War

    Mother, with unbowed head
        Hear thou across the sea
    The farewell of the dead,
        The dead who died for thee.
    Greet them again with tender words and grave,
    For, saving thee, themselves they could not save.

    To keep the house unharmed
        Their fathers built so fair,
    Deeming endurance armed
        Better than brute despair,
    They found the secret of the word that saith,
    "Service is sweet, for all true life is death."

    So greet thou well thy dead
        Across the homeless sea,
    And be thou comforted
        Because they died for thee.
    Far off they served, but now their deed is done
    For evermore their life and thine are one.

The woods of Arcady are dead,
And over is their antique joy;
Of old the world on dreaming fed;
Grey Truth is now her painted toy;
Yet still she turns her restless head:
But O, sick children of the world,
Of all the many changing things
In dreary dancing past us whirled,
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,
Words alone are certain good.
Where are now the warring kings,
Word be-mockers? -- By the Rood,
Where are now the watering kings?
An idle word is now their glory,
By the stammering schoolboy said,
Reading some entangled story:
The kings of the old time are dead;
The wandering earth herself may be
Only a sudden flaming word,
In clanging space a moment heard,
Troubling the endless reverie.
Then nowise worship dusty deeds,
Nor s...

* Won by the "Allies" during the Crimean war though with great losses in killed and wounded.


Rejoice! the fearful day is o'er
    For the victors and the slain;
Our cannon proclaim from shore to shore,
    The Allies have won again!
Let our joy bells ring out music clear,
    The gayest they've ever pealed;
Let bonfires flames the dark night cheer,
    We are masters of the field

But list! dost hear that mournful wail
    'Bove the joyous revelry?
Rising from hillside and lowly vale, -
    Say, what can its meaning be?
From Erin's sunny emerald shore
    It trembles upon the gale,
And rises with the torrent's roar
    From the birth place of the Gael.

Fair Albion, too, in every spot
    Of thy land of promise wide
Is hear...

Cards, and swords, and a lady's love,
That is a tale worth reading,
An insult veiled, a downcast glove,
And rapiers leap unheeding.
        And 'tis O! for the brawl,
        The thrust, the fall,
And the foe at your feet a-bleeding.

Tales of revel at wayside inns,
The goblets gaily filling,
Braggarts boasting a thousand sins,
Though none can boast a shilling.
        And 'tis O! for the wine,
        The frothing stein,
And the clamour of cups a-spilling.

Tales of maidens in rich brocade,
Powder and puff and patches,
Gallants lilting a serenade
Of old-time trolls and catches.
        And 'tis O! for the lips
        And the finger tips,
And the kiss that the boldest snatches.

Tales of buckle and big rosette,
The...

Painted Upon a Porte Livre.


How strange to greet, this frosty morn,
In graceful counterfeit of flowers,
These children of the meadows, born
Of sunshine and of showers!

How well the conscious wood retains
The pictures of its flower-sown home,
The lights and shades, the purple stains,
And golden hues of bloom!

It was a happy thought to bring
To the dark season’s frost and rime
This painted memory of spring,
This dream of summer-time.

Our hearts are lighter for its sake,
Our fancy’s age renews its youth,
And dim-remembered fictions take
The guise of, present truth.

A wizard of the Merrimac,
So old ancestral legends say,
Could call green leaf and blossom back
To frosted stem and spray.

The d...

    She sits within the Magic Lantern
    - that facsimile for pleasure,
    decor of wineskins where
    at $2.50 a garment
    extravagance comes extra;
    skin like rosy flames
    the whisk of smoke
    at hearthside
    sunlight about her face.

    Cherubs arise from those lips
    and battle lines are drawn
    about the sweet curvature of her breasts.
    A tight cashmere sweater rides
    comfortably two of the finest King's
    deer headstrong thru Sherwood Forest.

    And, Merry Man,
    firmly planted in Lincoln Green,
    the plodding turf growing at odds within my soul -
    give this brief to the Sheriff at Buckingham;
    I cool my heels, the soft doe lies prostrate at my feet.

    She's loveliness,
  ...

Where are the passions they essayed,
And where the tears they made to flow?
Where the wild humours they portrayed
For laughing worlds to see and know?
Othello's wrath and Juliet's woe?
Sir Peter's whims and Timon's gall?
And Millamant and Romeo?
Into the night go one and all.

Where are the braveries, fresh or frayed?
The plumes, the armours - friend and foe?
The cloth of gold, the rare brocade,
The mantles glittering to and fro?
The pomp, the pride, the royal show?
The cries of war and festival?
The youth, the grace, the charm, the glow?
Into the night go one and all.

The curtain falls, the play is played:
The Beggar packs beside the Beau;
The Monarch troops, and troops the Maid;
The Thunder huddles with the Snow.
Where are the ...

On receiving a sprig of heather in blossom.



No more these simple flowers belong
To Scottish maid and lover;
Sown in the common soil of song,
They bloom the wide world over.

In smiles and tears, in sun and showers,
The minstrel and the heather,
The deathless singer and the flowers
He sang of live together.

Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns
The moorland flower and peasant!
How, at their mention, memory turns
Her pages old and pleasant!

The gray sky wears again its gold
And purple of adorning,
And manhood's noonday shadows hold
The dews of boyhood's morning.

The dews that washed the dust and soil
From off the wings of pleasure,
The sky, that flecked the, ground of toil
With golden threads of l...

