Sea to sea that clasps and fosters England, uttering ever-more
Song eterne and praise immortal of the indomitable shore,
Lifts aloud her constant heart up, south to north and east to west,
Here in speech that shames all music, there in thunder-throated roar,
Chiming concord out of discord, waking rapture out of rest.
All her ways are lovely, all her works and symbols are divine,
Yet shall man love best what first bade leap his heart and bend his knee;
Yet where first his whole soul worshipped shall his soul set up her shrine:
Nor may love not know the lovelier, fair as both beheld may be,
Here the limitless north-eastern, there the strait south-western sea.
Though their chant bear all one burden, as ere man was born it bore;
Though the burden be diviner than the songs all souls adore;...

Not with the anguish of hearts that are breaking
Come we as mourners to weep for our dead;
Grief in our breasts has grown weary of aching,
Green is the turf where our tears we have shed.

While o'er their marbles the mosses are creeping,
Stealing each name and its legend away,
Give their proud story to Memory's keeping,
Shrined in the temple we hallow to-day.

Hushed are their battle-fields, ended their marches,
Deaf are their ears to the drum-beat of morn, -

Rise from the sod, ye fair columns and arches
Tell their bright deeds to the ages unborn!

Emblem and legend may fade from the portal,
Keystone may crumble and pillar may fall;
They were the builders whose work is immortal,
Crowned with the dome that is over us all!

Grace, triumphant in the throne,
Scorns a rival, reigns alone;
Come and bow beneath her sway,
Cast your idol works away.
Works of man, when made his plea,
Never shall accepted be;
Fruits of pride (vain-glorious worm!)
Are the best he can perform.


Self, the god his soul adores,
Influences all his powers;
Jesus is a slighted name,
Self-advancement all his aim;
But when God the Judge shall come,
To pronounce the final doom,
Then for rocks and hills to hide
All his works and all his pride!


Still the boasting heart replies,
What! the worthy and the wise,
Friends to temperance and peace,
Have not these a righteousness?
Banish every vain pretence,
Built on human excellence;
Perish every thing in man,
But the ...

True love, that ever shows itself as clear
In kindness, as loose appetite in wrong,
Silenced that lyre harmonious, and still'd
The sacred chords, that are by heav'n's right hand
Unwound and tighten'd, flow to righteous prayers
Should they not hearken, who, to give me will
For praying, in accordance thus were mute?
He hath in sooth good cause for endless grief,
Who, for the love of thing that lasteth not,
Despoils himself forever of that love.

As oft along the still and pure serene,
At nightfall, glides a sudden trail of fire,
Attracting with involuntary heed
The eye to follow it, erewhile at rest,
And seems some star that shifted place in heav'n,
Only that, whence it kindles, none is lost,
And it is soon extinct; thus from the horn,
That on the dext...

A Suggestion From Hogarth.


One knows the scene so well,--a touch,
A word, brings back again
That room, not garnished overmuch,
In gusty Drury Lane;

The empty safe, the child that cries,
The kittens on the coat,
The good-wife with her patient eyes,
The milkmaid's tuneless throat;

And last, in that mute woe sublime,
The luckless verseman's air:
The "Bysshe," the foolscap and the rhyme,--
The Rhyme ... that is not there!

Poor Bard! to dream the verse inspired--
With dews Castalian wet--
Is built from cold abstractions squired
By "Bysshe," his epithet!

Ah! when she comes, the glad-eyed Muse,
No step upon the stair
Betrays the guest that none refuse,--
She takes us unaware;

And tips with fire our ly...

Do you ever think of me? you who died
    Ere our Youth's first fervour chilled,
With your soft eyes and your pulses stilled
    Lying alone, aside,
Do you ever think of me, left in the light,
From the endless calm of your dawnless night?

I am faithful always: I do not say
    That the lips which thrilled to your lips of old
To lesser kisses are always cold;
    Had you wished for this in its narrow sense
    Our love perhaps had been less intense;
But as we held faithfulness, you and I,
    I am faithful always, as you who lie,
    Asleep for ever, beneath the grass,
    While the days and nights and the seasons pass, -
    Pass away.

I keep your memory near my heart,
    My brilliant, beautiful guiding Star,
Till long live over, I too d...

Squire wants the bay horse,
For it is the best.
Squire holds the mortgage;
Where's the interest?
Haven't got the interest,
Can't raise a sou;
Shan't sell the bay horse,
Whatever he may do.

Did you see the bay horse?
Such a one to go!
He took a bit of ridin',
When I showed him at the Show.
First prize the broad jump,
First prize the high;
Gold medal, Class A,
You'll see it by-and-by.

I bred the bay horse
On the Withy Farm.
I broke the bay horse,
He broke my arm.
Don't blame the bay horse,
Blame the brittle bone,
I bred him and I've fed him,
And he's all my very own.

Just watch the bay horse
Chock full of sense!
Ain't he just beautiful,
Risin' to a fence!
Just hear the bay horse
W...

News o' grief had overteaken
Dark-eyed Fanny, now vorseaken;
There she zot, wi' breast a-heaven,
While vrom zide to zide, wi' grieven,
Vell her head, wi' tears a-creepen
Down her cheaks, in bitter weepen.
There wer still the ribbon-bow
She tied avore her hour ov woe,
An' there wer still the hans that tied it
Hangen white,
Or wringen tight,
In ceare that drowned all ceare bezide it.

When a man, wi' heartless slighten,
Mid become a maiden's blighten,
He mid cearelessly vorseake her,
But must answer to her Meaker;
He mid slight, wi' selfish blindness,
All her deeds o' loven-kindness,
God wull waigh 'em wi' the slighten
That mid be her love's requiten;
He do look on each deceiver,
He do know
What weight o' woe
Do break the ...

