Class _ ?Ejooil 
 
 Book lO"MiL4. 
 
 Copyright N" 
 
 COFi-KIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
FES 19 1901 
 
LOVERS ARGUMENT 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
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LOVE'S ARGUMENT 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 By ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER 
 
 Author of 'Concerning Isabel Carnaby,' <A Double 
 Thread,' 'The Farringdons,' 'Cupid's Garden,' etc. 
 
 NEW YORK . DODD, MEAD 
 AND COMPANY . M D C C C C I 
 
Copyright, igoo, by Ellen 
 Thorneycroft Fowler 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Library of Convirc^a 
 
 Two Copies RccnvFo 
 FEB 19 1901 
 
 Copyright antry 
 
 4o 
 
 No 
 
 SECOND COPY 
 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS . JOHN WILSON 
 AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 To A. or B. or C. — whoe'er may find 
 Something herein according to his mind — 
 / write this hook., and others of its kind. 
 
Contents 
 
 PART I 
 SECULAR VERSES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Love's Argument 3 
 
 The Millennium 5 
 
 A Holiday Resort 7 
 
 To You 9 
 
 The Fiction of To-Day lo 
 
 An Understudy 1 2 
 
 A New Year's Wish I5 
 
 A Song of War I7 
 
 A Summing-up 20 
 
 The Bliss of Ignorance 22 
 
 If I were You 23 
 
 Unequal 24 
 
 Jack and Jill 26 
 
 Ode to Sunrise on the Rigi 31 
 
 Christmas Day 34 
 
 A Plea for the Pen 3^ 
 
 The New Coinage 4* 
 
 What the Children Say 42 
 
 vii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Dost Thou not Know ? 44 
 
 Daffadowndilly 45 
 
 Lilies of Lent 46 
 
 Cornflowers 47 
 
 A Christmas Carol 49 
 
 A New Year's Greeting . 50 
 
 A Song of Spring ... 53 
 
 Beneath the Fading Leaves 55 
 
 The Country of Conceit 57 
 
 Despotism 59 
 
 PART II 
 SACRED VERSES 
 
 A Hymn of Praise 65 
 
 The Legend of Sir Leonard 70 
 
 A Graven Image 78 
 
 The Legend of the Little Soul 84 
 
 Life's Remedy 91 
 
 Fragments 93 
 
 A Christmas Hymn 94 
 
 An Epiphany Hymn 96 
 
 A Lenten Hymn 98 
 
 An Easter Hymn 100 
 
 A Whitsuntide Hymn 102 
 
 viii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hymn for S. Peter's Day 103 
 
 A Harvest Hymn 105 
 
 An Autumn Hymn 107 
 
 A Hymn for Women Workers 1 1 1 
 
 Lost and Found 113 
 
 Pantomime Children 115 
 
 An Unprofitable Servant 117 
 
 The Fool that Said in his Heart 119 
 
 Blossoms 121 
 
 Sunlight and Moonlight 123 
 
 The Apple-Tree 124 
 
 Love and Duty 127 
 
 Time 128 
 
 PART III 
 
 SONNETS 
 
 A Nevst Year's Wish 131 
 
 Spring 132 
 
 Summer 133 
 
 Autumn 134 
 
 Winter 135 
 
 Patience 136 
 
 On an Old Portrait 137 
 
 On a Suit of Armour 138 
 
 ix 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Asleep 139 
 
 FoRGETFULNESS I4O 
 
 Two Points of View 141 
 
 A Boon 143 
 
 Fairyland 144 
 
 Errata 145 
 
 In Time of War 146 
 
 The Chapel Royal, Savoy 147 
 
 Them That sit at Meat ...... . . 148 
 
 To the Planet Mars 149 
 
 A Birthday Greeting 150 
 
 Bygone Years 151 
 
PART I 
 
 SECULAR VERSES 
 
LOVE'S ARGUMENT 
 
 AS it fell on a day 
 That a traveller grey 
 Was trudging along life's road, 
 
 Who should chance to come by 
 
 And his plight to espy 
 But Love 'neath his archer's load ? 
 
 Whilst the wanderer gazed 
 
 At the vision, amazed 
 And doubtful if it vi^ere true; 
 
 ' You are weary and sad,' 
 
 Quoth the radiant lad ; 
 * Pray what can I do for you ? ' 
 
 ' You go on your way,' 
 Sighed the traveller grey ; 
 
 ' For oft have I heard it told 
 (And with singular truth) 
 That love sojourns with youth. 
 
 And cannot abide the old.' 
 
 With a mischievous smile 
 That was brimful of guile, 
 
 ' That saying,' quoth Love, ' is true : 
 Your adorable She, 
 Whosoever she be. 
 
 Will always seem young to you.' 
 3 
 
LOVE'S ARGUMENT 
 
 ' You can go to your play/ 
 Sighed the traveller grey j 
 
 ' No friend in my need you '11 prove : 
 For my visage is w^orn, 
 And 't is oftentimes sworn 
 
 That beauty alone wins love.' 
 With a light-hearted laugh. 
 That was careless as chaff, 
 
 * That saying,' quoth Love, ' is true : 
 For your lady of grace. 
 Whatsoever her face, 
 
 Will always seem fair to you.' 
 
 * If I fail, as you say,' 
 Sighed the traveller grey, 
 
 '■ The faults of my queen to scan. 
 Can her fancy's fond flight 
 Make a worshipful knight 
 
 Of a weary and worn old man ? ' 
 
 * I have frequently heard 
 A proverbial word,' 
 
 Quoth Love, *■ which is trite and true, 
 In colloquial use — 
 What is sauce for the goose 
 
 Is sauce for the gander too.' 
 
