,
Distant and dim the place where earth meets sky.
Distant and dim, yet never to decrease.
For ever far, yet there our questions cease.
Where Earth receives that heavenly kiss of peace.
Forever distant, yet within our view
Softer than pity smiles the misty blue —
As in a dream the face of one we knew.
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PRO P ATRIA ET RE GIN A
We strive to reach thee nearer, live in vain
For ever thou removest from our pain,
For ever distant thou and hope remain.
O spirit, Sister, whisper to my soul,
Art thou content ? Say is this life the whole.
Or hast thou reached some pre-ordained goal ?
Thou art not in the earth beneath our feet.
Too far the arching vault for souls to greet.
Shew us the place where Earth with Heaven may
meet.
Shew us the place, or else we wander by.
Stand at that portal dim where summers die,
Where love completed knows not earth nor sky.
M.\RIA VON GLEHN.
Sanctus Spiritus.
How shall we seek thee, and within what shrine ?
Deep in the secret places of the soul
We know thee, and we feel thy strong control,
Thou who within us art, and yet art all divine.
How shall we worship thee, O Spirit blest ?
In humble labour, and the spirit's strife,
In love — for thou art love, and love is life.
In death — for, thou being with us, that is rest.
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PRO P ATRIA ET REGINA
How shall we speak thy name, thy power confess
O impulse of our being, senses, thought,
Thou life of life, without thee we are nought,
But having thee we are not comfortless.
And wilt thou leave us, dead, beneath the sod ?
Thy voice within us cries that we are thine,
In thee we live, and dying are divine.
Thou being with us we are sons of God.
Maria von Glehn.
Life in Death.
O SWEET for dying hands to hold
The earliest jonquil pale ;
The breath is faint, the lips grow cold
As o'er the golden leaves they fold.
Their odour to inhale.
Sweet thus upon a flower to die.
And dream its whole life's dream,
Before the cold white roots to He,
To feel the blossom shoot on high,
The slow sap gush and stream.
Its beauty comes from out of sight ;
Perchance the spirit goes
To win that self-same clime whose light
Can make these petals warm and bright
Before their buds unclose.
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PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
Through death it comes ; 'tis all we know,
Yet this should bring us gain, —
Since such delight from death can flow,
We need not shudder when we go
Where silence quiets pain.
Life hems us round on every side,
Like dim translucent stone ;
Its carven walls and floors divide
The eternal spaces deep and wide
From our aerial cone.
But every year when spring is new
And tender grass is green.
The heavy-scented flowers renew
The miracle of death shot through
By many a chink unseen.
Dumb messengers, whose only speech
Is their intense perfume.
Out of the infinite they reach
Some subtle mystery to teach
Of hope beyond the tomb.
Thus, when my mortal days are o'er,
May Death, no dreadful thing,
Break through the alabaster floor
And living spikenard on me pour
From yellow flowers in spring.
Edmund Gosse.
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PRO P ATRIA ET REGINA
To my Daughter.
Thou hast the colours of the Spring,
The gold of Kingcups triumphing,
The blue of wood-bells wild ;
But winter-thoughts thy spirit fill,
And thou art wandering from us still.
Too young to be our child.
Yet have thy fleeting smiles confessed,
Thou dear and much-desired guest.
That home is near at last ;
Long lost in high mysterious lands.
Close by our door thy spirit stands.
Its journey well-nigh past.
Oh, sweet bewildered soul, I watch
The fountains of thine eyes, to catch
New fancies bubbling there,
To feel our common light, and lose
The flush of strange ethereal hues
Too dim for us to share !
Fade, cold immortal lights, and make
This creature human for my sake,
Since I am nought but clay ;
An angel is too fine a thing
To sit beside my chair and sing,
And cheer my passing day.
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PRO PATRIA ET REG I. V A
I smile, who could not smile, unless
The air of rapt unconsciousness
Passed, with the fading hours ;
I joy in every childish sign
That proves the stranger less divine
And much more meekly ours.
I smile, as one by night who sees
Through mist of newly-budded trees,
The clear Orion set,
And knows that soon the dawn will fly
In fire across the riven sky,
And gild the woodlands wet.
Edmund Gosse.
A Freemason's Song.
Brethren, met as masons here,
Met each other^s hearts to cheer.
Let us hymn the praises clear
Of Freemasonry !
Here the truth of truth is found,
Here are souls together bound,
Linked with souls the whole world round
In humanity !
When the world's Almighty Lord
Spake his great creative Word,
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PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
Rose the spheres with one accord
All in harmony !
O great Architect of all —
Of star, and sun, and rolling ball !
Hear us when on Thee we call
In thy infinity !
Build our lives like temples fair ;
Keep us ever in thy care ;
Grant us still thy love to share,
Through eternity !
Let brotherhood on earth prevail ;
Let virtue more and more avail,
That masons everywhere may hail
Man's true victory !
So let our Craft its purpose gain.
Till freedom, truth, and love shall reign.
And bind mankind in one again,
In Freemasonry !
William Hastie.
Haymaking among the Hills.
How sweet it is to watch through casement clear
The busy haymakers athwart the fields.
Reaping the simple growth the upland yields,
And gathering all the harvest of our year :
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PRO P ATRIA ET REGINA
Grey sires and matrons 'mong the throng appear ;
The lusty mower swings the flashing scythe ;
Brisk youths and buxom girls and children blythe
With gleeful toil the towering hayricks rear.
A softer sunlight fills the heath-crowned glen ;
A brighter radiance floods the bending skies ;
A happier hum swells eve's low, dreamlike sound ;
The year's glad fulness joyeth beasts and men ;
While, from a thousand altars ranged, doth rise
The sweet-breathed incense of the grateful
ground !
William Hastie.
The Birth of Beauty.
I FELL a-dreaming when the night was young,
And boldly passed within the golden gate.
Where myriad mystic forms stood ranged in state,
With all the deep-eyed poets who have sung ;
I dream'd that Beauty's hour of birth was rung.
And all on strain with yearning eyes did wait,
To see the secret hid of ancient Fate,
And all the doors of mystery open flung.
And every star flashed out its purest ray.
And rhythmic orbs danced round in tuneful choir,
Till all that lived in earth, and sea, and sky,
Gave all their fruitful strength dark Death to slay,
.And Space and Time brought forth in living fire
The Soul of Love, Man's Immortality.
William Hastie.
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Life and Death (Echoes).
The West a glimmering lake of light,
A dream of pearly weather,
The first of stars is burning white —
The star we watch together.
Is April dead 1 The unresting year
Will shape us our September,
And April's work is done, my dear —
Do you not remember ?
O gracious eve ! O happy star.
Still-flashing, glowing, sinking ! —
Who lives of lovers near or far
So glad as I in thinking ?
The gallant world is warm and green,
For May fulfils November.
When lights and leaves and loves have been.
Sweet, well you remember ?
O star benignant, and serene,
I take the good to-morrow.
That fills from verge to verge my dream,
With all its joy and sorrow !
The old, sweet spell is unforgot
That turns to June December ;
And, though the world remembered not
Love, we would remember.
William Ernest Henley, 1876.
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Life and Death (Echoes).
The past was goodly once, and yet, when all is said,
The best of it we know is that it's done and dead.
Dwindled and faded quite, perished beyond recall.
Nothing is left at last of what one time was all.
Coming back like a ghost, staring and lingering on,
Never a word it tells but proves it dead and gone.
Duty and work and joy — these things it cannot give ;
And the present is life, and life is good to live.
Let it lie where it fell, far from the living sun.
The past, that goodly once, is gone and dead and
done.
William Ernest Henley.
Battle Hymn of the RepubHc.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the
Lord :
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes
of wrath are stored ;
He hath loosed the faithful lightning of his terrible
swift sword :
His truth is marching on.
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I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred
circHng camps ;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening
dews and damps ;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and
flaring lamps.
His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows
of steel :
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my
grace shall deal ;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent
with his heel.
Since God is marching on."
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never
, call retreat ;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his
judgment seat :
Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant,
my feet !
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across
the sea.
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you
and me :
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make
men free,
While God is marching on.
Julia Ward Howe.
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Our Orders.
Weave no more silks, ye Lyons looms,
To deck our girls for gay delights I
The crimson flower of battle blooms.
And solemn marches fill the night.
Weave but the flag whose bars to-day
Drooped heavy o'er our early dead,
And homely garments, coarse and gray,
For orphans that must earn their bread I
Keep back your tunes, ye viols sweet,
That poured delight from other lands !
Rouse there the dancer's restless feet I
The trumpet leads our warrior bands.
And ye that wage the war of words
With mystic fame and subtle power,
Go, chatter to the idle birds,
Or teach the lesson of the hour !
Ye Sibyl Arts, in one stern knot
Be all your offices combined I
Stand close, while Courage draws the lot.
The destiny of human kind.
And if that destiny should fail.
The sun should darken in the sky.
The eternal bloom of nature pale,
And God, and Truth, and Freedom die !
Julia Ward Howe.
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The Crusader.
'La princesse M^licerte attendit dans sa tour, moult triste-
ment, pendant sept ann^es le retour de son ami le seigneur
d'Avranches et Montaugis. Enfin ledit chevalier lui revint '
* * *—Old Chronicle.
Come, lift your eyes and let me see
Your heavy eyelids heavier grown,
Since 'twas no use to look for me/ 0\
Grief lies upon them hke a stone !
Ah., I have been too much alone 1
Give me the smile that I deserve.
Since last we met — and that was when ? —
Your lips have got a sadder curve.
I think you have not smiled since then ?
Why should 1 smile ott other men f
Let joy that is kill grief that was,
Nor tears for ever leave a stain.
Bid from your cheeks this paleness pass !
Are roses ruined by the rain ?
Kiss them, and make them red again /
Are you as loving as you were ?
Or have your hands forgot to cling ?
Since the last time that you were here
My_arms hung empty , so rrowing .
My heart stood still remembering !
Violet Hunt.
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Lovers in London.
Here in the park, on the scanty grass —
The black sheep straying here and there —
The sullen pond, like a dim grey glass —
I had rather be here than anywhere I
You were here, and your eyes of blue
Were as good to me as a summer sky.
You were here, and I never knew
That the leaves were dusty, the grass was dry.
I had rather be here — and know that I stand
Where your footsteps fell, though they left no
sign-
By the gate, by the tree with the iron band, r q^ ^.^xtc/i
By the wandering waves of the .Serpentine/> -^
Where we stopped to see if the gardener
Had dressed his beds in crimson or blue,
And read by the labels what flowers they were.
I'd rather be anywhere. Sweet, with you I
I know if you take the train for an hour
There are birds, and brooks, and the usual
things.
The unlettered tree, the untrained flower. 1lS.'^^Vac^^UJCJL
I go not hence. Love has clipped my wings.
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Hi
London still where a love that is dead
FHts like a ghost, behind, before.
On the gravel walks, and over my head
The dull grey skies that she sees no more !
Violet Hunt.
The Doubting Heart.
She hated song and light and flowers.
Life was a burden to be borne,
A weary rosary of hours
Told listlessly from morn to morn.
The long hours leading to the light !
The day-dawn longed for like a friend !
Day slowly wearing to the night !
The dreary night that would not end 1
So at the opening of a door
Her weary eyelids rose and fell,
And silence pleased her more and more,
And darkness soothed her like a spell.
And when he spoke, she could not speak.
But turned her face to let him see
The little hollows in her cheek
That lev« had dug there, needlessly.
Violet Hunt.
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Cupid and Psyche.
Cupid once at break of day
From his playmate stole away,
Sought his martial father.
" I am tired," he said, " of bliss,
Give me now your sword to kiss.
Fame in war I'd gather."
Smiling, Mars received the boy.
Took him to his breast in joy.
Gave him shield and sabre.
"Even Love may fight with Hate,
Go, my son, and face your fate,
Love is less than labour."
Cupid went, and fought his fight,
Victor he came home at night,
Wounded, weary, older.
Feebly to his halls he went.
His red life-blood almost spent.
But his heart the bolder.
Psyche doubting saw him come.
Knew not him who sought their home.
But when he came nearer
Clasped him in her arms anew, —
" War has made a man of you.
And I love you dearer."
William R. Jack.
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Self-Completeness.
Sweet, sweet is life that feels itself complete,
Self-centred, yet responding to all claim
That comes in human nature's holy name,
And seeks no triumph and has no defeat :
That needs no secret covert, or retreat,
To nurse its projects or to dream of fame ;
And, rising calm o'er mischance, is the same
If sun be shining or the tempests beat.
The hero in the common ways I hold
Best source of inspiration for the song :
If he exist not, mellowing the throng,
The singer's voice may then sound prim and cold.
Oh, hers the secret of the lesson wise
That may be read in oft-dimmed wedded eyes.
Alexander Japp.
The Two Grenadiers.
(From Heine.)
To France there marched two grenadiers
Who in Russia had prisoners lain ;
And as they came to the German land,
Their heads were bowed in pain.
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Then heard they the sad, sad story,
How France was of Fortune forsaken,
The great army conquered and scattered,
And the Emperor, the Emperor, taken.
Then over this news so grievous
The two to weep were fain :
The one cried out, " What a pain I feel ;
How my old wound burns again ! "
The other said : " All is over now :
I would I could die with thee ;
But I have a wife and child at home
Would starve were it not for me."
" Oh, what care I for wife or child,
In my heart grand desires awaken.
Let them beg their bread when hungry.
My Emperor, my Emperor is taken !
" Grant me, O Comrade, one request :
If I were soon to die,
Then take my body with thee to France,
In French earth let me lie.
" Let my Legion-cross with its ribbon red,
Upon my heart be laid ;
And put my gun into my hand.
And buckle me on my blade.
" So will I lie, and hearken well.
Like a sentinel, in my grave.
Till once I hear the cannon roar
And the gallop of horses brave.
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"The Emperor will ride over my grave,
Many swords flash over the field :
Full-armed from out the grave I'll spring
My Emperor to shield."
Alexander Japp.
An English Mother.