The shades of night ban falling fast,
Ven tru Dakota willage passed
Young faller who skol carry flag
And yell, so loud sum he can brag,
    "Excelsior!"

Ay ant know yust vat he skol mean,
But yust lak dis har talk machine
He keep on saying, night and day
(Ay s'pose to passing time avay),
    "Excelsior!"

Swen Swenson tal me dis har guy
Ban crazy; den he tal me why.
He say dis faller once ban gay
And happy; den he never say
    "Excelsior!"

But after while, say Sven, he meet
A chorus girl who look quite sveet,
And marry her, and den find out
Vat making her so plump and stout -
    "Excelsior!"

So now poor faller have to go,
Lak lunatic, tru ice and snow.
He tenk about his old girl May,
And dis ban all v...

Such a hubbub in the nests,
Such a bustle and squeak!
Nestlings, guiltless of a feather,
Learning just to speak,
Ask - "And how about the fashions?"
From a cavernous beak.

Perched on bushes, perched on hedges,
Perched on firm hahas,
Perched on anything that holds them,
Gay papas and grave mammas
Teach the knowledge-thirsty nestlings:
Hear the gay papas.

Robin says: "A scarlet waistcoat
Will be all the wear,
Snug, and also cheerful-looking
For the frostiest air,
Comfortable for the chest too
When one comes to plume and pair."

"Neat gray hoods will be in vogue,"
Quoth a Jackdaw: "Glossy gray,
Setting close, yet setting easy,
Nothing fly-away;
Suited to our misty mornings,
A la negligée."

Flus...

I go through the days
Like a thief.
And no one hears
My heart lament to itself.
Please have pity.
Like me.
I hate you.
I want to embrace you.

There stands on yonder high mountain

A castle built of yore,
Where once lurked horse and horseman

In rear of gate and of door.

Now door and gate are in ashes,

And all around is so still;
And over the fallen ruins

I clamber just as I will.

Below once lay a cellar,

With costly wines well stor'd;
No more the glad maid with her pitcher

Descends there to draw from the hoard.

No longer the goblet she places

Before the guests at the feast;
The flask at the meal so hallow'd

No longer she fills for the priest.

No more for the eager squire

The draught in the passage is pour'd;
No more for the flying present

Receives she the flying reward.

For all the roof and th...

To safeguard man from wrongs, there nothing must
Be truer to him than a wise distrust.
And to thyself be best this sentence known:
Hear all men speak, but credit few or none.

        Changed? Yes, I will confess it - I have changed.
    I do not love in the old fond way.
        I am your friend still - time has not estranged
    One kindly feeling of that vanished day.

        But the bright glamour which made life a dream,
    The rapture of that time, its sweet content,
        Like visions of a sleeper's brain they seem -
    And yet I cannot tell you how they went.

        Why do you gaze with such accusing eyes
    Upon me, dear? Is it so very strange
        That hearts, like all things underneath God's skies
    Should sometimes feel the influence of change?

        The birds, the flowers, the foliage of the trees,
    The stars which seem so fixed and so sublime,
        Vast continents and the eternal seas -
...

"O! charming May!"
That's what they say.
The saying is not new, -
The saying is not true; -
O! May!

Bare fields and icebound streams,
Sunshine in fitful gleams,
May smile
Beguile,
And dispel poets' dreams.

Was ever May so gay
As what the poets say?
If so,
We know,
We live not in their day.

A cosy coat and wrap,
You may not find mishap -
Propo
You know
When comes the next cold snap.

A heavy woollen scarf,
Strong boots that reach the calf, -
Away we go
Through snow and slush and wet, -
And can we once forget
'Tis May? Oh, no!

Best is the old advice
Which we so oft despise,
"Cast not a clout
Till May goes out."
May like a maiden, lies.

A Maypole dance. -...

God measures souls by their capacity
For entertaining his best Angel, Love.
Who loveth most is nearest kin to God,
Who is all Love, or Nothing.

    He who sits
And looks out on the palpitating world,
And feels his heart swell in him large enough
To hold all men within it, he is near
His great Creator's standard, though he dwells
Outside the pale of churches, and knows not
A feast-day from a fast-day, or a line
Of Scripture even.    What God wants of us
Is that outreaching bigness that ignores
All littleness of aims, or loves, or creeds,
And clasps all Earth and Heaven in its embrace.

ON HER SEVENTEENTH BIRTHDAY.


Now has rich time brought you a gift of gold -
A long sweet year which you can shape at will,
And deck with roses warm, or with the chill
And heartless lilies - GOD gives strength to mould
Our days, and lives, with fingers firm and bold,
And make them noble, straight and clean from ill,
Though few are willing, and their years they fill
With dross which they regret when they are old.

What splendid hours of your life are these
When youth and childhood wander hand in hand,
And give you freely all which best can please -
Laughter and friends and dreams of Fairyland!
Mourn not the seasons past with useless tears,
But greet the pleasure of the coming years!

FRANCE, 1917.

ON THE FIELD OF CORN



Where is the war ye march unto,
From the early tents of morn?
And what are the deeds ye hope to do,
Brave Grenadiers of Corn?
Pearls of the dew are on your hair,
And the jewels of morning light,
Pennants of green ye fling to the air,
And the tall plumes waving bright.

Gaily away and steady ye go,
Never a faltering line:
Forward! I follow and try to know
Word of your countersign:
Hist! The spies of the tyrant sun
Eagerly watch your plan,
Lavish with bribes of gold, they run
Down to your outmost man.

Steady, good lads, go bravely on
By the parching hills of pain,
An armor of shade ye soon may don
And meet the allies of rain:
And night in the bivouac hours will sing
Praise of the mar...