THE MILLENNIUM 
 
 SWEETHEART, when this lifetime is ended 
 And the morrow a new life brings ; 
 When our changeable wills have been bended 
 
 To the changeless orders of things ; 
 We will sit on the edge of a planet, 
 We two, for a thousand years. 
 And will talk of what really began it 
 In the so-called valley of tears. 
 
 We will sit on the edge of a planet. 
 
 Poised high in the midst of space ; 
 While the heaven-sent breezes that fan it 
 
 Shall kiss us full in the face. 
 We will talk of the hour when I met you — 
 
 Of the days when we met again — 
 Of the years when I tried to forget you. 
 
 And tried (how I tried !) in vain. 
 
 We shall wonder (nay, hardly shall wonder — 
 It will all be explained by then) 
 
 Why we two were the twain kept asunder 
 In a world of women and men. 
 5 
 
THE MILLENNIUM 
 
 We shall smile at bright days that are over, 
 And at brighter ones never begun, 
 
 Which we planned, Dear, when you were my lover 
 In the country beneath the sun. 
 
 Long silence shall serve but to sweeten 
 
 The sound of life's triumph-chord. 
 When the years that the locust hath eaten 
 
 To us shall be all restored : 
 When it 's proved beyond doubt or debating 
 
 We were meant to be one at last. 
 We '11 forget the long season of waiting. 
 
 Which will fade as a dream that 's past. 
 
 There 's so much I am wanting to tell you — 
 
 So much you must tell to me 
 Of the manifold things that befell you 
 
 This side of eternity. 
 And we '11 scorn, since our passion outran it. 
 
 Time's dart that was winged with fears. 
 When we sit on the edge of a planet. 
 
 We two, for a thousand years. 
 
A HOLIDAY RESORT 
 
 AS a place of residence Eden was closed 
 When Adam and Eve left home ; 
 And no one can live there, it is supposed, 
 
 For many a year to come ; 
 But now and again, in the summer days, 
 
 The gardens are open thrown. 
 That the public may walk down the grassy ways : 
 And nobody walks alone. 
 
 There is growing still from its old-world root 
 
 The dangerous Knowledge-Tree, 
 With its whispering leaves and its wondrous fruit. 
 
 As of old it was wont to be. 
 And if visitors gather and eat of such. 
 
 They are banished forthwith pro tern. ; 
 For they see too clearly and know too much. 
 
 So Eden is not for them. 
 
 In the centre is standing the Tree of Life, 
 
 As it stood in primeval springs ; 
 And under its shadows soft winds are rife — 
 Soft winds that have angels' wings. 
 7 
 
A HOLIDAY RESORT 
 
 The commonplace people who seek its shade 
 And feel on their brows its breath, 
 
 Go forward rejoicing and unafraid, 
 Since love cannot taste of death. 
 
 There is room for us all in that Eden grove, 
 
 'Neath the mystical azure skies ; 
 For none are too fooHsh and young to love. 
 
 And none are too old and wise. 
 Yet each man will swear as he passes through, 
 
 Ere his holiday time is done, 
 That the place is constructed to hold but two- 
 
 Himself and another one. 
 
 We can go there only as trippers now : 
 
 Yet a message has come to me 
 (No matter who told me, or when, or how — 
 
 'T was the highest authority) : 
 That Eden again in the fulness of days 
 
 Shall be as it was before ; 
 The people shall enter its gates with praise, 
 
 And they shall go out no more. 
 
TO YOU 
 
 DEAREST, half my day is over, 
 Half my journey plodded through, 
 Yet I 've found nor friend nor lover 
 That can be compared with you. 
 
 Half the joys of life I 've tasted, 
 Drunk of pleasures not a few, 
 
 Yet I feel completely wasted 
 
 Was each hour not spent with you. 
 
 I have mixed in sweet confusion 
 
 Friendships old and friendships new. 
 
 And I 've come to this conclusion — 
 There is nobody like you. 
 
 Wealth and rank I 've passed unheeding. 
 Hardly giving them their due. 
 
 For my heart and soul were needing 
 Nothing in the world but you. 
 
 Therefore may I be forgiven 
 
 If I hold it to be true 
 Heaven scarcely will be heaven 
 
 If it is not shared with you. 
 9 
 
THE FICTION OF TO-DAY 
 
 IT chanced upon an evil day 
 I took a volume in my hand — 
 A volume which I longed to say 
 My soul could understand. 
 
 I dipped into its mystic lore 
 
 With all the eagerness of youth, 
 
 Nor dreamed but that its pages bore 
 The sign and seal of truth. 
 
 I viewed it not with such disgust 
 
 As wiser heads would feel for it ; 
 
 But trusted it as I would trust 
 The words of Holy Writ ; 
 
 Yet when upon its strength I leaned, 
 
 And strove thereby my steps to trace. 
 
 It proved as false as any fiend 
 
 And mocked me to my face. 
 
 When knowledge to account was turned, 
 Who then so great a fool as I ? 
 
 The so-called science I had learned 
 Was one pernicious lie. 
 
THE FICTION OF TO-DAY 
 
 Too late it was myself to save 
 
 From mischief which was bound to be 
 But woe to whosoever gave 
 
 So base a book to me ! 
 