Every week of every season out of English ports
go forth,
White of sail or white of trail. East or West or
South or North,
Scattering like a flight of pigeons, half a hundred
homesick ships
Bearing half a thousand striplings — each with kisses
on his lips
Of some silent mother, fearful lest she show herself
too fond.
Giving him to bush or desert as one pays a sacred
bond.
Tell us, you who hide your heart-break, Which is
sadder when all 's done.
To repine, an English mother, or to roam, an
English son ?
You who shared your babe's first sorrow when his
cheek no longer pressed
On the perfect, snow and rose-leaf beauty of your
mother-breast ;
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In the rigour of his nurture was your woman's
mercy mute,
Knowing he was doomed to exile with the savage
and the brute ?
Did you school yourself to absence all his adoles-
cent years,
That though you be torn with parting, he should
never see the tears ?
Now his ship has left the offing for the many-
mouthdd sea,
This your guerdon, empty heart, by empty bed to
bend the knee !
And if he be but the latest thus to leave your
dwindling board.
Is a sorrow less for being added to a sorrow's
hoard ?
Is the mother-pain the duller that to-day his brothers
stand,
Facing ambuscades of Congo or alarms of Zulu-
land ?—
Toil, where blizzards drift the snow like smoke
across the plains of death ? —
Faint, where tropic fens at morning steam with
fever-laden breath ? —
Die, that in some distant river's veins the English
blood may run —
Mississippi, Yangtze, Ganges, Nile, Mackenzie,
Amazon ?
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Ah ! you still must wait and suffer in a solitude
untold
While your sisters of the nations call you passive,
call you cold —
Still must scan the news of sailings, breathless
search the slow gazette.
Find the dreaded name . . , and, later, get his
blithe farewell ! And yet —
Shall the lonely at the hearthstone shame the legions
who have died
Grudging not the price their country pays for
progress and for pride ?
— Nay, but England, do not ask us thus to emulate
your scars
Until women's tears are reckoned in the budgets of
your wars.
Robert Underwood Johnson.
New York City, June, 1899.
Myths of the Dawn.
The Sun-god chose an earth-child for his bride,
And drew her in the evening to his side,
And gave her all the sweetness of his light.
And kept her very close to him till night :
And then he left her, in high heaven to be
His perfect witness, wherein all should see
Light's utter sweetness, and not fear its fire.
And, in the absence of her soul's desire, —
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The darkness, where he is not, — she shines still,
Her being''s purpose to obey his will.
The softness of her smile fills all the night
With tender radiance, and persuasive light.
Men say it is the shining of his face, —
That she beholds him, in his distant place.
Her presence spoils the darkness of its prey,
No foulness near her purity can stay.
WTien suppliant earth-clouds reach her, big with
fears.
Their burden falleth, as a mist of tears :
And little wandering vapours, lost in night.
She draws, and gathers for her crown of light.
The whole earth lifts to her its great unrsst,
And yearns to be up-taken to her breast.
Men whisper that the shadow of its pain
Has sometimes on her life, like darkness, lain ;
Then bless her very softly, as they say,
He will not surely now be long away.
But come, and rest her faintness on his might.
And clasp her sweetness in his arms of light.
A. Johnson-Brown.
Myths of the Dawn.
'El* avTip yap ^w/xev Kai Kivov/x(da Kai iantv.
My being's All, my Life I be less to me
Only one moment, that mine eyes may see,
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Hold from me once one thought, withdraw thine
heart
One little space, from all thou lov'st apart,
That so thine image may one moment grow
Distinct from all that thou hast made me know ;
— Only one moment, while I show men why
A moment longer from thee I should die ;
— Only that they may know Love's purest light
Is evermore invisible to sight, —
Know Love can only as supremest live
When nothing of itself is left to give !
Couldst thou, that men may know thee and
confess,
For one short moment unto them be less.
Give to them less of Love, not quite Love's all,
That something may remain whereon to call.
Ah, then, beseech thee, hearken not my cry.
Better should men, than Thou shouldst, Thee deny,
Better for all thy gifts Thee never bless ;
Than Thou shouldst have to give one gift the less.
Than Thou grow visible, to mortal sight,
By any darkness in thee, loss of light !
Be still to us invisible, unknown.
That nothing so be ever left alone.
Apart enough, to know thee from its being,
Apart enough, to see thee with its seeing :
Enfold us with the circlings of thy life,
Brood over us, like heaven, above the strife,
The weariness of knowing, pain of seeing,
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And all the clanging discords of our being,
An everlasting silence — which is rest —
An overshadowing Presence of the Best,
Night coolness, lying softly after strife.
Upon the wearied eyelids of our life, —
No need to know or see, no need to speak,
Only the Strong One holding fast the weak.
A. Johnson-Brown.
Fulfilment.
It was the clear strong voice of Spring 1 heard,
Across the melting snows one winter's day,
And my heart leapt within me, nor could say
Of all the wondrous meaning any word.
But set the whole to music ; like a bird
That sings its heart out to the golden ray
That chanced at morning first to pass its way.
Not knowing what the thing was that it dared.
But God knew ! Neither counted it too bold
That I, His creature here, should crave the sun,
And think its coming meant alone for me ;
For gives He not to each what each can hold.
And in His o\vn time filleth every one?
So unto me, my Joy, He giveth thee.
A. Johnson-Brown.
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The Sone of the Women.
(Lady DufFerin's Fund for medical aid to the women of
India. )
How shall she know the worship we would do her?
The walls are high and she is very far.
How shall the women's message reach unto her
Above the tumult of the packed bazaar ?
Free wind of March, against the lattice
blowing,
Bear thou our thanks lest she depart un-
knowing.
Go forth across the fields we may not roam in,
Go forth beyond the trees that rim the city
To whatsoe'er fair place she hath her home in,
Who dowered us with wealth of love and pity.
Out of our shadow pass and seek her sing-
ing—
" I have no gifts but Love alone for bringing."
Say that we be a feeble folk who greet her.
But old in grief, and very wise in tears ;
Say that we, being desolate, entreat her
That she forget us not in after years ;
For we have seen the light, and it were
grievous
To dim that dawning if our lady leave us.
By life that ebbed with none to staunch the failing,
By Love's sad harvest garnered in the spring,
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When Love in Ignorance wept unavailing
O'er young buds dead before their blossoming ;
By all the grey owl watched, the pale moon
viewed,
In past grim years declare our gratitude !
By hands uplifted to the Gods that heard not.
By gifts that found no favour in their sight,
By faces bent above the babe that stirred not,
By nameless horrors of the stifling night ;
By ills foredone, by peace her toils discover,
Bid Earth be good beneath and Heaven above
her!
If she have sent her servants in our pain.
If she have fought with Death and dulled his
sword ;
If she have given back our sick again,
And to the breast the weakling lips restored,
Is it a little thing that she has wrought ?
Then Life and Death and Motherhood be
nought.
Go forth, O wind, our message on thy wings,
And they shall hear thee pass and bid thee
speed.
In reed-roofed hut, or white-walled home of kings,
Who have been holpen by her in their need.
All spring shall give thee fragrance, and the
wheat
Shall be a tasselled floorcloth to thy feet.
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Haste, for our hearts are with thee, take no rest !
Loud-voiced ambassador, from sea to sea
Proclaim the blessing, manifold, confest.
Of those in darkness by her hand set free,
Then very softly to her presence move,
And whisper : " Lady, lo, they know, and
love ! "
RuDYARD Kipling.
Tusitala.
We spoke of a rest on the fairy hills of the North,
but he
Far from the firths of the east, and the racing
sounds of the west.
Sleeps ; and his slumber is lulled by the infinite
surge of the sea
Weary and well content in his grave on the
Vaiea crest.
Tusitala, the friend of children, the teller of
tales,
Giver of counsel and dreams, a wonder, a world's
delight.
Looks o'er the labours of men, on the hill and the
plain ; and the sails
Pass and repass on the sea that he loved in the
day and the night.
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Winds of the west or the east in the rainy season
blow,
Heavy with perfume, and all the fragrant woods
are wet :
Winds of the east and the west as they wander to
and fro,
Waft him the love of the land he loved, and the
long regret.
Once we were kindest, he said, when the endless
leagues of the sea
Rolled between us, but now that no wash of the
wandering tides
Sunder each from each, yet nearer we seem to be.
Whom only the unoared stream of the River of
Death divides.
Andrew Lang.
The Last Cast.
The Angler's Apology.
Just one cast more ! how many a year
Beside how many a pool and stream.
Beneath the falling leaves and sere,
I've sighed, reeled up, and dreamed my dream !
Dreamed of the sport since April first
Her hands fulfilled of flowers and snow,
Adown the pastoral valleys burst
Where Ettrick and where Teviot flow.
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Dreamed of the singing showers that break,
And sting the lochs, or near or far.
And rouse the trout, and stir " the take "
From Urigil to Lochinvar.
Dreamed of the kind propitious sky
O'er Ari Innes brooding grey ;
The sea trout, rushing at the fly,
Breaks the black wave with sudden spray !
Brief are man's days at best ; perchance
I waste my own, who have not seen
The castled palaces of France
Shine on the Loire in summer green.
And clear and fleet Eurotas still.
You tell me, laves his reedy shore,
And flows beneath his fabled hill.
Where Dian drave the chase of yore.
And " like a horse unbroken " yet
The yellow stream with rush and foam,
'Neath tower, and bridge, and parapet.
Girdles his ancient mistress, Rome !
I may not see them, but I doubt
If seen I'd find them half so fair
As ripples of the rising trout
That feed beneath the elms of Yair.
Nay, Spring I'd meet by Tweed or Ail,
And Summer by Loch Assynt's deep,
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And Autumn in that lonely vale
Where wedded Avons westward sweep.
Or where, amid the empty fields,
Among the bracken of the glen.
Her yellow wreath October yields
To crown the crystal brows of Ken.
Unseen, Eurotas, southward steal,
Unknown, Alpheus, westward glide,
You never heard the ringing reel,
The music of the water side !
Though Gods have walked your woods among.
Though nymphs have fled your banks along ;
You speak not that familiar tongxie
Tweed murmurs like my cradle song.
My cradle song, — nor other hymn
I'd choose, nor gentler requiem dear
Than Tweed's, that through death's twilight dim,
Mourned in the latest Minstrel's ear !
Andrew Lang.
Man and the Ascidian.
A Morality.
"The Ancestor remote of Man,"
Says Darwin, " is th' Ascidian,"
A scanty sort of water-beast
That, ninety million years at least
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Before Gorillas came to be,
Went swimming up and down the sea.
Their ancestors the pious praise,
And seek to imitate their ways ;
How, then, does our first parent hve,
What lesson has his life to give ?
Th' Ascidian tadpole, young and gay,
Doth Life with one bright eye survey.
His consciousness has easy play.
He's sensitive to grief and pain.
Has tail, and spine, and bears a brain.
And everything that fits the state
Of creatures we call vertebrate.
But age comes on ; with sudden shock
He sticks his head against a rock !
His tail drops off, his eye drops in,
His brain's absorbed into his skin ;
He does not move, nor feel, nor know
The tidal water's ebb and flow,
But still abides, unstirred, alone,
A sucker sticking to a stone.
And we, his children, truly we
In youth are, like the Tadpole, free.
And where we could we blithely go.
Have brains and hearts, and feel and know.
Then Age comes on ! To Habit we
Affix ourselves and are not free ;
Th' Ascidian's rooted to a rock.
And we are bond-slaves of the clock ;
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Our rocks are Medicine — Letters — Law,
From these our heads we cannot draw :
Our loves drop off, our hearts drop in,
And daily thicker grows our skin.
Ah, scarce we hve, we scarcely know
The wide world's moving ebb and flow,
The clanging current's ring and shock.
But we are rooted to the rock.
And thus at ending of his span,
Blind, deaf, and indolent, does Man
Revert to the Ascidian.
Andrew Lang.
The Open Secret.
Canst thou read the secret of the Earth, O
Wind,
When thou sweepest o'er the moorland, buffeting
the mountain's breast,
And against its headlands beating, with a sobbing
as entreating
Shelter in its bosom from thy wild unrest ?
Canst thou read the secret of the Earth, O Sea,
By thy seeking, straining, raging for it all the
winter night,
When, against the depths that hold thee, and the
shores that would enfold thee,
Blindly dashing in the fury of thy might ?
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Canst thou read the secret of the World, O Soul,
When thou strivest toward the infinite and
absolute Unknown,
Tracing firmamental courses, seeking elemental
sources,
Making all the wisdom of the schools thine
own ?
No ! the secret of the Earth is hid, O Wind,
From thy storm-wail o'er her surface, from thy
beating as in strife ;
Yet each gentlest breeze that bloweth with that
secret overfloweth,
Breathed in measured cadence from Earth's
hidden life !
So, the secret of the Earth is hid, O Sea,
Though to press against her fire-heart all thy
mighty tides were rolled ;
Only in thy current's meeting may'st thou feel her
pulses' beating,
Action and reaction, law-ruled, manifold !
And the secret of the World is hid, O Soul,
From thy many Titan-strivings, Ossa upon
Pelion hurled ;
In the heart contrite and lowly, in the heart up-
right and holy,
God reveals Himself — the secret of the World !
Henry Lawrie.
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An Evening Dream.
Where the meadow breathes the upland air
We are standing, my friend and I,
While the river flows through the vale's repose
With a gleam from the evening sky.
And a single star is in that sky,
Where it dwells in the amber light,
O'er the hills that rest In the distant west,
Like a glimpse of the Infinite.
And our thoughts are floating far and near
On the breath of the evening breeze ;
They are wafted high through the silent sky.
They are nestling amid the trees ;
They have caught a freshness from the stream,
And a strength from the purpled hills.
And the light of love from the star above,
And a music from murmuring rills.
Now they turn again, like wheeling birds.
They return to us, standing here,
With a consciousness of the depths of bliss
Which the heavens of God insphere.