        Hark, 'tis the sound that charms
        The war-steed's wakening ears!--
    Oh! many a mother folds her arms
Round her boy-soldier when that call she hears;
    And, tho' her fond heart sink with fears,
    Is proud to feel his young pulse bound
    With valor's fever at the sound.
    See, from his native hills afar
    The rude Helvetian flies to war;
    Careless for what, for whom he fights,
    For slave or despot, wrongs or rights:
        A conqueror oft--a hero never--
    Yet lavish of his life-blood still,
    As if 'twere like his mountain rill,
        And gushed forever!

        Yes, Music, here, even here,
    Amid this thoughtless, vague career,
Thy soul-felt charm asserts its wondrous power.--
    There's a wild air wh...

Those men are deemed heroes who rush on the foe
Regardless of danger, and seek not to know
What others may do;
Stern duty demands it--why should they falter
If all they hold dear is laid on the altar,
And conscience be true?

The greatest of all is the man who can say
When battle is over and foe gained the day,
"The fault was in me:
My plan miscarried through miscalculation;
On me rests the blame, and not on the nation:
My soldiers are free."

In George Stewart White, and men of like mind,
Our nation can rest, for in them you will find
A true manliness;
Their failures acknowledged are failures no more;
Defeat to such men only opens the door
To future success.

I

Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
    A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
    Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
    Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;
    Far off the noises of the world retreat;
    The loud vociferations of the street
    Become an undistinguishable roar.
So, as I enter here from day to day,
    And leave my burden at this minster gate,
    Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
The tumult of the time disconsolate
    To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
    While the eternal ages watch and wait.


II

How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!
    This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves
    Birds build their nests; while ca...

The day is done, and the darkness
    Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
    From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
    Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
    That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
    That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
    As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
    Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
    And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
    Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
    Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
    The...

Trudging by Corbie Ridge one winter's night,
(Unless old, hearsay memories tricked his sight),
Along the pallid edge of the quiet sky
He watched a nosing lorry grinding on,
And straggling files of men; when these were gone,
A double limber and six mules went by,
Hauling the rations up through ruts and mud
To trench-lines digged two hundred years ago.
Then darkness hid them with a rainy scud,
And soon he saw the village lights below.

But when he'd told his tale, an old man said
That he'd seen soldiers pass along that hill;
"Poor, silent things, they were the English dead
Who came to fight in France and got their fill."

Listen, young heroes! your country is calling!
Time strikes the hour for the brave and the true!
Now, while the foremost are fighting and falling,
Fill up the ranks that have opened for you!

You whom the fathers made free and defended,
Stain not the scroll that emblazons their fame
You whose fair heritage spotless descended,
Leave not your children a birthright of shame!

Stay not for questions while Freedom stands gasping!
Wait not till Honor lies wrapped in his pall!
Brief the lips' meeting be, swift the hands' clasping, -
"Off for the wars!" is enough for them all!

Break from the arms that would fondly caress you!
Hark! 't is the bugle-blast, sabres are drawn!
Mothers shall pray for you, fathers shall bless you,
Maidens shall weep for you when y...

Clear diamond heart,
I have been hunting death
Among the swords.

But death abhors my shadow,
And I come back
Wounded with memories.

Your eyes,
For steel is amorous of steel
And there are bright blue sparks.

Your lips,
I see great bloody roses
Cut in white dead breasts.

Your bed,
For I see wrestling bodies
Under the evening star.

From the Turkic.

I look into the aching womb of night;
I look across the mist that masks the dead;
The moon is tired and gives but little light,
The stars have gone to bed.

The earth is sick and seems to breathe with pain;
A lost wind whimpers in a mangled tree;
I do not see the foul, corpse-cluttered plain,
The dead I do not see.

The slain I WOULD not see . . . and so I lift
My eyes from out the shambles where they lie;
When lo! a million woman-faces drift
Like pale leaves through the sky.

The cheeks of some are channelled deep with tears;
But some are tearless, with wild eyes that stare
Into the shadow of the coming years
Of fathomless despair.

And some are young, and some are very old;
And some are rich, some poor beyond belief;
Yet ...

He stood, a worn-out City clerk -
Who'd toil'd, and seen no holiday,
For forty years from dawn to dark -
Alone beside Caermarthen Bay.

He felt the salt spray on his lips;
Heard children's voices on the sands;
Up the sun's path he saw the ships
Sail on and on to other lands;

And laugh'd aloud. Each sight and sound
To him was joy too deep for tears;
He sat him on the beach, and bound
A blue bandana round his ears:

And thought how, posted near his door,
His own green door on Camden Hill,
Two bands at least, most likely more,
Were mingling at their own sweet will

Verdi with Vance. And at the thought
He laugh'd again, and softly drew
That Morning Herald that he'd bought
Forth from his breast, and read it through.

As the nations sat together, grimly waiting,
The fierce and ancient nations battle-scarred,
Grown grey in their lusting and their hating,
Ever armed and ever ready keeping guard,
Through the tumult of their warlike preparation
And the half-stilled clamour of the drums
Came a voice crying, "Lo, a new-made Nation,
To her place in the sisterhood she comes!"

And she came. She was beautiful as morning,
With the bloom of the roses on her mouth,
Like a young queen lavishly adorning
Her claims with the splendours of the South.
And the fierce old nations, looking on her,
Said, "Nay, surely she were quickly overthrown;
Hath she strength for the burden laid upon her,
Hath she power to protect and guard her own?"

Then she spoke, and her voice was clear and rin...