 And woe to careless souls and blind, 
 
 Who let such trash their tables spread, 
 
 And leave some fresh, untutored mind 
 To read what I have read ! 
 
 The volume which so grossly lied — 
 
 Which led me wrong and cost me dear- 
 
 Was only Bradshaw's Railway Guide 
 For some preceding year. 
 
 II 
 
AN UNDERSTUDY 
 
 THE Devil's hoofs were muddy — 
 With sleep his eyes were dim ; 
 He sought an understudy 
 
 To play his part for him, 
 Whilst he took rest and washed and dressed 
 Within his palace grim. 
 
 * Although I am expected 
 
 To need a breathing space, 
 No duty is neglected 
 
 Till some one fills my place 
 And works,' quoth he, ^ such ill for me 
 
 That evil grows apace.' 
 
 There was a pious woman 
 
 Who dwelt beneath the sun : 
 
 In willing service no man 
 
 Did more than she had done ; 
 
 She strove to preach, to train and teach 
 And counsel every one. 
 
 12 
 
AN UNDERSTUDY 
 
 She clothed the poor and needy 
 
 In suitable attire ; 
 She nursed the sick and seedy 
 
 And raised them from the mire ; 
 No godly work she seemed to shirk, 
 
 No pleasure to desire. 
 
 Yet lightened she her labours 
 
 (So-called) of Christian love. 
 
 By stories of her neighbours 
 Too subtle to disprove : 
 
 She roared as sweet, this dame discreet, 
 As any sucking dove. 
 
 She cheered each dry committee 
 
 With tales of absent folk, 
 And let nor truth nor pity 
 
 Impair her little joke ; 
 Till loves were soiled and lives were spoiled 
 
 By every word she spoke. 
 
 With talk her tasks beguiling, 
 
 She blackened people's names ; 
 
 Nor dreamed that such reviling 
 Annulled her saintly claims, 
 
 And turned to nought the good she wrought 
 (According to Saint James). 
 13 
 
AN UNDERSTUDY 
 
 The Devil saw the matron. 
 And merrily cried he — 
 
 ' I 'm proud to be the patron 
 Of gossips such as she ! 
 
 Whilst I he still she '11 work my will 
 And be my deputy.* 
 
 14 
 
A NEW YEAR'S WISH 
 
 A HAPPY, happy year to the friends I left behind 
 me — 
 Who said farewell at some cross-road with many a 
 parting tear : 
 Of what they used to be to me old memories oft remind 
 me ; 
 ' For auld lang syne ' I wish to them the happiest 
 New Year ! 
 
 A happy, happy year to the friends that walk beside me — 
 Who make life's path a pleasant place because their 
 steps are near : 
 Their smiles of comfort light the way, their words of 
 counsel guide me ; 
 I wish them from mine inmost heart the happiest 
 New Year ! 
 
 A happy, happy year to the friends that yet await me — 
 Whose faces, still unknown to me, the future shall 
 make clear : 
 Some day their hands will clasp my own, some day their 
 love elate me ; 
 Meanwhile I warmly wish for them the happiest 
 New Year ! 
 
A NEW YEAR'S WISH 
 
 A happy, happy year to the friends that ne'er shall meet 
 me, 
 But who will let my written words sometimes their 
 spirits cheer : 
 Perchance in other worlds than this their kindred souls 
 may greet me ; 
 And here and now I wish to them the happiest 
 New Year ! 
 
 i6 
 
A SONG OF WAR 
 
 (1889-1900) 
 
 ENGLAND lay asleep 'mid the tumult of the nations, 
 While her sons beheld no visions and her daugh- 
 ters dreamed no dreams ; 
 
 For they dwelt at ease in Zion, 
 And they taught the British lion 
 To wax fat in pleasant pastures and lie down by peace- 
 ful streams. 
 So with laughter and with song they upraised their invo- 
 cations 
 To the gods that they had fashioned of the stuff they 
 found to hand ; 
 
 And they said in their prosperity, 
 ' There is nothing, of a verity. 
 That can harm the rank and fashion of this well-appointed 
 land ! ' 
 
 But behold ! an angel came, who was clothed in clouds 
 
 and thunder, 
 While the morning gleamed behind him like a battle-flag 
 unfurled ; 
 
 And he sware by Him That liveth 
 And the life to all things giveth. 
 That this time of peace and plenty should no longer lull 
 the world. 
 2 17 
 
A SONG OF WAR 
 
 But the people were too drowsy to be filled with awe and 
 
 wonder 
 At an angel who was standing on the field and on the 
 flood; 
 
 So he roused the cannon's rattle, 
 And he called to them by battle, 
 And by shouting of the captains, and by garments rolled 
 in blood. 
 
 England woke at last, like a giant from her slumbers, 
 And she turned to swords her ploughshares, and her 
 pruning-hooks to spears ; 
 
 While she called her sons and bade them 
 Be the men that God had made them 
 Ere they fell away from manhood in the careless, idle 
 
 years. 
 And her sons obeyed her call, and went forth in mighty 
 
 numbers. 
 For the honour of their country to expend their latest 
 breath ; 
 
 While the angel, who had saved them 
 From the slumber that enslaved them, 
 Rode before them on the pale horse, and the rider's name 
 was Death. 
 