And we speak no word, my friend nor I,
As we look in each other's eyes,
But our spirits shine with a joy divine,
And we feel, 'neath these twilight skies,
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That the world is swayed, despite the woe
That would hold us in hourly thrall,
By a joy unseen, that hath ever been
And shall ever be, lord of all.
O my friend, my friend, never again
On the face of this earth, I trow,
May our souls be bright with the joyous light
That is shining upon them now.
But remember, in the mist and rain
Of the days and the years to be.
When the world's dull pain rushes down again
Like a curtain 'twixt thee and me.
That our lives, my friend, have been entwined
In a link which no fate can sever.
For we've gazed, full-eyed, on the mighty tide
Of a love that endures for ever !
Henry Lawrie.
St. Mary's Loch :
A Reminiscence.
The breeze comes freshly from the west
The lake is glancing brightly,
From smiling ripple to the crest
Of wavelet dancing lightly.
No quiet rest, no mirrored hills
In placid apparition,
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No steadfast azure which fulfils
Its own sweet repetition.
Fast float the cloudlets through the sky,
Fast tly the shadows under,
Gone is the fair serenity
That moved our fancy's wonder.
Yet reck we not ; for, mirrored still
In every changing feature,
The Earth, from Lake and Sky and Hill,
Reflects our Human Nature.
The freshening Lake, the brightening Skies,
Half veiling half revealing,
Reflect they not in mystic guise
The freshness of our feeling?
'&
.And chords within are lightly stirred
By every floweret's blowing.
By moorland sound, by glancing bird,
By gentle rillets' flowing.
We take great Nature to our breast.
And every passing minute
.She soothes us with a sweet unrest.
That has no sorrow in it.
So bear we with us, wandering on
By meadow and by river,
.•\ Beauty that our hearts have won.
And shall possess for ever.
Henry Lawrie.
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A Christmas Greeting from
Australia.
England ! many thoughts are turning
To thy well-loved shores to-day,
Over land and over ocean
Winging their unwearied way
Till they rest on thee, old England,
And thy Christmas holiday.
Greeting to thee, noble England,
Keeping now thy Christmas cheer.
Sitting throned among the peoples,
Knowing not reproach nor fear,
Speaking still the grand old accents
Freedom ever smiled to hear !
Mighty Mother of the Nations,
All the world is at thy feet ;
Costly freights from furthest islands
Vie to make thy stores complete ;
And our hearts, in loving wishes.
Render tribute as is meet.
Greeting to all those who love us
As they keep their Christmas-tide,
Drawing, as the short day closes,
Nearer to the ingle-side ;
Growing still, as life advances.
In affection true and tried !
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Here, the skies are bright and cloudless :
Parrots through the gum-trees fly,
Bright rosellas, flaming lories,
With their unfamiliar cry ;
Cattle seek the blackwoods' shelter
From the glare of earth and sky.
But we think, amid the brightness,
Of the England that we know,
With its uncongenial winter
Dim with rain or white with snow.
And of those true hearts who loved us
In the winters long ago.
O ye loved ones ! we are severed
By the breadth of all the earth,
But your faces rise before us
Round the altar of the hearth.
And our spirits hover o'er you
As ye ply your Christmas mirth.
Think of us, old friends and brothers,
Pledge us with a kindly thought ;
To old England and her children
Still we cry. Forget us not I
For our hearts must perish in us
Ere old England be forgot.
Henry Lawrie.
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From the Sea.
A MONTH ago, a month ago,
— How far it seems, how swiftly sped —
When winds of June were breathing low
And larks were singing overhead.
We walked together, thou and I,
As still we'd wish to walk together
And love each other till we die
Through all the moods of this world's weather.
And, as we passed, the common ways
Seemed brighter than they used to look,
As singers ope, on festal days.
Their best and choicest choral-book.
Daisies and sunshine clothed the lea ;
The speedwell opened eyes of blue ;
With sorrel and anemone
The ancient woods were clad anew.
The thrush was singing on the spray ;
The brook went singing down the dale ;
And from the hillside far away
Faintly was heard the cuckoo's tale.
But now, beneath a southern sky.
The stately vessel glides along ;
I hear the ocean's melody.
But hear no more the woodland's song.
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Not that I slight the evening's blush
That follows on the sunset's glow,
The rosy southern afterflush
That never floods the skies we know.
Nor prize I less the waves that break
By night with phosphorescent ray,
Repeating, in the vessel's wake,
The splendours of the Milky Way.
All are but blossoms of the flower
Of Beauty spreading everywhere ;
God's golden rose, the blessed dower
Of hearts at peace and debonnair.
Do not our thoughts ascend to Him,
Rising above Earth's fairest light,
Through chantings of an endless hymn.
And through the starry Infinite?
And shall not love like ours be fain
To glide on wings of beauty forth,
Knowing that beauty is the gain
Of loving souls, or south or north.
And that our paths, howe'er they sever.
May still be tracked, o'er land and sea.
By that sweet influence, which ever
May shed, pray God, its light on thee ?
But yet at times our thoughts will brood
Upon a future darkly hidden,
And muse o'er all the vanished good.
And vainly dream of joys forbidden.
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The shadow of a bygone pain
Mingles with shadows rising still ;
And who can bid away again
The boding phantasies of ill ?
Vainly we murmur. To be lords
Of all that life and death can bring,
We must submit to the awards
Of Him who sends us suffering.
'Tis His to mould our future days,
Ours to accept their veiled shape ;
At home to tread familiar ways,
Or roam, like seabirds of the Cape.
To ledges of the rock they cling,
Or, falling seaward, court the gale,
And ply the never-weained wing
In quest of some far-distant sail ;
Their hope to find a sustenance
Wherever waves are glancing by,
Their home wherever fate or chance
May lead beneath the arching sky.
Such be our mood ; for, over all,
God's sunshine smiles through earth's dull
tears.
And who can tell what good may fall
Within the circle of the years ?
The years will pass, come weal or woe.
Fled like a thought of joy or pain ;
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For all the bliss they can bestow
We would not live them o'er again.
Nor need we murmur, though they bring
This world's delights in scanty measure,
Or leave us pale and sorrowing
To mourn love's fled or faded treasure.
Brightly to beacon us above.
Our bliss has only further flown,
Nearer to the Eternal Love
And those whose hearts reflect our own.
Henry L.\wrie.
The Singers.
They sang together— the birds, the stream,
And my love together ;
And I know not whether
The birds sang sweetlier, or the stream.
Through light and shade as the stream ran on
In quivering measure
It sang of the pleasure
Of life and light as it still ran on.
The birds sang out of the heart of May
How Earth was enraptured
At having recaptured
The joy and beauty of youthful May.
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But still the sweetliest sang my love ;
For was not her singing
Life-laden, and ringing
Through heart and brain with the joy of Love ?
And Nature's gladness, through earth or sky
In melody swelling.
Is only foretelling
This greater gladness beneath the sky.
O Love ! thou fairest and best of all !
Through all things entwining.
All gladness combining,
We crown thee highest and best of all !
Henry Lawrie.
The Poet's Cup.
Wine of Life and Wine of Death-
Fill the brimming beaker up :
Joy shall sparkle, sorrow darkle
In the rich and wondrous cup.
Bring the mellow vintage ripened
In the still and earnest soul :
Bring the ruddy must of passion —
Let them mingle in the bowl.
Bring the precious juices gushing
From the presses of the heart,
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Won from spirits torn and bleeding
By affliction's mystic art.
Bring the untold treasures centred
In the holy name of Love,
Bring its hopes, its fears, its sorrows,
Bring its joys, all joys above.
Bring the poet's high aspirings
For the true, the bright, the fair,
Visions of ideal beauty.
Crown of all things rich and rare.
Bring the rapturous ardours swelling
In the martyr's song of praise,
Bring the thrill of noble passion
From the old heroic days.
Wine of Life and Wine of Death
Fill the brimming beaker up :
Joy shall sparkle, sorrow darkle
In the rich and wondrous cup.
Mix the wine of joy and sorrow,
Quaff it, brothers, with a prayer
To the God who out of darkness
Brings the light of all things fair
That the draught may stir within us
Solemn thought and purpose high.
Nerve us for the toil of battle.
Fire our hearts to win or die.
Henry Lawrik
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On an Old Sonof.
Little snatch of ancient song,
What has made thee live so long ?
Flying on thy wings of rhyme
Lightly down the depths of time,
Telling nothing strange or rare,
Scarce a thought or image there.
Nothing but the old old tale
Of a hapless lover's wail ;
Offspring of an idle hour,
Whence has come thy lasting power ?
By what turn of rhythm or phrase.
By what subtle careless grace.
Can thy music charm our ears
After full three hundred years ?
Little song, since thou wert born,
In the Reformation morn.
How much great has passed away.
Shattered or by slow decay.
Stately piles in ruins crumbled.
Lordly houses lost and humbled.
Thrones and realms in darkness hurled
Noble flags for ever furled,
W^isest schemes by statesmen spun.
Time has seen them one by one
Like the leaves of Autumn fall —
A little song outlives them all.
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There were mighty scholars then,
With the slow laborious pen,
Piling up their works of learning,
Men of solid deep discerning.
Widely famous as they taught
Systems of connected thought,
Destined for all future ages ;
Now the cobweb binds their pages.
All unread their volumes lie
Mouldering so peaceably.
Coffined thoughts of coffined men.
Never more to stir again
In the passion and the strife,
In the fleeting forms of life,
All their force and meaning gone,
As the stream of thought flows on.
?
Art thou weary, little song,
Flying through the world so long
Canst thou, on thy fairy pinions,
Cleave the future's dark dominions,
And with music soft and clear
Charm the yet unfashioned ear.
Mingling with the things unborn.
When perchance another morn.
Great as that which gave thee birth,
Uawns upon the changing earth ?
It may be so, for all around.
With a heavy, crashing sound,
Like the ice of polar seas
Melting in the summer breeze,
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Signs of change are gathering fast,
Nations breaking with their past.
The pulse of thought is beating quicker,
The lamp of faith begins to flicker.
The ancient reverence decays
With forms and types of other days,
And old beliefs grow faint and few.
As knowledge moulds the world anew,
And scatters far and wide the seeds
Of other hopes and other creeds ;
And all in vain we seek to trace
The fortunes of the coming race,
Some with fear and some with hope-
None can cast its horoscope.
Vap'rous lamp or rising star,
Many a light is seen afar,
And dim shapeless figures loom
All around us in the gloom-
Forces that may rise and reign
As the old ideals wane.
Landmarks of the human mind
One by one are left behind,
And a subtle change is wrought
In the mould and cast of thought ;
Modes of reasoning pass away.
Types of beauty lose their sway.
Creeds and causes that have made
Many noble lives must fade,
And the words that thrilled of old
Now seem hueless, dead, and cold ;
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Fancj'^s rainbow tints are flying,
Thoughts Hke men are slowly dying ;
All things perish, and the strongest
Often do not last the longest ;
The stately ship is seen no more.
The fragile skiff attains the shore ;
And while the great and wise decay,
And all their trophies pass away,
Some sudden thought, some careless rhyme,
Still floats above the wrecks of Time.
William Edward Hartpole Lecky.
Undeveloped Lives.
Not every thought can find its words,
Not all within is known ;
For minds and hearts have many chords
That never yield their tone.
Tastes, instincts, feelings, passions, powers,
Sleep there unfelt, unseen ;
And other lives lie hid in ours —
The lives that might have been —
Affections whose transforming force
Could mould the heart anew ;
Strong motives that might change the course
Of all we think and do.
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Upon the tall cliffs cloud-wrapt verge
The lonely shepherd stands,
And hears the thundering ocean surge
That sweeps the far-off strands ;
And thinks in peace of raging storms
Where he will never be —
Of life in all its unknown forms
In lands beyond the sea.
So in our dream some glimpse appears,
Though soon it fades again,
How other lands or times or spheres
Might make us other men ;
How half our being lies in trance.
Nor joy nor sorrow brings,
Unless the hand of circumstance.
Can touch the latent strings.
We know not fully what we are,
Still less what we might be :
But hear faint voices from the far
Dim lands beyond the sea.
William Edward Hartpole Lecky.
For England.
" From over the sea that message made
All British hearts grow hot :
' Take hence your men, ye shall be afraid
To meet our forces— we'll spare you not !
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Nor shall you land
On Afric's strand
From your ships of war that plough the main,
But turn your track,
And go wisely back,
And seek your barracks at home again.'
They turned — from Peace to War they turned I
Our England burned,
With anger and patriotic pride she burned.
She had dreamed of peace —
Let the vision cease !
There arose a shout
With the country's breath :
' Who shall dare to flout
The flag that we carry from life to death ?
There arose a cry :
' We will do or die
For England ! ' "
'Twas thus he spoke — my man — that night
When we two sat hand in hand, the light
Of the flickering candle scarce shewing the gloom
Of our poor little homely familiar room.
At dawn of day
He must up and away.
Ah ? soon shall the dawn break chill and grey.
Dear my heart, sweet my heart.
And must we part
For England ?
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Oh, England, women's hearts may bleed.
In bitter need,
More sorely struck and bruised indeed
Than are thy warrior sons, who yield
Their lives for thee on battle-field !
" No, no,
Wife, say not so —
But kiss me, kiss me, ere I go ! "
He held me in his arms once more ;
He smiled farewell to me.
The room was dim, yet I could see
His eyes afire with thought of victory,
And glory, and the wondrous soldier-glow
That bids our dear ones lightly, gaily, go.
Then from my clinging grasp he tore
The form I love, the hands, the face, the hair.
A moment since — oh God ! and he was there
Who now had gone.
Yes, he had gone, gone, gone !
The room was empty ; and I stood alone.
Well, in that moment all my wedded life anew
I seemed to live, or from a great height view.
As oftentimes on some deep vale we gaze,
And clearly scan the woods and fields and ways ;
And thus, perchance, instead of tears.
My soul was filled with thoughts of bygone years.
A balmy summer eve ; the king of day,
Ere that he sank within the purpling west.