 England lifts her head in her glory as a nation. 
 While her daughter-lands walk with her down the dark 
 and thorny ways ; 
 
 i8 
 
A SONG OF WAR 
 
 Of a truth they learned to love her 
 When the clouds were black above her, 
 As they never could have loved her in the happy, golden 
 
 days. 
 She hath prayed and wrestled sore — she hath wrought 
 
 her own salvation — 
 Yet the angel-hand hath touched her in the hollow of 
 her thigh ; 
 
 And her eyes are dim with weeping 
 For her heroes who are sleeping. 
 Now their warfare is accomplished, 'neath the sunny 
 Southern sky. 
 
 19 
 
A SUMMING-UP 
 
 YOU took my love and played with it ; 
 Then stabbed it by your subtle wit 
 To serve your selfish ends, Dear. 
 That love grew sick and maimed and halt. 
 And died at last, was not my fault : 
 So bury him within a vault, 
 
 And let us still be friends, Dear. 
 
 You took my heart and made it beat ; 
 Then trampled it beneath your feet 
 
 To hide its cracks and creases. 
 Unless I make a great mistake, 
 A heart thus hurt was bound to break : 
 So say no more, for mercy's sake. 
 
 But sweep up all the pieces. 
 
 You took my faith and tore its threads 
 Into a thousand tiny shreds. 
 
 And left me here without it. 
 Had I defied your magic sway, 
 My faith would be intact to-day : 
 So let us throw the rags away. 
 
 And waste no time about it. 
 
A SUMMING-UP 
 
 You took my life and filled it all ; 
 Then turned its sweetness into gall 
 
 And doomed it to despair, Dear. 
 The life you spoiled is nearly done : 
 But if there be another one, 
 In some strange land beyond the sun, 
 
 I hope you won't be there. Dear. 
 
 21 
 
THE BLISS OF IGNORANCE 
 
 YOU thought you 'd searched me in and out, 
 And yet you never knew 
 That all I ever thought about 
 Was you. 
 
 My soul was in your sight unfurled 
 
 You said, yet never guessed 
 That I loved you in all the world 
 The best. 
 
 You vowed you had my spirit's lore 
 
 Safe at your finger ends, 
 Yet never found that we were more 
 Than friends. 
 
 You read in every word I spoke 
 
 Strange meanings for your part. 
 Yet never dreamed that once you broke 
 My heart. 
 
 Be thankful then that you, my own. 
 
 With clever, sightless eyes. 
 Were ignorant, whilst I alone 
 Was wise. 
 
 22 
 
IF I WERE YOU 
 
 IF I were you I should feel proud 
 Of all the talents I possessed ; 
 And by no comments of the crowd 
 Could be distressed. 
 
 If I were you I would not heed 
 
 The paltry praise of meaner men 
 For I should be too strong to need 
 Such solace then. 
 
 If I were you I should be dead 
 
 To critics whether great or small ; 
 For I should know I stood a head 
 Above them all. 
 
 If I were you my heart would be 
 Itself a kingdom ever new ; 
 But I 'd make room in it for me 
 If I were you. 
 
 23 
 
UNEQUAL 
 
 HE never speaks a word to me 
 That 's not considerate and kind ; 
 Nor shows, when in my company, 
 An absent mind. 
 
 My wildest wishes he fulfils 
 
 Without a protest on his part ; 
 My faintest show of friendship thrills 
 His faithful heart. 
 
 Yet though he lives for me alone. 
 
 And knows, save me, no joy on earth, 
 The love I feel for him, I own. 
 Is little worth. 
 
 He 'd give his all for my sole sake, 
 
 And ask from me no answering grace ; 
 Yet in my thoughts he has to take 
 A lower place. 
 24 
 
UNEQUAL 
 
 For I am everything to him, 
 
 While he is nothing much to me ; 
 And in this world of humour grim 
 Such things must be. 
 
 Since love to some is but a joke — 
 
 To some a curse life's wheel to clog- 
 He 's no worse off than wiser folk, 
 My little dog ! 
 
 25 
 
JACK AND JILL 
 
 (songs of five centuries) 
 
 SIXTEENTH 
 
 IT was a shepherd and his love 
 Up a mountain path did rove, 
 Searching for a silver rill : 
 But he stumbled 'mid the lilies. 
 She among the daffodillies, 
 
 And they rolled adown the hill. 
 Thus it fell one afternoon 
 In the merry month of June. 
 
 SEVENTEENTH 
 
 They left behind the daisied vale 
 And climbed the purple hill ; 
 
 And 'twixt them bore the empty pail 
 They longed yet feared to fill. 
 
 They feasted at the upper spring. 
 Each drinking with soft eyes 
 
 To each, while Philomel did sing 
 Her sweetest lullabies. 
 26 
 
JACK AND JILL 
 
 He fell. In vain she sought the joy 
 From solitude that springs, 
 
 Then followed fast the recreant boy 
 With unconfined wings. 
 
 EIGHTEENTH 
 
 Jack (of what vale the history doth not mention) 
 Forsook the valley with a fixed intention, 
 With gentle Mistress Gillian by his side 
 To act as friend, philosopher, and guide. 
 They left behind their unassuming home, 
 Aping ' the wise who soar but never roam ' ; 
 They left behind the undulating dale, 
 The verdant meadow and the smiling vale — 
 The land of flowery field and foaming flood. 
 Where drowsy cattle chewed the soothing cud — 
 And turned their steps to scale the cloud-girt mountain, 
 Crowned on its summit by a sparkling fountain. 
 The object of this perilous ascent 
 Was to procure a grateful condiment — 
 A pailful of the draught the hillsides profFer, 
 Which ' cheers but not inebriates ' the quaffer. 
 But as the travellers climbed, becoming warm — 
 ' Swelled from the vale and midway met the storm ' — 
 Jack, to his everlasting grief and shame. 
 Failed in the purpose wherewithal he came ; 
 Fell from the cliff's where royal eaglets nestle. 
 And straight was followed by the weaker vessel. 
 