Would o'er the prosperous land his blessing lay.
In golden calm the elm trees towered at rest,
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The hamlet hid among our meadows green,
The laughing river sang the older boughs between.
Down by the sedge.
Blossomed the yellow iris, each a star.
And roses burst upon the roadside hedge ;
The homing rooks sailed o'er a cloudless main,
The swallows circled high and far ;
While two fond lovers wandered down the lane,
And slow
Their footsteps, and their voices low.
Vet was that hour less sweet, methinks, less sweet
Than many an aftertime. With willing feet
Treads the young bride,
So to companion him she loves,
And by his side
Across the wide wold of new life she moves,
Nor fears.
Because each day his love more sure appears.
But Sorrow —
A speck of cloud upon the tranquil sky
Gathering and mounting high —
May blur the sun and darken our to-morrow.
And war is as a cloud of blood.
And swaith the year when strife and death prevail,
And nations rise in ireful mood.
Then, through the din, our women sob and wail.
And, in your midst, the wan and wild-eyed widows
press,
And cold and hungry, cry the fatherless.
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t
'Tis strange — methinks, were he but here,
Although his voice grew harsh or stern,
The speech o'er-chill— my dear, my dear !—
I'd harken gladly— thus may a sick heart yearn
There could not be an angry thing he'd say
(Not that he'd say or think it!) but I'd haste
and go,
And look into his face the old, old way,
And hold out my two arms so— yes, just so.
Or, better, might I hear him whisper that pet
name.
Just once— the same
He's given me since we two were wed —
(No, you'd not like it— I'll not tell it you—
Ugly, uncouth, you'd say— perchance 'twere true-
And yet to me it seems the sweetest word
I e'er have heard.
Most dulcet song that lover-lips have said,
Since language has begun.
Most tender lyric poet-pens can frame—)
I'd answer to that whisper— nay, I'd run.
" Come on, old girl ! " Alas ! it is not he !
The hot tears blind my eyes ; I cannot see.
Sometimes, as I sit here alone.
And shadows take strange shape, and sounds grow
clear,
I shiver, and I start in fear.
For to my ear
Floats a faint call— almost a moan.
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Comes it from far ? Oh God, whence may it come,
A-\vinging home,
In voyage swift,
Across the surging perilous sea,
Haply for one short greeting, ere away it drift
To silence of eternity ?
Lies he upon the battle-plain.
Wounded, and calls ?
Again, again he calls,
And calls in vain —
And I
Not nigh.
To bind his hurt and ease his pain,
And bring him back to life and joy again !
Perchance the darkness falls
Upon that ghastly bleak hill-side
Where they, who make our grief, but more our pride,
They whom we ne'er forget.
Our soldier heroes, all unconquered yet.
Save by grim Death.
Unyielding to the foe,yield now their valorousbreath
For England.
He lives ! methinks I hear him speak to-night :
" Dear heart, you would
Not keep me if you could.
Your hand, your little English hand.
Points to the fight.
For sake of this our motherland,
Her honour, and her might,
1 went. Dear heart,
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If yours must prove the harder part :
To stay and watch and wait
From early dawn till evening late,
From evening late to early dawn again to stay,
And watch, and wait, and so from day to day —
Yet, as you love me, hold sweet courage high.
God's care shall guard my wife ;
Ay, whether He demand or spare my life.
Whether I live or die
For England.
Blanche Lindsay.
Aspiration.
I AM the blush of the summer rose,
The flush of the morn.
The smile on the face of the dead.
The song newly born
From heart of the poet, from shell of the sea,
From rush of the river that oceanward flows.
I am immortal. Who knows me is glad.
Men give me the name
Of passions that kindle the soul —
Love, faith, beauty, fame.
I dwell with all these, yet am higher than all,
Without me the angels of heaven were sad.
Edith Willis Linn.
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Somnia.
India, 1857.
A LATE moon that sinks o'er a river,
Flowing luminous, languid, and still ;
Long white tents that shroud men, and shiver
In the cold morning breeze from the hill ;
Just a thin veil of darkness above you.
While the cool quiet hour is your own ;
Then farewell to the faces that love you,
With the fast fading night they'll be gone.
Look up, see above you the star-land
Wanes dim with the flush of the dawn,
You are called from your flight to the far land,
And your visions must break with the morn.
But your soul, by sweet memories haunted.
Still wanders, forgetful and free,
To the West, and in echoes enchanted
Hears the long winding plash of the sea.
Ah, sleep, though the falling dews wet you ;
Ah, rest in that home while you may ;
Other scenes, other sounds, shall beset you
When you wake, and your dreams pass away.
When the sun beats aflame on your faces,
What the old fighters felt, ye shall feel.
When the pitiless strife of the races
Flashes out in the smoke and the steel ;
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For the plain, bare and burning, lies yonder.
And perchance, when the war-cloud has passed,
Never more, day or night, shalt thou wander
And thy sleep shall be dreamless at last.
Alfred Lyall.
Rondel.
I DO not know thy final will.
It is too good for me to know ;
Thou wiliest that I mercy show.
That I take heed and do no ill,
That I the needy warm and fill.
Nor stones at any sinner throw ;
But I know not thy final will —
It is too good for me to know.
I know thy love unspeakable —
For love's sake sending even woe !
To find thine own Thou far did'st go,
And for us men thy blood did spill !
How should I know thy final will ?
It is too good for me to know.
George MacDonald.
Baby.
Where did you come from, baby dear ?
Out of the everywhere into the here.
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WTiere did you get those eyes so blue ?
Out of the sky as I came through.
What makes the Hght in them sparkle and spin ?
Some of the starry spikes left in.
Where did you get that little tear ?
I found it waiting when I got here.
What makes your forehead so smooth and high ?
A soft hand strok'd it as I went by.
What makes your cheek like a warm white rose ?
I saw something better than any one knows.
Whence that three-corner'd smile of bliss ?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss.
Where did you get this pearly ear ?
God spoke, and it came out to hear.
Where did you get those arms and hands ?
Love made itself into bonds and bands.
Feet, whence did you come, you darling things ?
From the same box as the cherubs' wings.
How did they all just come to be you ?
God thought about me, and so I grew.
But how did you come to us, you dear ?
God thought about you, and so I am here.
George MacDonald.
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The Queen at St. Paul's.*
June 22, 1897.
" From my heart I thank my beloved people. May God
bless them ! "
Not unto me, oh Lord, not unto me
The praise be given, that my beloved land
This day in all men's eyes from strand to strand
Shines first in honour and in majesty ; —
That, borne from every clime, o'er every sea.
Around me, clustering close on every hand
Liegemen from far I see, a noble band
Type of a nobler empire yet to be !
Oh, my beloved people, yours the praise.
Yours, who have kept the faith, that made your
sires
Free, fearless, faithful, through the nights and days,
True to the zeal for right, that never tires ;
May God's best blessing rest on you always,
And keep you blameless in your heart's desires !
Theodore Martin.
* This and the following appeared in The Times.
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The Queen at Kensington.
June 28, 1897.
" I gladly renew my association with a place, which, as
the scene of my birth, and my summons to the Throne, has
had, and ever will have with me, tender and solemn re-
collections."
Again the dear old home, the towering trees,
The lawns, the garden plots, the lake, that were
My childhood's fairy land, the dear ones there,
Who tended me so lovingly, — the ease
Of heart, when, sporting at my mother's knees,
I dreamed not of a crown, nor knew a care
The call at early mom a crown to wear !
.A.h me ! the host of tender memories.
Tender and solemn, that around me throng
Of all that then I was, and since have been,
The many loved and lost, the One so long
Missed from my side, and I, a lonely Queen !
Yet in the love my people bear me, strong
To front an Empire's cares with brow serene,
Theodore Martin.
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A Birthday Meditation.
Balmoral, 24th May, 1900.
Am I not blest ? I cry, as I retrace,
Through gathering mists of not unwelcome tears.
All I have seen and known through the long
years,
Vouchsafed to me by Heaven's abounding grace ;
How evermore I have found strength to face
Their cares, their griefs, their overshadowing
fears.
Nerved by the loving loyalty that cheers
My heart in all its lonely pride of place.
Oh, my dear land, whose sons, where'er they came.
Of freedom and of right have sown the seed.
Behold, their sons in serried thousands claim
A place beside thee, in thine hour of need.
Thy peril theirs, thy fortune theirs, thy fame !
Think of this, am I not blest indeed ?
Theodore Martin.
II Pigro.
Hence, hateful Restlessness,
Of avarice and Babylon begot
In some dark noisome spot
Which neither sun nor breath of heaven doth bless.
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Hence to thy gas-foul den,
Where, mid the hurly burly of Cheapside
Or Fleet Street's roaring tide.
Thy driven slaves from morn to night do bend
O'er tasks that know no end.
Pale dwarfs — 'twere ironv to call them men.
But come, thou welcome wastrel, yes,
Come delicious Idleness !
On thy pinions waft me far
From the din of Temple Bar.
Waft me where with joyous strains
Skylarks fill sweet Surrey lanes.
What time, full leisurely and slow
The lazy sun-browned mowers mow,
With frequent pause to greet the wagon
That bears the ever welcome flagon.
Or with easiest of motion.
Waft me o'er the Northern Ocean,
Where Mandal slumbers through the day
Bosomed in her smiling bay.
Stretch me high upon the ridge
Overlooking Mandal bridge.
Thence to watch the sunlight quiver
Silver-bright on Mandal river.
Red-tiled roofs I love to see
Gleaming gay on every quay ;
Red-tiled roofs I love to view
Topsy-turvy in the blue.
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Moored at every wicket float
Punt and skiff and sailing boat,
Winged with white or ruddy tan.
Now and then some stout Johann
Casts his wherry ofif to ghde
Lazily along the tide.
Now and then a peal I hear
Of laughter, light of heart and clear.
From some merrymakers gay
Bent on playing holiday.
Or when dusky eve draws down
Her mantle o'er the drowsing town,
A silent wherry you shall see
Steal through the shadows noiselessly.
'Tis a lover and his lass
By the murmuring banks that pass ;
See, he pauses on his oar
To whisper in her ear once more
That story old, that tale of tales
Which, oft re-told, yet never stales,
The theme that raises man above
The very angels — deathless love.
Idleness, these pleasures give.
And I with thee will choose to live.
George Kenneth Menzies.
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L'Occupato.
Hence, idle sluggard, Sloth !
Child of the sire himself of all things bad,
And some Bacchante mad.
Who hearkened to his wooing, nothing loth.
Hence, clod of soulless clay !
Seek out some lazy lotus-land of dream
Where languor rules supreme ;
There amid opium fumes on poppies red
Lay down thy heavy head,
And torpid sleep thy worthless life away.
But hail, thou spirit, all hail to thee,
Ever active Industry !
Take me where my fellows throng
Breathless, hurrying along.
Take me to the city where
The roar of traffic fills the air.
Where men pass by with looks intent.
Each on eager errand bent.
Hatless clerks I here shall meet
Hasting down Threadneedle Street
That storied alley which of old
Fable said was paved with gold.
Here, alert and lean and spare.
Comes a multi-millionaire
More rich than Croesus. Not a word
Of CrcEsus has he ever heard,
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But should he hear a whisper fall
Of that financier's capital,
No sleep, no comfort would he know
Till Croesus was a Joint Stock Co.
So let me jostle all day long
'Mid the busy seething throng.
Till the stars of London, white,
Red and green, illume the night
With myriad constellations. Then
Lead me to fresh haunts of men.
Where shadowy St. Paul uprears
His dome majestic to the spheres.
With scarce a glance I'd pass this by.
And down the steep of Ludgate fly
To Fleet Street, where the roaring presses
Toil in their cavernous recesses.
O shade of Johnson, I have seen
Thy massive form at midnight lean
Against the doorway leading through
To thy Bolt Court. Swift past thee flew
Keen pressmen, a mercurial host,
To Times, and Chronicle, and Post.
Thy ghostly eye, I would aver.
Brightened at the bustling stir ;
The very earth was in vibration
From the presses' agitation.
And all the midnight scene was rife
With hurry, energy and life.
I watched thee for a briefest while ;
And lo, the shadow of a smile
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Revisited thy face ; methought
From thy great hps these words I caught :
" Sir, whatsoever Time may harm,
Fleet Street hath not lost its charm."
These delights if thou canst give,
Industry', with thee I'll live.
George Kenneth Menzies.
England before the Storm.
'&
The day that is the night of days.
With cannon-fire for sun ablaze,
We spy from any billow's lift ;
And England still this tidal drift !
Would she to sainted forethought vow
A space before the thunders flood.
That martyr of its hour might now
Spare her the tears of blood.
Asleep upon her ancient deeds.
She hugs the vision plethora breeds,
And counts her manifold increase
Of treasure in the fruits of peace.
What curse on earth's improvident.
When the dread trumpet shatters rest.
Is wreaked, she knows, yet smiles content
As cradle rocked from breast.
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She, impious to the Lord of Hosts,
The valour of her offspring boasts,
Mindless that now on land and main
His heeded prayer is active brain.
No more great heart may guard the home.
Save eyed and armed and skilled to cleave
Yon swallower wave with shroud of foam,
We see not distant heave.
They stand to be her sacrifice,
The sons this mother flings like dice,
To face the odds and brave the Fates ;
As in those days of starry dates,
When cannon cannon's counterblast
Awakened, muzzle muzzle bowled,
And high in swathe of smoke the mast
Its fighting rag outroUed.
George Meredith.
A Memory.
Down dropped the sun upon the sea.
The gradual darkness filled the land.
And 'mid the twilight, silently,
I felt the pressure of a hand.
And a low voice : " Have courage, friend.
Be of good cheer, 'tis not for long ;
He conquers who awaits the end,
And dares to suffer and be strong."
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I have seen many a land since then,
Known many a joy and many a pain,
V'ictor in many a strife of men,
Vanquished again and yet again.
The ancient sorrow now is not,
Since time can heal the keenest smart ;
Yet the vague memory, scarce forgot,
Lingers deep down within the heart.