 27 
 
JACK AND JILL 
 
 'Twere sad to tell, and sadder still to trace 
 
 The decadence from honour to disgrace 
 
 Of England's famous son and lovely daughter, 
 
 Who failed to win their promised meed of water ; 
 
 But left the legend of their empty pail 
 
 ' To point a moral and adorn a tale.' 
 
 NINETEENTH 
 
 They clambered when the sun was low 
 Across the swiftly melting snow. 
 And strove to intercept its flow 
 
 With pails of iron-mongery. 
 
 He fell, and broke his golden head. 
 And she — believing he was dead — 
 Decided to remain unwed. 
 
 In deference to his memory. 
 
 Then, having heard of the Suttee, 
 She cried, * Ah! it were well with me 
 If I lay dead along with thee. 
 
 Thou pearl of English chivalry ! ' 
 
 So down she flung her body flat. 
 Which roused him from his swoon ; whereat 
 She answered to his cry — ' Who 's that ? ' 
 ' 'T is I, sir, rolling rapidly ! ' 
 28 
 
JACK AND JILL 
 
 TWENTIETH 
 
 My Lady Jill, the highly gifted daughter 
 Of Lord Portcullis, took it in her head 
 
 That she would advocate the use of water 
 Of all intoxicating drinks instead ; 
 
 So begged a House of Commons man to teach 
 
 Her how to make a great teetotal speech. 
 
 And (as is natural when a woman asks 
 
 A man to teach her what she does n't know) 
 
 She showed him how to compass hopeless tasks. 
 
 And trained him in the way he should not go ; 
 
 For angels, by enthusiasm led, 
 
 Rush in where even fools would fear to tread. 
 
 She said — ('t is well to notice all the while 
 
 She fancied she was being taught by him) — 
 
 ' My dear Sir John, you really must n't smile 
 As if the thing were just a passing whim : 
 
 'T is a great cause, and needs proceedings risky. 
 
 You '11 have some tea ? Or would you fancy whisky ? 
 
 ' Tea ? — Very well. Sugar ? — One lump or two ? 
 
 You see I clearly am ordained to teach ; 
 And it is really very nice of you 
 
 To help me to compose my opening speech. 
 I shall begin by showing it is wrong 
 To take too much of anything that 's strong. 
 
 29 
 
JACK AND JILL 
 
 ' Then I shall say a Bishop must not drink ; 
 
 Though he may take a little, I have heard, 
 Just for the sake of — No, I do not think 
 
 It comme ilfaut to use the Pauline word. 
 I '11 just prescribe a spoonful, should there cease 
 To be beneath his apron perfect peace. 
 
 * As for the minor clergy — Well, you seem 
 Extremely shy and ill at ease. Sir John. 
 
 Your tea 's too strong, you say, with too much cream ? 
 Then a la Polly, put the kettle on. 
 
 But don't be shy of me because I 'm clever : 
 
 People are never frightened of me — never. 
 
 ' Now you 've upset it all, you tremble so ! 
 
 What 's wrong with you I really cannot tell. 
 You want to ask me something ? — Do you know 
 
 You 've made me feel absurdly shy as well ? 
 
 Good gracious ! All the afternoon has gone ! 
 
 And we forgot the temperance speech — dear John.' 
 
 30 
 
ODE TO SUNRISE ON THE RIGI 
 
 O GLORIOUS Sun ! thou 'it rising fair and bright, 
 And tipping all the snow-crowned hills with 
 gold; 
 While we stand shivering in the morning light, 
 And catching cold. 
 
 Thou 'rt smiling on the vales in verdure clad — 
 
 Thy face on them its new-born glory sheds ; 
 While we are wondering we could be so mad 
 As leave our beds. 
 
 Thou'rt gilding with thy wealth the growing grain, 
 
 And gladdening all the earth with sweet surprise ; 
 While we are vowing we '11 ne'er rise again 
 To see thee rise. 
 
 The land by thee in golden sheen is drest, 
 
 And thou hast crowned each purple-mantled hill ; 
 But we, alas ! are looking not our best 
 In deshabille. 
 
 31 
 
ODE TO SUNRISE ON THE RIGI 
 
 Thou 'rt waking with thy beams the flocks and 
 herds ; 
 All nature can thy gentle influence feel j 
 While we are envying the little birds 
 Their morning meal. 
 
 O glorious Sun ! with grandeur unalloyed 
 
 Thou 'rt filling heaven and earth and land and 
 sea; 
 Yet we can feel an inward, aching void 
 Unfilled by thee. 
 
 'T is a fair vision, meet for fays and elves, 
 To see thee as a giant-monarch rise ; 
 But for the future we '11 content ourselves 
 With sunset skies. 
 
 Though grand thou art when first thy lamp is lit, 
 
 And thou ascend'st thy throne, with new-crowned 
 head ; 
 ' Nothing becomes thee like the leaving it ' — 
 As Shakespeare said. 
 
 Thou play'st thy part the best, thou actor great, 
 
 When robed in rosy clouds at close of day ; 
 Or else, perhaps, we don't appreciate 
 A matinee. 
 
 32 
 
ODE TO SUNRISE ON THE RIGI 
 
 If early habits are a sign of sense 
 
 (As taught us by that prig, the early bird), 
 Close early ; but so early to commence 
 Is quite absurd. 
 
 O glorious Sun ! if thou wouldst feast our eyes 
 
 On all the wealth thy dawning hath in store, 
 Rise later — or be kind enough to rise 
 The day before. 
 
 33 
 
CHRISTMAS DAY 
 
 THAT festive season has come round again, 
 Which is the time for ' jest and youthful jollity ' ; 
 When we are all supposed to give the rein 
 
 To ' quips and cranks ' and similar frivolity ; 
 And men are bidden to be bright and gay 
 And ready for roast-beef on Christmas Day. 
 
 Baronial halls were *■ decked with holly green ' — 
 
 (As Scott remarked) when Christmas was poetical ; 
 
 The beauteous ' damsel donned her kirtle sheen ' 
 To make the Yule-tide even more aesthetical ; 
 
 And ' merry men ' to woodlands hied away 
 
 To ' gather mistletoe ' for Christmas Day. 
 
 All this is changed : the holly far afield 
 
 Is left this holiday for winds to whistle to ; 
 
 The scant supply the verdant-grocers yield 
 Is all that we are treated to in mistletoe ; 
 
 And damsels don their second-best array 
 
 To dine with relatives on Christmas Day. 
 
 34 
 
CHRISTMAS DAY 
 
 The season of its seasoning is bereft, 
 
 Owing to ancient usages' declivity ; 
 
 The Bore's Head is the only relic left 
 
 To grace the hospitable Bored's festivity ; 
 
 The winds are gruesome, and the skies are grey, 
 
 And life 's a ' Winter's Tale ' on Christmas Day. 
 
 We 'd give our tearful, ' crimson-tipped ' eyes 
 To take a part in that warm Saturnalia, 
 
 Which cousins (once-removed) 'neath summer skies 
 Are keeping now at Christmas in Australia : 
 
 And gladly would we — if we knew the way — 
 
 Turn the world upside-down on Christmas Day. 
 
 35 
 
A PLEA FOR THE PEN 
 
 WHICH is the greatest, Tongue or Pen or Sword ? 
 It is indeed a much-disputed question 
 To say which does the most — a written word, 
 
 A planted blow, a hinted-at suggestion. 
 To trace the varied influence of the three 
 
 Takes all my rhyme, and more than all my reason ; 
 And yet but little doubt there seems to be 
 
 That each has done its duty in its season : 
 But which has done the most 't is hard to say ; 
 For each, like every dog, has had its day. 
 
 We '11 take the kingdoms that the Sword has ruled 
 
 In days when kings were only first-class fighters. 
 When every senator in war was schooled. 
 
 And no one heard of speakers or of writers ; 
 And then compare them with these present days. 
 
 When every man 's more learned than his betters. 
 When artisans in fields of culture graze. 
 
 And e'en the postman is a man of letters ; 
 We '11 judge the ruling of the Sword, and then 
 Discuss the conduct of the Tongue and Pen. 
 
 36 
 
A PLEA FOR THE PEN 
 
 Now Alexander was a man to fear, 
 
 His blows made all the earth to smart and 
 tingle ; 
 Yet he was forced to drop the silent tear 
 
 Because the conquerable globe was single. 
 The Siege of Troy almost upset the world, 
 
 And influenced all creatures therein dwelling, 
 Kingdoms were undermined, and thrones were hurled ; 
 
 This was accomplished by the Sword — {cum Helen) ; 
 It razed the town, it hacked the horse of wood j 
 A needful scourge, but not an unmixed good. 
 
 Glimpses of war's effects can France afford 
 
 Since Orleans was guarded by the Maiden ; 
 Until the third Napoleon his sword 
 
 And state laid down that fatal day at Sedan. 
 Old Buonaparte performed a grand pas seul^ 
 
 And figured finely in the world's arena. 
 But circumstances stopped his martial rule, 
 
 And he retired to rest at St. Helena. 
 The Revolution wrote its legend gory ; 
 Yet scarcely was a creditable story. 
 
 As for the Tongue, now let us strive to trace 
 The influence of that unruly member. 
 
 Which from the birth of Time has kept its place. 
 And often proved a right consuming ember. 
 37 
 
A PLEA FOR THE PEN 
 
 The Tongue has wielded its extensive power 
 
 From days when men were much confused at Babel, 
 
 Until this most enlightened ' shining hour ' 
 
 When messages embrace the world — by cable. 
 
 Mighty are spoken words, much comes from them ; 
 
 But then their influence is but pro tern. 
 
 All-powerful the Tongue is for a while. 
 
 And no one can escape from its dominion ; 
 For it decides men's faith and women's style j 
 
 'Tis fashion, custom, popular opinion. 
 In private life — as everybody knows — 
 
 The Tongue's authority is just enormous; 
 It mars our pleasures, aggravates our woes, 
 
 Because — as all philosophers inform us — 
 Full well the ' ministering angel ' sees 
 How to employ it ' in our hours of ease.' 
 
 This Independent Member much has done ; 
 
 In Governments it cuts a striking figure, 
 For if the legislature is the gun. 
 
 Public opinion doubtless is the trigger. 
 But only for the moment is its sway ; 
 
 Since orators experience, to their sorrow. 
 That what are pearls and diamonds to-day 
 
 Are flung upon the rubbish-heap to-morrow. 
 Like manna that came down while men lay sleeping. 
 Inspired speeches never will stand keeping. 
 