Still, when the ruddy flame of gold
Fades into gray on sea and land,
I hear the low sweet voice of old,
I feel the pressure of a hand.
Lewis Morris.
The Voice of Spring.
It was the Voice of Spring
That faint far cry,
And birds began to sing,
.\nd winds blew by.
And up the blossoms got,
They knew the call ;
The blue Forget-me-not,
The Lily tall.
And Mayflowers, pink and white
Among the grass.
Sprang up, for heart's delight.
As any lass.
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The happy world is fain
To hail the feet
Of Spring, who comes again,
Spring that is sweet.
Let us, dear Heart, rejoice—
You, Love, and I ;
We, too, have heard the Voice,
Our Spring is nigh.
Louise Chandler Moulton.
Admirals All.
Effingham, Grenville, Raleigh, Drake,
Here's to the bold and free !
Benbow, CoUingwood, Byron, Blake,
Hail to the Kings of the Sea !
Admirals all, for England's sake.
Honour be yours and fame !
And honour, as long as waves shall break.
To Nelson's peerless name !
Admirals all, for England's sake,
Honour be yours and fame !
And honour as long as waves shall break
To Nelson^ s peerless name!
Essex was fretting in Cadiz Bay
With the galleons fair in sight ;
Howard at last must give him his way,
And the word was passed to fight.
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Never was schoolboy gayer than he,
Since holidays first began :
He tossed his bonnet to wind and sea,
And under the guns he ran.
Drake nor devil nor Spaniard feared,
Their cities he put to the sack ;
He singed His Catholic Majesty's beard,
And harried his ships to wrack.
He was playing at Plymouth a rubber of bowls
When the great Armada came ;
But he said, " They must wait their turn, good
souls,"
And he stooped, and finished the game.
Fifteen sail were the Dutchmen bold,
Duncan he had but two :
But he anchored them fast where the Texel shoaled.
And his colours aloft he flew.
" I've taken the depth to a fathom," he cried,
And I'll sink with a right good will,
For I know when we're all of us under the tide
My flag will be fluttering still."
Splinters were flying above, below,
When Nelson sailed the Sound :
" Mark you, I wouldn't be elsewhere now,"
Said he, "for a thousand pound ! "
The Admiral's signal bade him fly,
But he wickedly wagged his head,
He clapped the glass to his sightless eye,
And " I'm damned if I see it," he said.
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Admirals all, they said their say
(The echoes are ringing still),
Admirals all, they went their way
To the haven under the hill.
But they left us a kingdom none can take,
The realm of the circling sea,
To be ruled by the rightful sons of Blake
And the Rodneys yet to be.
Admirals all ^ for Ejtglaitd's sake,
Honour be yours and fame /
And honour, as long as waves shall break,
To Nelson^ s peerless name !
Henry Newbolt.
San Stefano.
A Ballad of the Bold "Menelaus."
It was morning at St. Helen's, in the great and
gallant days,
And the sea beneath the sun glittered wide.
When the frigate set her courses, all a-shimmer in
the haze.
And she hauled her cable home and took the tide.
She'd a right fighting company, three hundred men
and more,
Nine and forty guns in tackle running free ;
And they cheered her from the shore for her
colours at the fore,
When the bold Menelaus put to sea.
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She'd a right fighting cofnpany, three hundred men
and more.
Nine and forty gitns in tackle running free ;
And they cheered her from the shore for her colours
at the fore,
When the bold Menelaus/w/" to sea.
She was clear of Monte Cristo, she was heading for
the land,
WTien she spied a pennant red and white and
blue ;
They were foenien, and they knew it, and they'd
half a league in hand.
But she flung aloft her royals, and she flew.
She was nearer, nearer, nearer, they were caught
beyond a doubt.
But they slipped her, into Orbetello Bay,
And the lubbers gave a shout as they paid their
cables out,
With the guns grinning round them where they
lay.
Now Sir Peter was a captain of a famous fighting
race,
Son and grandson of an Admiral was he ;
And he looked upon the batteries, he looked upon
the chase,
And he heard the shout that echoed out to sea.
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And he called across the decks, " Ay ! the cheering
might be late
If they kept it till the Menelaus runs ;
Bid the master and his mate heave the lead and
lay her straight
For the prize lying yonder by the guns."
When the summer moon was setting into Orbetello
Bay
Came the Menelaus gliding like a ghost ;
And her boats were manned in silence, and in
silence pulled away.
And in silence every gunner took his post.
With a volley from her broadside the citadel she
woke,
And they hammered back like heroes all the
night ;
But before the morning broke she had vanished
through the smoke
With her prize upon her quarter grappled tight.
It was evening at St. Helen's, in the great and
gallant time,
And the sky behind the down was flushing far ;
And the flags were all a-flutter, and the bells were
all a-chime.
When the frigate cast her anchor off the bar.
She'd a right fighting company, three hundred men
and more,
Nine and forty guns in tackle running free ;
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PRO P ATRIA ET REG IN A
And they cheered her from the shore for her
colours at the fore.
WTien the bold Menelaus came from sea.
Sh^d a right fighting company, three hundred men
and more.
Nine and forty giins in tackle running free j
And they cheered her from the shore for her colours
at the fore.
When the bold Menelaus came from sea.
Henry Newbolt.
To the Oueen on her Eicrhtieth
Birthday.
What can we say that was left unsaid,
Lady and Queen, when the circled years.
Set as a glory about your head,
Won you worship abov'e your peers ?
No new thing, as your heart knows well ;
Only again on a day of days
Some of the gathered love we tell
Deep in our hearts that lies always.
Still with this for your unspoilt dower
Tested of Time's unerring gauge,
Peace be yours of the evening hour
Down the westering ways of age ;
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PRO P ATRIA ET REGINA
Still may the burden of life be felt
Hardly at all in the years' despite ;
Slow may the long-drawn shadows melt
Into the shade of the restful night.
From Punch (by permission).
Hymns in Grateful and Loyal
Memory of the Queen.
HYMN I.
Dark falls the night and dreary breaks the morrow,
Day-star of Light ! rise Thou upon our sorrow !
Thine is the might whence strength alone we borrow,
Lord God uphold us !
Queenless we stand ! Foreboding stands beside us,
Stretch forth Thy hand to comfort and to guide us,
Draw Thou the land, tho' grief and loss betide us,
Close to Thy keeping.
Orphaned we mourn our Empress and our Mother,
East, West, forlorn, as brother weeps with brother,
Weary, war-worn, we wail to one another.
Father, be near us !
Deep bells be tolled ! Bow down, ye congregations !
Brave to uphold all good she served the nations,
Her name as gold shall shine for generations.
Queen, Wife, and Mother !
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PRO P ATRIA E'f REG IN A
Guide her pure feet, at length to rest ascending,
Safe to Thy seat of life that knows no ending ;
Grant love complete— Thy peace and joy attending-
Lord, we implore Thee.
HYMN II.
Lord God, beneath whose mighty hand
All kings of earth must bow,
With mercy look upon our land
In queenless sorrow now.
Thou takest whom Thou gavest. Lord,
Our nation's throne to bless,
Victoria— not by might of sword
But power of graciousness.
In her the princes and the poor
These sixty years have seen
A household friend at every door,
In every heart a Queen.
Her laws were just, her life was pure,
She loved the right and good,
Made strong by Duty to endure
A sovereign's lonelihood.
Ah ! who can grudge from care and strife
Her soul should find release.
And tend'rest mother, noblest wife.
She now may enter peace.
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By all her sons, with tears and praise,
Her queenly life is blest ;
Great Giver of laborious days,
Grant, Lord, eternal rest.
Hardwick D. Rawnsley,
The Way of Peace.
London, Feb. 2.
The last recorded words of the Queen upon her deathbed
were, " Oh that peace might come."
This is the Way of Peace ! great London's roar
Sinks into silence, deep bells boom aloud !
And softly murmuring mourns the darkened crowd
As sounds full tide upon a windless shore.
This is the Way of Peace ! — Peace known before
When o'er the well-beloved her head was bowed,
— Peace such as kings find in their shroud,
— Peace won and welcomed — Peace for evermore.
This is the Way of Peace ! her gentle feet
In other worlds of Peace are glad to-day,
Ever peace-lover, — hater of all war :
Ah would to God no sound our peace could
mar.
As down the solemn, hushed, heart-sobbing street.
Our Queen of Peace goes peaceful on her way.
Hardwick D, Rawnsley.
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In Memory.
Her life was as a missal year by year
Writ in red letters of self-sacrifice,
Illumined quaintly for the children's eyes,
Plain to be read in any old man's ear.
A tale of life so generous, so sincere,
That angels stooped to listen with surprise.
And, for such books are scarce in Paradise,
Bade Death go close it : so they brought it there.
But in the golden chapters week by week,
And 'twixt the lines in ink invisible,
She, skilled in all the arts but most in this
Had traced a language only angels speak,
And when the fuller sunlight on it fell
These words lept forth to meet it, " I am his."
Hardwick D. Rawnsley.
lo Triumphe !
England, Mother of Nations, bids her children
rejoice,
Hark 1 from the ends of the earth peals forth their
answering voice :
" Severed by shadowy mountains, and many a
sounding sea.
One in race and language, and one in heart are we,
Ready to face a world in arms if it needs must be."
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PRO P ATRIA ET REGINA
Queen that hast borne the weight of the crown
from girlhood's days,
Winning the love of thy people, winning the whole
earth's praise.
Each of the sixty years is a year of Jubilee,
Sun breaking in on the darkness, wrong righted
the slave set free.
Thank we the Giver of all good things who gave
us Thee.
Thou hast wept with those that weep, and thy
heart has throbbed with pride
At each tale of derring-do ; the wild Balaclava ride,
Lucknow's Lawrence, Delhi's Nicholson, Gordon's
fall,—
England's heroes ! long were the count to name
them all,
Champions of England, worthy of her, and
worthy of Thee.
Wilson's troopers at bay on the far Shangani strand.
Praised by their savage foe, who marvelled as hand
in hand,
Spent by the hopeless fight, but with still undaunted
mien,
They rose, and sang as they died : " God save our
gracious Queen ! "
Champions of England, worthy of her, and
worthy of thee.^
1 The Matabeles left their bodies unmutilated, their chiefs
saying : " Let them alone, these were men, the sons of men,
whose fathers were men."
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Soldiers ranged in their ranks, on the Birkenhead's
reeling deck,
Watching the ravening monsters swarming around
the wreck,
Where shall we match their story? Talk not of
days of old !
These are the deeds of our brothers to-day, to be
writ in gold.
Champions of England, worthy of her, and
worthy of Thee.
Shaftesbury's long life given that children no more
should pine,
Dazed by the whirring wheels, dulled in the gloom
of the mine ;
Cobden who fed the poor ; toilers with heart and
brain.
Doctor, and nurse, and preacher, fighting evil and
pain.
Workers for England, worthy of her, and worthy
of Thee.
Thou hast trodden the paths of greatness, thy robe
unspotted still.
Thou hast tasted life's cup of blessing, hast tasted
life's cup of ill.
Filled with the praise of thy name the sixty years
have been,
Scarce we know if we honour thee more as Woman
or Queen.
Thank we the Giver of all good things who gave
us Thee.
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PRO P ATRIA ET RE GIN A
Large is our hope, that the riddles of earth may yet
be read,
Tyranny, vice, and crime be seared on each hydra
head,
And hfe be brightened for all, and man to man be
true,
And clouds be rifted apart, and the smile of God
shine through.
Thank we the Giver of all good things who gave
us Thee.
H. T. Rhoades.
June, 1897.
Love and Life.
If love were all, and life a dream
To which there came no rude awaking,
How sweet to float with wind and stream.
Heart unto heart soft music making !
If love were all.
If love were all, and life were free
From vain regret, and death, and sorrow.
Who would not love's blithe votary be.
And live unmindful of the morrow,
If love were all ?
If love were all, how dull would flow
The years that knew no upward striving ;
As against wind and stream I row ;
Would life, I ask, be worth the living.
If love were all ?
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If love were all, how could we bear,
When half our heart is from us taken,
The silent hearth, the vacant chair ?
Nay ! Reason on her throne were shaken,
I f love were all.
H. T. Rhoades.
An Old Mill.
Ax old mill stands at the gloomy head
Of a narrow gorge profound :
But many a generation's fled
Since millers there made flour for bread,
Or the water-wheel went round —
So long, that a sapling ash, you see,
Found leisure a march to steal,
And grew right through to a sturdy tree,
As Nature's self had, in scorn or glee.
Put a spoke in the mighty wheel.
What need ? There are rents in the oaken ring.
And the worm there bores its bed ;
The loud, lithe water, with splash and spring,
May leap the rock like a living thing,
But the wheel — it is hushed and dead.
And down the gully with splendid force
The rain-fed cataracts pour,
Mining the rocks without remorse.
And scooping the crags in their idle course :
For the wheel goes round no more.
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PRO PATKIA ET REGINA
The truth is as old as when earth first woke,
And as young as yesterday :
The nave may be rotten, the axle broke.
The spider may spin from spoke to spoke,
But the stream will hold its way.
Hast never read what is written here
In the lives of men ? Heigh-ho !
The life-stream flows, but with empty cheer.
For the heart is broken, or out of gear :
Would God that it were not so !
James Rhoades.
By the Graves on the Veldt.
Spare them your pity ; 'tis unmeet :
O deem not that they died in vain,
Who in the hour of dark defeat
With fruitless valour strewed the plain !
Life freely given, and duty done —
Whate'er the hours shall mar or make,
The sum of all beneath the sun
Henceforth is nobler for their sake.
Spare them your honours ; let them rest j
Let earthly fame forget them now ;
No need of cross upon the breast,
Or laurel to renown the brow.
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PRO PATRIA ET REG IN A
Though the bare veldt around them spread,
Not all un-noted of the skies
There springs above each hero-head
The snow-white flower of Sacrifice.
James Rhoades.
A Spring Song.
Are flowers the very thoughts of God
Made visible to bless?
If so it be, O happy ye
Who such a faith confess.
As, led by April blossom-crowned.
Ye roam o'er vale and hill,
With ever>' here a cowslip found,
And there a daffodil !
Are the birds' songs but jets of joy
From the eternal Bliss ?
If it be true, O happy few
With such a faith as this.
As, thrilled by many a feathered throat,
Ye roam o'er hills and vales.
With every now the cuckoo's note,
And then the nightingale's.
James Rhoades.
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Euthanasia.
What wouldst thou carry over unto death,
If death know aught of aught that Hfe held dear ?
Soul ! what wouldst thou take with thee ? Not the
breath
Of sweetest earthly songs, when thou mayest hear
Songs beyond death, sweeter than life e'er sung ;
Oh ! nought of faiths or facts sore wrenched and
wrung
From dark experience, mixed and manifold,
Knowing the truth wherein all truths are one ;
Nor fruit, nor crown of labour and deeds done
In life, in death's life would'st thou keep and hold.
But — for thou goest hence friendless and alone —
Of all thou knewest bear to the unknown
These — the last smile a mother gave to thee ;
The impress of the touch of human hands ;
Remembered voices of the wind and sea ;
The look of sunset over happy lands ;
And sweet, last kiss of love that ceased to be.
May Sinclair.
Sappho.
" Oh Aphrodite, queen of dread desire !
By all the dreams that throng Love's golden
ways,
By all the honeyed vows thy votary pays.
By sacrificial wine and holy fire,
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PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
Thou who hast made my heart thy Hving lyre
Hast thou no gift for me nor any grace ?
Why hast thou turned the sweetness of Love's
face
From me, the sweetest singer of Love's choir ? "
" For songs that charm the song-ambrosial years
The gods give many gifts ; and mine shall be —
Immortal life in mortal agony —
Vain longing, fanned by wingM hopes and fears
To inextinguishable flame — and tears
Bitter as death, salt as the Lesbian sea."
May Sinclair.
Possession.
Not mine Love's heart wherein all graces dwell,
Not mine his body's burning loveliness,
And not for me Love's hands that smite and bless,
His arms that keep the doors of heaven and hell.
Nor mine his hours of welcome and farewell.
The flying hours, when they who love confess
In heart-beats and in passionate silences
The thing that else were all unspeakable.
Yet mine they are, mine everlastingly,
Mine with the tears that rise and fall and rise.
Mine with the winged flames that come and go.
Love's messengers ; for I would have you know--
All lovely things, by Love's own charity.
Are theirs indeed who see them with Love's eyes.
May Sin'CLair.
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Orwell.
I STAND on the shore of the lake,
Where the small wave ripples and frets ;
O the land has its weeds and the lake has its
reeds,
And the heart has its vain regrets.
Hark ! how the skylarks sing,
Far up about God's own feet.
And the click of the loom is in each little room.
Of the long, bare village street.
Yonder the old home stands,
With the little grey kirk behind ;
There are children at play on the sunny brae,
And their shouts come down the wind.
With the smell of the old sweet flowers
We planted there long ago ;
And the red-moss rose still buds and blows
By the door, where it used to grow.
All of it still unchanged,
Yet all so changed to me ;
For love then was sweet, and its bliss complete,
And there was no cloud to see.
But the light is quenched and gone
That brightened the place of yore.
And all the suns and the shining ones
Shall bring back that light nevermore.
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Ah me I for the shore and the lake
Where the small wave ripples and frets !
The land has its weeds, and the lake has its
reeds,
And the heart has its vain regrets.
Walter C. Smith.
Leaves and Waters.
When faded leaves are falling
On idle waters — crawling
Heart- weary of their way,
To where the rivers rushing
In force of flooded flushing
Move with majestic sway —
I listen to the weeping
Of the stilly rain-drops, steeping
The forest in decay.
They whisper, — O thou being !
So sorrowfully seeing
The gay green forest's fate.
Thy life is but a seeming.
The shadow of a dreaming,
The symbol of a state :
Like to the leafage wasting.
Slow crawling on, or hasting,
To black Oblivion's gate.
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I answer them, — O daughters
Of sunshine and of waters !
Man is not hke the leaves,
Which glad the forest growing,
Then fading fall, — and flowing,
Away from Earth that grieves,
Adown the rushing river.
Go vanishing for ever
To where the ocean heaves.
His being doth resemble
The water-wastes that tremble
To meet the sun-god's ray,
And rise to him ; then falling
At weary Earth's recalling
Deject a while they stay ;
Till breathes their bridegroom burning.
And straight to him returning
Once more they rise to day.
Ah, rain-drop ! man is brother
To thee, and ne'er another
Of Nature's soulless birth ; —
No creature formed to grovel
In planetary hovel,
Fast fettered to the Earth ;
But framed to follow dancing
The love-beams that are glancing
From Eden lands of mirth.
SOUTHESK.
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PRO PATRIA ET REG IN A
Clear Vision.
The day will come when thou shalt see
The spirit hosts that round thee wait ;
Not in this lifetime shall it be,
But in thy disembodied state.
For could thine eyes e'en once discern
The forms of horror thronging near,
Thy soul to joy would ne'er return.
Distraught with sorrow, wonder, fear.
And midst them pass the spirits pure,
Of essence fine and formless grace,
Thy gentle friends, thy guardians sure ;
The shivering demons yield them place.
But cease to yearn for sights above.
And bend thine eyes to sights below ;
Live out the life of patient love,
Mourn less thine own, than others', woe.
SOUTHESK.
East to West.
Sunset smiles on sunrise ; east and west are one,
Face to face in heaven before the sovereign sun.
From the springs of the dawn everlasting a glory
renews and transfigures the west,
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From the depths of the sunset a light as of morning
enkindles the broad sea's breast,
And the lands and the skies and the waters are
glad of the day's and the night's work done.
Child of dawn, and regent on the world-wide sea,
England smiles on Europe, fair as dawn and free.
Not the waters that gird her are purer, nor mightier
the winds that her waters know.
But America, daughter and sister of England, is
praised of them, far as they flow :
Atlantic responds to Pacific the praise of her days
that have been and shall be.
So from England westward let the watchword fly.
So from England eastward let the seas reply ;
Praise, honour, and love everlasting be sent on the
wind's wings, westward and east.
That the pride of the past and the pride of the
future may mingle as friends at feast,
And the sons of the lords of the world-wide seas be
one till the world's life die.
Algernon Charles Swinburne.
A Moss Rose.
If the rose of all flowers be the rarest
That heaven may adore from above.
And the fervent moss-rose be the fairest
That sweetens the summer with love.
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Can it be that a fairer than any
Should blossom afar from the tree ?
Vet one, and a symbol of many,
Shone sudden for eyes that could see.
In the grime and the gloom of November,
The bliss and the bloom of July,
Bade autumn rejoice and remember
The balm of the blossoms gone by.
Would you know what moss-rose now it may be
That puts all the rest to the blush,
The flower was the face of a baby.
The moss was a bonnet of plush.
Algernon Charles Swinburne.
England : an Ode.
Music made of change and conquest, glory born
of evil slain.
Stilled the discord, slew the darkness, bade the
lights of tempest wane.
Where the deathless dawn of England rose in sign
that right should reign.
Where the footfall sounds of England, where the
smile of England shines.
Rings the tread and laughs the face of freedom,
fair as hope divines
Days to be, more brave than ours, and lit by lordlier
stars for signs.
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PRO P ATRIA ET RE GIN A
All our past acclaims our future : Shakespeare's
voice and Nelson's hand,
Milton's faith and Wordsworth's trust in this our
chosen and chainless land,
Bear us witness : come the world against her,
England yet shall stand.
Earth and sea bear England witness if he lied who
said it ; he
Whom the winds that ward her, waves that clasp,
and herb and flower and tree
Fed with English dews and sunbeams, hail as more
than man may be.
No man ever spake as he that bade our England
be but true,
Keep but faith with England fast and firm, and
none should bid her rue ;
None may speak as he : but all may know the sign
that Shakespeare knew.
Algernon Charles Swinburne.
To an Old Long- Bow.
The dust of ages hallows thy repose
Since thou wast bravely bent in thy last fight ;
When England was a land of many bows,
And France more far than is the Muscovite.
The Edwards rest like thee, and lead no more
To famous fields their lusty yeomanry ;
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New weapons go where thou hast gone before,
" Brown Bess " herself sleeps with the dust and
thee.
Old England changes, and her factory-smoke
Marks where the direst battle rages now,
WTiere Competition binds her iron yoke
On cities where men wallow in her slough.
Old customs die, old crafts fall to decay.
Even where the old pastoral peace is lingering
still ;
In peace or war contending day by day
Men slay each other with more ghastly skill.
The world grows narrower as men multiply,
And bread is bitter where they moil and stew,
Defile the fields and streams, pollute the sky ;
Your wealth-sick England must be born anew.
John Todhunter.
The NiCThtinorale.
o o
(To a Russian Folk-tune.)
Nightingale, O nightingale.
What lost love do you bewail ?
What wild frenzy drives you now
From your passion-shaken bough ?
Nightingale, O Nightingale,
Bird of love, sweet Nightingale !
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Ah ! how oft the long night through,
Lonely bird, I've watched with you.
Sighed, and felt my tears outstart,
With your plaint outpoured my heart !
Nightingale, O Nightingale,
Bird of love, sweet Nightingale !
Tell my Love, so far away.
How I weep till breaks the day.
Make him feel my heart's long pain,
Bid him come to me again,
Nightingale, O Nightingale,
Bird of love, sweet Nightingale !
John Todhunter.
On the Death of the Emperor
Frederick.
Not only on the battle-field
With wonted courage thou didst wield
Thy sword of might.
When cruel sickness laid thee low,
Another weapon thou couldst show
In thy last fight.
For, though 'tis Death that wins, some say,
We cannot reckon thee to-day
Weak and discrowned ;
Thou hast but left this lower sphere,
Death cannot follow ; he is here,
But thou hast found
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A vantage spot he cannot tread,
Thy valiant spirit, upwards led,
Gives Death defeat.
Three months of power and of pain.
And we may grieve thy life, thy reign,
Not here complete ;
Thy eagle soul has soared above
These lower plains where Death can rove ;
Thou hast a name,
Glorious among the warriors bold,
The heroes of the days of old
Thy kinship claim.
Beatrix L. Tollemache.
St. Moritz in July.
The vale has doffed her vesture white ;
Here in July the cuckoo sings.
And o'er the pastures flit the bright
Brown butterflies on poised wings.
On purple thistles crimson moths
Lie dreaming of their plighted troths,
Till dusk arouse them to their play ;
While bees intent on sweetness sip
Pale nectar from the violet's lip.
Or pierce through gentian bell their way.
The meadows, rich with campion pink,
Grow blue beside the moistened brink
Of foaming stream, and shining gold
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Is scattered with a lavish hand,
While myriad insect eyes behold
The lovely Alpine summer land.
In coolest shadows of the mount,
In kindly hollows, snowflakes rest,
And, dying, feed from their pure fount
The crocus white for bridal drest.
Time hastens on ; while flowers are gay
Let us pluck some to bear away, —
Not the bright golden globe
That loves in marsh to live ;
Though rich its royal robe.
No fragrance can it give.
Nor cull the lover's blossom blue.
That fades, and, dying, leaves no trace
How fair was once its heaven-lent hue.
It has no still abiding grace.
Choose rather lowly thyme,
And in a poet's book
Let it by some sweet rhyme
Lie, that our fancy took.
Then will two treasures there be stored ;
A fragrant herb from green hillside,
And thoughts more precious that have soared
With winged words, nor could abide
Mute on this earth, like as when birds
Sang in the woods, and our own heart
Melted, and poured itself in words,
Thus Nature taught the poet art.
Beatrix L. Tollemache.
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The Epiciirist's Lament.
Cogiio, ergo sum periturus.
Two things I view with ever keen surprise,
Enduring Nature and Mankind that dies.
The quenchless lamps that nightly radiance strew
See not their light and know not what they do :
Streams in unhasting and unresting flow
Make joyless sport, yet change to envious woe
Our envied mirth : the everlasting hills,
Like giant mummies, feign to mock our ills.
They counterfeit to see, with sightless eye.
Our pigmy generations live and die :
While we, though fashioned mortal in the womb,
Cast longing gaze beyond our night of doom
To that eternal dawn unshadowed by the tomb.
We gaze, we strain our eyes, we seem to see
That barren hills are less and more than we !
Lionel A. Tollemache.
Alfred Tennyson.
THE LAND'S VIGIL.
How many a face throughout the Imperial Isle
From Kentish shores to Scottish hill or hall
F'rom Cambrian vales to Windsor's royal pile
Turned sadly towards one House more sad than all
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Turned day by day, fear blanched ! When even-
ing's pall
Shrouded a day that scarce had heart to smile
How oft sad eyes, spelled by one thought the while
Not seeing seemed to see a taper small
Night after, flashed from one casement high !
Let these men sing his praise ! Others there are
Who fitlier might have sung them in old time
Since they loved best who loved him in his prime —
Their youth, and his, expired long since and far :
Now he is gone it seems " again to die."
Aubrey de Vere.
THE POET.
None sang of Love more nobly ; few as well ;
Of Friendship none with pathos so profound ;
Of Duty sternliest-proved when myrtle-crowned;
Of English grove and rivulet, mead, and dell ;
Great Arthur's Legend he alone dared tell ;
Milton and Dryden feared to tread that ground ;
For him alone o'er Camelot's faery bound
The "horns of Elf-land" blew their magic spell.
Since Shakespeare and since Wordsworth none
hath sung
So well his England's greatness ; none hath given
Reproof more fearless or advice more sage :
None inlier taught how near to earth is Heaven ;
With what vast concords Nature's harp is strung ;
How base false pride ; faction's fanatic rage.
Aubrey de Vere.
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Giotto's Campanile at Florence.