 38 
 
A PLEA FOR THE PEN 
 
 How powerful the Pen is who can say. 
 
 Or trace the influence of gifted writers ? 
 The Tongue — as we have seen — rules but to-day ; 
 
 Nor everlasting are the best of fighters : 
 Armies have passed away like autumn leaves, 
 
 No spoken word survives the tongue it blisters. 
 But written truth a web eternal weaves. 
 
 Like that composed by Atropos and Sisters. 
 The Sword is sheathed, the Tongue is hushed, but 
 
 when 
 Ceases the mighty influence of the Pen ? 
 
 Whatever work the Sword and Tongue have done 
 
 Would be completely hid in deepest mystery 
 If their ally, the Pen, had not begun 
 
 To reproduce them in the form of history. 
 Without the Pen we never should have known 
 
 How wise was Socrates' immortal tattle; 
 We never should have heard of Marathon, 
 
 Nor had the least idea who won the battle. 
 Great are the Sword and Tongue, but it is true 
 The Pen 's a Liebig's Extract of the two. 
 
 From ignorance of all the twain have wrought 
 The Pen alone has power to redeem us ; 
 
 Without its kindly aid we might have thought 
 
 That Rome itself was built by Brother Remus ; 
 
 That Hannibal was stay-at-home and staid ; 
 
 39 
 
A PLEA FOR THE PEN 
 
 That dumb was Peter the Crusading Hermit ; 
 That Cleopatra was a plain old maid ; 
 
 And Antony a muff — as one might term it : 
 With other errors equally unpleasant, 
 If no reporters had by chance been present. 
 
 Then take the poets of all days and climes — 
 
 Take Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer ; 
 They culled the first-fruits of their harvest-times 
 
 And served them in a mental cup and saucer 
 For all succeeding sons of men to sip — 
 
 A cheering, not inebriating, hominy. 
 And take our modern scribes, who make a trip 
 
 By sea or rail, this current Anno Domini, 
 A liberal education, through the rations 
 Of mental fare they serve at railway stations. 
 
 The Sword has played most necessary parts 
 
 In building kingdoms on a firm foundation ; 
 Its iron strength has schooled the people's hearts. 
 
 And helped them to work out their own salvation. 
 The Tongue has conquered giants grim and gaunt, 
 
 As surely as the sling that held the lad's stones. 
 And earned an undisputed right to vaunt 
 
 By Ciceros, and Mirabeaux, and Gladstones. 
 But still I hold the Pen must ever be. 
 Like Charity, the greatest of the three. 
 
 40 
 
THE NEW COINAGE 
 
 OUR change is changed : the penny of futurity 
 Portrays Britannia seated on the shore, 
 Ruling the waves in prudence, peace, and purity, 
 As heretofore ; 
 
 But banished are the lighthouse and the galleon, 
 
 Which formed the old supporters of the seal j 
 And now she sits upon the large medallion 
 (So like a wheel) 
 
 Alone, alas ! and cold as any icicle. 
 
 But, in this land of bye-laws, is it right 
 Britannia's self should ride upon a bicycle 
 Without a light ? 
 
 41 
 
WHAT THE CHILDREN SAY 
 
 WHEN the light has nearly gone 
 And the shadows fall ; 
 When the sun is rolling on 
 
 Like a ruby ball ; 
 Down into a golden cup 
 
 Drops the orb of day, 
 Which a giant hand holds up ; 
 So the children say. 
 
 Where a darker circle lies 
 
 On the dewy lawn, 
 Seen by little eager eyes 
 
 At the early dawn ; 
 There the kelpies dance and sing — 
 
 There the pixies play — 
 Round and round the magic ring ; 
 
 So the children say. 
 
 Though we tremble in the dark 
 
 At a goblin crew, 
 Ghosts will vanish when the lark' 
 
 Wakes the world anew : 
 Though our hearts be filled with pain. 
 
 Though our heads be grey, 
 42 
 
WHAT THE CHILDREN SAY 
 
 Kisses make them well again ; 
 So the children say. 
 
 Somewhere lies a wondrous land 
 
 Where the fairies wait ; 
 And but few can understand 
 
 How to find the gate : 
 Those who seek it by themselves 
 
 Always go astray, 
 And are mocked by merry elves ; 
 
 So the children say. 
 
 There of emerald is the grass, 
 
 And the paths of gold ; 
 There no evil comes to pass — 
 
 Nobody grows old : 
 If we 'd fail not in the quest. 
 
 We must find the way 
 With the one we love the best ;. 
 
 So the children say. 
 
 You and I are old and wise. 
 
 Sadder than of yore. 
 Yet before our jaded eyes 
 
 Open stands the door : 
 If we enter hand in hand, 
 
 I-Iappen then v/hat may, 
 We shall be in fairyland ; 
 
 As the children say. 
 43 
 
DOST THOU NOT KNOW? 
 
 DOST thou not know that though I seem to chide 
 And give to all thy doings little heed, 
 My heart cries out to thee in bitter need, 
 And feels no gladness only at thy side ? 
 
 Dost thou not know ? 
 
 Dost thou not know that when thou art away 
 The world to me is but a desert place ; 
 But heaven seems opened for a little space 
 
 When near my path thy passing footsteps stray ? 
 Dost thou not know ? 
 
 Dost thou not know that in a realm divine 
 Where angels in triumphant chorus sing. 
 Their song will hardly be a perfect thing 
 
 Until 1 hear their voices blend with thine ? 
 Dost thou not know ? 
 