Enchased with precious marbles pure and rare
How gracefully it soars, and seems the while
From ever)' polished stage to laugh and smile,
Playing with gleams of that clear southern air !
Fit resting-place methinks its summit were
For a descended angel I happy isle
Mid life's rough sea of sorrow, force, and guile,
For saint of royal race, or vestal fair,
In this seclusion — call it not a prison —
Cloistering a bosom innocent and lonely.
O Tuscan Priestess ! gladly would I watch
All night one note of thy loud hymn to catch
Sent forth to greet the sun when first, new-risen,
He shines on that aerial station only !
Aubrey de Vere.
England my Mother.
England my mother,
Wardress of waters,
Builder of peoples.
Maker of men, —
Hast thou yet leisure
Left for the muses ?
Heed'st thou the songsmith
Forging the rhyme ?
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PRO P ATRIA ET REGINA
Deafened with tumults,
How canst thou hearken ?
Strident is faction,
Demos is loud.
Lazarus, hungry,
Menaces Dives ;
Labour the giant
Chafes in his hold.
Yet do the songsmiths
Quit not their forges ;
Still on life's anvil
Forge they the rhyme.
Still the rapt faces
Glow from the furnace :
Breath of the smithy
Scorches their brows.
Yea, and thou hear'st them ?
So shall the hammers
Fashion not vainly
Verses of gold.
II.
Lo, with the ancient
Roots of man's nature,
Twines the eternal
Passion of song.
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Ever Love fans it,
Ever Life feeds it,
Time cannot age it ;
Death cannot slay.
Deep in the world-heart
Stand its foundations,
Tangled with all things,
Twin made with all.
Nay, what is Nature's
Self, but an endless
Strife toward music.
Euphony, rhyme ?
Trees in their blooming.
Tides in their flowing,
Stars in their circling,
Tremble with song.
God on his throne is
Eldest of poets :
Unto his measures
Moveth the whole.
Therefore deride not
Speech of the muses,
England my mother.
Maker of men.
Nations are mortal.
Fragile is greatness ;
Fortune may fly thee.
Song shall not fly.
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Song the all-girdling,
Song cannot perish :
Men shall make music,
Men shall give ear.
Not while the choric
Chant of creation
Floweth from all things.
Poured without pause.
Cease we to echo
Faintly the descant
Whereto for ever
Dances the world.
So let the songsmith
Proffer his rhyme-gift,
England my mother.
Maker of men.
Gray grows thy count'nance
Full of the ages ;
Time on thy forehead
Sits like a dream :
Song is the potion
All things renewing.
Youth's own elixir,
Fountain of morn.
Thou, at the world-loom
Weaving thy future,
Fitly may'st temper
Toil with delight.
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Deemest thou, labour
Only is earnest ?
Grave is all beauty,
Solemn is joy.
Song is no bauble —
Slight not the songsmith,
England my mother,
Maker of men.
William Watson.
The First Skylark of Spring.
Two worlds hast thou to dwell in. Sweet, —
The virginal, untroubled sky.
And this vext region at my feet. —
Alas, but one have I !
To all my songs there clings the shade.
The dulling shade, of mundane care.
They amid mortal mists are made, —
Thine, in immortal air.
My heart is dashed with griefs and fears ;
My song comes fluttering, and is gone.
O high above the home of tears.
Eternal Joy, sing on !
Not loftiest bard, of mightiest mind.
Shall ever chant a note so pure.
Till he can cast this earth behind
And breathe in heaven secure.
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We sing of Life, with stormy breath
That shakes the lute's distempered string
We sing of Love, and loveless Death
Takes up the song we sing.
And born in toils of Fate's control,
Insurgent from the womb, we strive
With proud, unmanumitted soul
To burst the golden gyve.
Thy spirit knows nor bounds nor bars ;
On thee no shreds of thraldom hang :
Not more enlarged, the morning stars
Their great Te Deum sang.
But I am fettered to the sod.
And but forget my bonds an hour ;
In amplitude of dreams a god,
A slave in dearth of power.
And fruitless knowledge clouds my soul,
And fretful ignorance irks it more.
Thou sing'st as if thou knew'st the whole,
And lightly held'st thy lore !
Somewhat as thou, Man once could sing,
In porches of the lucent morn
Ere he had left his lack of wing,
Or cursed his iron bourn.
The springtime bubbled in his throat.
The sweet sky seemed not far above,
And young and lonesome came the note ; —
Ah, thine is Youth and Love !
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Thou sing'st of what he knew of old,
And dreamlike from afar recalls ;
In flashes of forgotten gold
An orient glory falls.
And as he listens, one by one
Life's utmost splendours blaze more nigh ;
Less inaccessible the sun,
Less alien grows the sky.
For thou art native to the spheres.
And of the courts of heaven art free.
And carriest to his temporal ears
News from eternity ;
And lead'st him to the dizzy verge,
And lur'st him o'er the dazzling line.
Where mortal and immortal merge.
And human dies divine.
William Watson.
To Britain and America
on the Death of James Russell Lowell.
Ye twain who long forgot your brotherhood
And those far fountains whence, through glorious
years.
Your fathers drew, for freedom's pioneers,
Your English speech, your dower of English blood —
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PRO PATRIA ET REGINA
Ye ask to-day, in sorrow's holiest mood,
When all save love seems film — ye ask in tears —
" How shall we honour him whose name endears
The footprints where beloved Lowell stood ? "
Your hands he joined — those fratricidal hands,
Once trembling, each, to seize a brother's throat ;
How shall ye honour him whose spirit stands
Between you still ? — Keep Love's bright sails
afloat.
For Lowell's sake, where once ye strove and smote
On waves that must unite, not part, your strands.
Theodore Watts-Dunton.
The Angel of the Channel.
Jubilee Greeting at Spithead to the Mefi of
Greater Britain, 1897.
I.
In this great year — this year of her
Who loved you in your infant days, the Queen —
Who when the timid sophister
Was fain to narrow the divine demesne
Of Freedom, bade it still expand —
Loved you, in all her loveless realm alone —
Ye come to her whose gentle hand
Aye drew you to the Motherland,
Drew you till Ocean's mighty waist was spanned
By Britain's zone.
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II.
Beyond the stars your sires rejoice
Who hear to-day this iron clang and rattle,
And they recall the Channel's voice
Which in old fights lent music to the battle,
For breath of Death can never smother
For them the voice when this bright bosom heaves
With pride of Her she guards — the Mother
For whom our Drake with many a brother
Won from the world the robe above all other
The proud sea weaves.
III.
Therefore this sight is yours and ours
Whose fathers see it, wheresoe'er they dwell :
Not even the breath of Eden flowers
Can win them from the Channel's salt sweet smell ;
And yonder skyey wings that hover
Kindling each steel-clad titan till he glows —
Wings of Old England's Angel-lover —
Your fathers see them shine above her —
They see our Angel of the Channel cover
Spithead with rose.
IV.
Voices of those whose bond of love.
Binding them each to each o'er every sea.
Is love of Her whose pulses move
To peans of an Empire's jubilee ;
Voices that come from distant lands —
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From elfin halls where gem-crowned Africa
Opens at last her mystic hands,
And from that eldest born who stands
Between the world's two sister-ocean strands,
Great Canada.
All say, " Beloved Angel, Thou
Whose flag above thy Channel ne'er is furled
Thine England's wider moat is now
Ocean, who lisps her name around the world ;
In Northern sun— in Southern sun.
True daughters, yea to very death, are we
Of her whose morn hath but begun —
Whose robe, our hero-fathers won —
That robe the great uniting Sea hath spun —
Her subject Sea."
Theodore Watts-Dunton.
America to England.
Mother of nations, of them eldest we.
Well is it found, and happy for the state,
When that which makes men proud first makes
them great.
And such our fortune is who sprang from thee,
And brought to this new land from over sea
The faith that can with every household mate,
And freedom whereof law is magistrate,
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And thoughts that make men brave, and leave them
free.
O mother of our faith, our land, our love.
What shall we answer thee if thou shouldst ask
How this fair birthright doth in us increase?
There is no home but Christ is at the door ;
Freely our toiling millions choose life's task ;
Justice we love, and next to justice, peace.
George Edward Woodberrv.
At Gibraltar.
England, I stand on thy imperial ground,
Not all a stranger ; as thy bugles blow,
I feel within my blood old battles flow, —
The blood whose ancient founts in thee are found.
Still surging dark against the Christian bound
Wide Islam presses ; well its peoples know
Thy heights that watch them wandering below ;
1 think how Lucknow heard their gathering sound.
1 turn, and meet the cruel, turbaned face.
England, 'tis sweet to be so much thy son !
I feel the conqueror in my blood and race ;
Last night Trafalgar awed me, and to-day
Gibraltar wakened ; hark, thy evening gun
Startles the desert over Africa !
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II.
Thou art the rock of empire, set mid-seas
Between the East and West, that God has built ;
Advance thy Roman borders where thou wilt,
While run thy armies true with his decrees ;
Law, justice, liberty, — great gifts are these :
Watch that they spread where English blood is spilt,
Lest, mixed and sullied with his country's guilt.
The soldier's life-stream flow, and Heaven displease !
Two swords there are : one naked, apt to smite.
Thy blade of war ; and, battle storied, one
Rejoices in the sheath, and hides from light.
American I am ; would wars were done !
Now westward, look, my country bids good-night, —
Peace to the world from ports without a gun !
George Edward Woodberry.
From "My Country."
O destined Land, unto thy citadel,
What founding fates even now doth peace compel,
That through the world thy name is sweet to tell !
O throned Freedom, unto thee is brought
Empire ; nor falsehood nor blood-payment asked ;
Who never through deceit thy ends hast sought.
Nor toiling millions for ambition tasked ;
Unlike the fools who build the throne
On fraud, and wrong, and woe ;
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For man at last wnll take his own,
Nor count the overthrow ;
But far from these is set thy continent,
Nor fears the Revokition in man's rise ;
On laws that with the weal of all consent,
And saving truths that make the people wise :
For thou art founded in the eternal fact
That every man doth greaten with the act
Of freedom ; and doth strengthen with the weight
Of duty ; and diviner moulds his fate,
By sharp experience taught the thing he lacked,
God's pupil ; thy large maxim framed, though late,
Who masters best himself best serves the State.
This wisdom is thy Corner : next the stone
Of Bounty ; thou hast given all ; thy store,
Free as the air, and broadcast as the light,
Thou flingest ; and the fair and gracious sight.
More rich, doth teach thy sons this happy lore :
That no man lives who takes not priceless gifts
Both of thy substance and thy laws, whereto
He may not plead desert, but holds of thee
A childhood title, shared with all who grew.
His brethren of the hearth : whence no man lifts
Above the common right his claim ; nor dares
To fence his pastures of the common good :
For common are thy fields ; common the toil ;
Common the charter of prosperity.
That gives to each that all may blessed be.
This is the very counsel of thy soil.
Therefore, if any thrive, mean-souled he spares
The alms he took ; let him not think subdued
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The State's first law, that civic rights are strong
But while the fruits of all to all belong ;
Although he heir the fortune of the earth,
Let him not hoard, nor spend it for his mirth,
But match his private means with public worth.
That man in whom the people's riches lie
Is the great citizen, in his country's eye.
Justice, the third great base, that shall secure
To each his earnings, howsoever poor,
From each his duties, howsoever great.
She bids the future for the past atone.
Behold her symbols on the hoary stone,
The awful scales, and that war-hammered beam
Which whoso thinks to break doth fondly dream.
Or Czars who tyrannize, or mobs that rage ;
These are her charge, and heaven's eternal law.
She from old fountains doth new judgment draw.
Till, word by word, the ancient order swerves
To the true course more nigh ; in every age
A little she creates, but more preserves.
Hope stands the last, a mighty prop of fate.
These thy foundations are, O firm-set State !
George Edward Woodberry.
Dunmail Raise.
O WHITE and windswept Dunmail Raise
That windest bright and broad.
Beneath the mountains' stedfast gaze.
Thou seem'st a spirit-road !
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Well fare thy pilgrims as of old
From hence to Keswick Street
On coach or waggon smoothly rolled
Or borne on dusty feet I
Yet as thy boundary line on high
No earthly bourn displays
Beneath that overhanging sky
That veils it as we gaze.
Even thus we watch Life's mystic way
Closed in without an end
The veiling sky of soft pure grey
That severs friend from friend !
O forms and faces that of old
Walked with us on the hill,
It seems that scarce an hour has tolled,
And you are with us still !
You lean with us on yonder bridge
To watch the Rotha foam.
You gaze on Easedale's darkening ridge,
The sunset's loveliest home ;
Beside us in the church you pray,
Or in the church yard view
The still green graves, where shadows play
By hawthorn flung, or yew.
There's not a stonecrop on the wall,
A fern in rocky stair,
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A primrose by the waterfall,
But you and yours are there.
No glint of sunshine on the mere
No cloud before the wind
No starlit night when heaven is clear
Where you are out of mind !
The spirit-road, we walk it too,
You have gone far a-head !
The sky has dropped its veil o'er you,
We see not where you tread !
You never stay, you never turn,
Nor wave your hands, nor call.
No sign you give whence we might learn
The chance that may befall.
And this of you is all we know
Your never-swerving aim,
Your love, your hope, where'er you go
Unchangeably the same !
Be ours your firm unflagging tread
From seen things to unseen,
Be ours your patience, sweetly fed
By springs in valleys green !
And weary though our journey be
Yet time that slowly flies
Will seem a moment, when we see
The welcome in your eyes !
Elizabeth Wordsworth.
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To E. B. B.
Among Gods Prophets of the Beautiful
She stands a tiptoe, straining ever higher,
With trembUng hps, and eyes all prayerful
For greater largesse of poetic fire.
Her song is winged with holiest desire,
Sped strongly upward, voiced with subtlest art,
And not less loftily the notes aspire
Though all the world is borne upon her heart.
Thus sing, O Poet, till the time is born
When men, God's poems perfected, shall sway
All things with song, and catch divinest bars
Of music from the lyric of the morn,
From all the changing drama of the day,
And the grand epos of the nightly stars.
To my Friend.
As slightest things may grow in worth
By interlacing memories.
And daily use may conjure forth
A thousand clinging sympathies,
So may this pencil win a charm,
If not from memory of the giver.
Of walks thro' woodland, or by farm,
Past flowery mead or flowing river,
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Then from the fancy which creates
A worth which art can ne'er produce,
And from the law which consecrates
The humblest things by noble use.
Reminiscences of Childhood.
THE BURN.
It is the prime of summer time,
June, with its leaves and roses ;
On hillside lone, and mossy stone,
The noon's fierce heat reposes.
The long bright day is travelling on,
Hour following after hour ;
The sun rejoicing overhead,
In conscious might and power.
In little nooks, beside the brooks,
Sweet flowerets hide and cluster ;
Or 'neath the shade of some large blade
A joyous phalanx muster.
A young child rests upon the sward
Close by the water's edge,
Long grasses mingling with her curls
As she leans o'er the ledge.
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A ledge of pine-tree roots entwine
Roofing a tiny cave,
Where eddying round the waters bound
With plashing mimic wave.
That stream and child hold converse rare
Through many a summer hour,
Her inmost soul acknowledging
Its beauty and its power.
The babbling burn, with many a turn
By meadow field and creek,
In sparkling glee, familiarly
It makes the silence speak.
This pastoral burn was, and is, hers ;
And to her inward ear
Full often doth its voice return.
In murmurs low and clear,
To her unknown, 'tis given to own
Gifts for which others yearn.
In youth or age the heritage
Of those who live to learn.
II.
THK HOUSE.
Thy. quaint old House stands out alone,
White on the deep green grass.
There is no path to reach the door,
You o'er the sward must pass.
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Its walls are very thick and strong,
And many tales are told
How in old days they safe shut out,
Lord Morton's foemen bold.
Six paces off an aged Lime,
A prince among the trees,
Uplifts around its matted boughs
And soft green quivering leaves.
It sends sweet harmonies abroad
Through all the summer time,
With trembling leaves and humming bees
That ancient giant Lime.
Up 'mid the boughs are chambers dark,
Scented like honeycomb.
Where stock-doves build their nests, and coo.
Where spirits go, and come.
At times below a radiant girl
Sits on the gnarled roots.
Now gazing up into the gloom.
Now breaking off young shoots.
She sits and dreams with brimming eyes
In that sweet scented air.
Half wondering why the drops will fall
For she has no sad care.
Deep quiet gladness fills her soul,
She sees the waters flow.
The flitting bees, the waving trees,
The greenest bank below.
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Her ver)' gladness brings the tears,
Her joy is pure and deep,
God's finger-touch is on her soul,
She cannot choose but weep.
Some souls there are on earth to whom
Sorrow and joy are kin,
And speak by tears when Nature's touch
Unlocks the spring within.
III.
THK HILL.
What mystery is this that clings
About thee like a spell ?
At times faint whisperings reach mine ear,
At other times a swell
Of deep full music ; yet in vain
To catch the hidden sense I strain,
Thou keepest it so well.
In old days dear to memory's eye
I've watched thee many an hour.
While summers sun poured on thy head
Its glory and its power,
And fleet white clouds sailed far aloft
Casting their shadows clear yet soft
On all thy massive green.
One morn I saw the storm-cloud roll
In leaden murky gloom.
Over and round thy strong still liead,
Like shrouding for a tomb.
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The lightnings gleamed, the thunder clashed,
Down all thy sides wild waters dashed,
Unmoved thou heard'st it all.
But most I loved when day was done
And the long shadows fell,
While soft airs stirred the quiet leaves,
And caused the heart to swell
With deep still joy, to see thy face,
And watch the glory and the grace
That rested on thy brow.
Whence comes thy power? O solemn Hill,
Do these mists know that round thee cling,
About thy feet so lovingly ?
Or that clear icy spring
That bubbleth forth unceasingly
And poureth still increasingly
Down all thy rocky side ?
What subtile essence dost thou hold
Still felt, but still unseen,
Breathing thy music to the soul
All harmonies between ?
The all-pervading life that flows,
From thee in sunshine and in snows,
God only knows, I ween.
IV.
THE GARDEN.
The garden has an eastern slope,
And all the forenoon hours
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'Tis filled with lights and shadows cast
From gaily-tinted flowers.
Along the walks go pattering feet,
For children in their plays
Run in and out that garden-bower
'Neath sweet clematis sprays.
Sometimes 'tis only one small girl,
Brushing the wet box edge,
Or shaping doves from columbines,
WTio leans against the hedge.
And listens to the water drip
In the dark well below.
Half-shuddering, for it seems so deep,
Nearer she fears to go.
Dulled, muffled by the hot soft air.
Sounds reach her from the street ;
\'oices of men, or lumbering wheels,
Or horses' trampling feet.
And over all she hears that sound
Where earth and ocean meet,
That roar, that moan, that song, that psalm,
The waves eternal beat.
Among the roses hum the bees.
Above are sailing clouds ;
Around a hedge of privet green
The well's deep mystery shrouds.
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Oh say, ye deeply skilled and wise,
What did the child learn there,
When musing, gazing, listening.
In dim unconscious prayer ?
A sigh sometimes ; and then a tear
Would fall ; and next a smile,
Which came from depths the heart within,
Would brighten all awhile.
God spake to her. And these his works
Were books from which He brought
Rare secrets of the earth and heaven,
To touch the soul He taught.
Lux in Tenebris.
Let us give thanks for two things. Sleep and
Death ;
Sleep who takes little children to his arms
And blesses them, and gives them to the day
With rosier cheeks ; whose touch, we know not
how.
Lulls all the fever in our youthful limbs ;
Who comes more slowly in the after years
When life grows chiller, but is still our friend,
Nerving us for endurance or for toil,—
Who bhnds us to the glamour of the world,
Wreaths other skies beneath the arch of night,
And wafts us through that other, varying world,
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So bright or sad, so strange and perishable ;—
And Death, whose friendly hand undoes the knot
That time's benumbing fingers fumbled at,
And rids us of the body whose embrace
Ensphered us in a world within a world,
And gives it back to Nature whence it came,
Leading us forth into the Universe
Strong with fresh hope, and pager in desire
To find the life we vainly sought while here.
I have lived long enough to know the taste
Of Good and Evil, to know what I am.
And what the world is. Now I wait for Death,
As patiently as one who waits for sleep
Far in the night, not tossing restlessly.
Knowing that sleep will surely come tho' late.
Nor idly do I linger ; but as one
Who knows his friend will come, yet none the less
Is ever busy with his wonted toil
As the slow hours roll onward, till he hears
The welcome steps within the corridor,
And the door opens, and the friends clasp hands,
And are at one for ever, — so I work
At the sore tattered tapestry of life,
Of which we know not origin nor end.
•57
INDEX TO FIRST LINES.
Again the dear old home,- the towering trees, page
Theodore Martin 93
A late moon that sinks o'er a river, Alfred Lyall 89
Am I not blest ? I cry, as I retrace, Tlieodore Martin g^.
Among God's Prophets of the Beautiful, Anonymous 149
A month ago, a month ago, Henry Lawrie 72
An old mill stands at the gloomy head, James Rhoades 115
Are flowers the very thoughts of God? James Rhoades 117
Art for Art's sake ! This our motto, Dorothea Beale 1 1
As slightest things may grow in worth. Anonymous 149
A thousand years of war, John Davidson 23
Autumn with murmuring voices had begun,
Stopford A. Brooke 16
Between two lofty Alps a river flowed, Dorothea Beale 13
Brethren, met as Masons here, William Hastie 39
Canst thou read the secret of the earth, O wind,
Henry Lawrie 65
Come, lift your eyes and let me see, Violet Hunt 46
Cupid once at break of day, William R. Jack 49
Dark falls the night, and dreary breaks the morrow,
Hardwick D. Rawnsley 108
Down dropped the sun upon the sea, Lewis Morris 100
Effingham, Grenville, Raleigh, Drake, Henry Newbolt 102
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Enchased with precious marbles, pure and rare, page
A uhrey de I 'ere 1 33
England, I stand on thy imperial ground,
George Edward Woodberry 143
England ! many thoughts are turning, Henry Lawrie 70
England, Mother of Nations, bids her children rejoice,
H. T. K/ioades iii
England, my mother, William Watson 133
Every week of every season out of English ports go
forth, Robert Underwood Johnson 52
Fair cousin, yet unknown, unseen, Crewe 21
Fierce, brown-bearded, enclad in the spoils of wolf
and of wild-cat, Edwin Arnold 6
From marts where Indian hemp is found, Argyll 5
From over the sea that message made,
Blanclie Lindsay 82
Green field, and beach and sea, dim clouds and sky,
Maria von Olefin 34
Grief and the ache of things which pass and fade,
William Leonard Courtney 21
He lived in that past Georgian day, Austin Dobson 26
Hence, hateful restlessness, George Kenneth Menzies 94
Hence, idle sluggard, sloth ! George Kenneth Menzies 97
Her life was as a missal, year by year,
Hardwick D. Kawnsley iii
Here in the park, on the scanty grass, Violet Hunt 47
How many a face throughout the imperial isle,
Aubrey de Vere 131
How shall she know the worship we would do her ?
Rudyard Kipling 58
How shall we seek thee, and within what shrine?
Maria von Glehn 35
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How sweet it is to watch through casement clear, page
William Hastie 40
I am the blush of the summer rose, Edith Willis Linn 88
I do not know thy final will, George MacDonald 90
I fell a-dreaming when the night was young,
William Hastie 41
I joy to know I shall rejoice again, Edward Dowden 30
I stand on the shore of the lake, Walter C. Smith 120
If love were all, and life a dream, H. T. Rhoades 114
If silent hangs in solitude unsought, Richard Garnett 31
If the rose of all flowers be the rarest,
Algernon Charles Swinburne 124
In this great year — this year of her,
Theodore Watts-Dunton 140
It is the prime of summer time, Anonymojis 150
It was morning at St Helen's, in the great and gallant
days, Henry Newbolt 104
It was the clear, strong voice of Spring I heard,
A. Johnson-Brown 57
It was the Voice of Spring, Louise Chandler Moulton loi
Just one cast more ! how many a year, Andrew Lang 61
Let us give thanks for two things — Sleep and Death,
Anonymous 156
Little snatch of ancient song,
William Edward Hartpole Lecky 78
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the
Lord, Julia Ward Howe 43
Mother of nations, of them eldest we,
George Edward Woodberry 142
Music made of change and conquest, glory born of evil
slain, Algernon Charles Swifiburne 125
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My being's All, my Life ! be less to me, page
A. Johnson-Brown 55
Nightingale, O nightingale, John Todhunter 127
None sang of Love more nobly ; few as well,
Aubrey de Vere 132
Not every thought can find its words,
William Edward Hartpole Lecky 81
Not mine Love's heart wherein all graces dwell,
May Sinclair 119
Not only on the battlefield, Beatrix L. Tollemache 128
Not unto me, oh Lord, not unto me, Theodore Martin 92
Now let the cry, " To Arms ! to Arms ! "
Alfred Austin i
O destined Land, unto thy citadel,
George Edward Wood berry 144
" Oh, Aphrodite, queen of dread desire ! "
Alay Sinclair 118
O Lady, who dost sit enthroned, xi
O Lady, since these words were penned, xii
O sweet for dying hands to hold, Edmund Gosse 36
O undistinguished Dead, Austin Dobson 25
Over the camp of the Highland Brigade,
William Allan 3
O white and wind-swept Dunmail Raise,
Elizabeth Wordsworth 146
Rejoice, O land, in God thy might, Robert Bridges 15
She hated song and light and flowers, Violet Hunt 48
Sir Knight, thou lovest not, Richard Watson Gilder 32
So much to do, so little done, Dufferin and Ava 31
Spare them your pity ; 'tis unmeet, James Rhoades n6
Still in her might Britannia stands, William Allan 3
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Sunset smiles on sunrise ; east and west are one, page
Algernon Charles Swinburne 123
Sweet, sweet is life that feels itself complete,
Alexander J app 50
"The Ancestor remote of Man," Andrew Lang 63
The breeze comes freshly from the west,
Henry Lawrie 68
The day that is the night of days, George Meredith 99
The day will come when thou shalt see, Southesk 123
The dust of ages hallows thy repose, John Todhunter \'2(i
The Garden has an eastern slope, 154
The King, O God, his heart to thee upraiseth,
Robert Bridges 14
The quaint old House stands out alone, 151
The Sun-god chose an earth-child for his bride,
A. Johnson-Brown 54
The West a glimmering lake of light,
'William Ernest Henley 42
The vale has doffed her vesture white,
Beatrix L. Tollemache 129
They sang together — the birds, the stream,
Henry Lawrie 75
This is the Way of Peace ! great London's roar,
Hardwick D, Rawnsley 1 10
Thou hast the colours of the Spring, Edmund Gosse 38
To-day the people gather from the streets,
Edwin Arnold 9
To France there marched two grenadiers,
Alexander Japp 50
Two men on thrones, or crouched behind,
Richard Watson Gilder 32
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Two things I view with ever keen surprise, page
Lionel A. Tollemache 131
Two worlds hast thou to dwell in, Sweet,
IVilliam Watson 137
Weave no more silks, ye Lyons looms,
Julia Ward Hvive 4
We spoke of a rest on the fairy hills of the North, but
he, Andreiv Lang 60
What can wc say that was left unsaid, From ' Punch ' 107
What mystery is this that clings, 153
What wouldst thou carry over unto death,
May Sinclair 118
When faded leaves are falling, Southesk 121
Where did you come from, baby dear?
George MacDonald 90
Where the meadow breathes the upland air,
Henry La-wrie 6y
Why do I sing? I know not why, my friend,
Edward Do^udcn 30
Wine of Life and wine of Death, Henry Lawrie 76
Ye twain who long forgot your brotherhood,
Theodore Walts-Dunton 139
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