 44 
 
DAFFADOWNDILLY 
 
 ONCE again we perceive you have come up to toviri, 
 Though the skies are so grey and the winds are so 
 chilly, 
 With your kirtle of green and your gay yellow gown, 
 Daffadowndilly. 
 
 And you tell us how birds are beginning to sing 
 
 In the zephyr-swept plains and the meadowlands 
 hilly, 
 Until homesick we grow for the country and spring, 
 Daffadowndilly. 
 
 We were happy enough in the din and the dust. 
 
 Where our days are foredoomed to be passed willy- 
 nilly. 
 Till you sharpened old memories covered with rust. 
 Daffadowndilly. 
 
 By the side of your kirtle and gay yellow gown 
 
 The stale shams we delight in seem sordid and silly ; 
 So perhaps 't was a pity you came up to town, 
 Daffadowndilly. 
 
 45 
 
LILIES OF LENT 
 
 YE tell us that spring is a hastening comer — 
 That winter is past and his passion is spent — 
 That glory and gladness will dawn with the summer ; 
 But ye will not live for it, Lilies of Lent. 
 
 The fields will be green and the grass will be growing. 
 When manifold blossoms in beauty are blent ; 
 
 But ye will not know that the zephyrs are blowing 
 And opening the rose-petals, Lilies of Lent. 
 
 Ye cheer us on days that are darksome and dreary. 
 And die ere the sunnier seasons are sent : 
 
 Then can we of singing your praises grow weary 
 For all ye have done for us. Lilies of Lent ? 
 
 When roses their fulness and fragrance are giving. 
 
 No thought shall we waste on your shape or your 
 scent : 
 
 Which is but the way of the world that we live in, 
 And we are its citizens, Lilies of Lent. 
 
 46 
 
CORNFLOWERS 
 
 II' fell on a day that I gathered some flowers 
 Which grew long ago in a field by a brook, 
 To call to men's minds, through the wayfaring hours, 
 The pavement of sapphire described in the Book. 
 
 But hid from the sunshine, their colour soon faded — 
 They died not, nor withered, but bravely lived on ; 
 
 Though in the dark room, from the morning light shaded, 
 Their brightness, their bloom, and their beauty were 
 gone. 
 
 An emblem, methought, of the lives spent in sorrow, 
 Which blossom with promise at dawning of day ; 
 
 But, hid from the light, no fresh beauty they borrow — 
 Their heavenly colouring passes away. 
 
 Despite all the darkness and gloom that surround them, 
 
 They die not, nor wither, but bravely live on. 
 Though lost are the glory and light that once crowned 
 them; 
 Their brightness, their bloom, and their beauty are 
 gone. 
 
 47 
 
CORNFLOWERS 
 
 Who ventures to blame them for losing their beauty ? 
 
 No sunshine falls on them to render them fair; 
 Each day is a dreary recurrence of duty, 
 
 Unlightened by joy and o'ershadowed by care. 
 
 If flowers away from the sunshine and gladness 
 No longer shine forth in celestial blue, 
 
 What wonder that lives spent in gloom and in sadness, 
 Soon lose every trace of their heavenly hue ? 
 
 But soon for these sad ones a morning shall brighten, 
 Dispersing the night of their sorrow and pain, 
 
 When sunshine eternal their darkness shall lighten. 
 And bring back their heaven-born beauty again. 
 
 48 
 
A CHRISTMAS CAROL 
 
 LET us go forth with a merry noise, 
 As those that are holyday keeping — 
 Bidding the needy to share our joys, 
 
 And banish their night of weeping — 
 Bearing with weakness as we are strong, 
 
 Self-pleasing and selfishness scorning ! 
 ' Peace upon earth ! ' was the angel's song, 
 On Christmas Day in the morning. 
 
 Let us forgive, though our brother erred 
 
 Until seventy times and seven ! 
 Let the * good-will ' whereof shepherds heard 
 
 Be done upon earth as in heaven ! 
 This is the day when each thought of wrong 
 
 Should flee without word of warning : 
 * Peace upon earth ! ' was the angel's song, 
 
 On Christmas Day in the morning. 
 
 49 
 
A NEW YEAR'S GREETING 
 
 NOW the poor old year is dead, 
 All his flowerets fair are shed, 
 All his happy hours are fled. 
 
 Past his pleasures fleeting : 
 As we mourn him, who comes here 
 Our desponding hearts to cheer ? 
 It is thou, O bright New Year, 
 So we give thee greeting ! 
 
 It was time that he should go : 
 He had brought us friend and foe, 
 Many a parting fraught with woe, 
 
 Many a happy meeting : 
 What thou bringest who can tell — 
 Joyful chime or solemn knell ? 
 Yet we know it shall be well, 
 
 So we give thee greeting ! 
 
 Bygone years are past for aye ; 
 Of a truth their nay is nay ; 
 They would neither stop nor stay 
 50 
 
A NEW YEAR'S GREETING 
 
 In their swift retreating : 
 But thy life 's unwritten still 
 As thou com'st to work our will, 
 Strong for good or strong for ill — 
 
 So we give thee greeting ! 
 
 Buried years we cannot change ; 
 Future years are far and strange j 
 But thou fallest in our range, 
 
 Thus despair defeating ; 
 If we use thee for the right, 
 Each with heart and soul and might. 
 Thou v/ilt crown our heads with light ; 
 
 So we give thee greeting ! 
 
 We must lose the things of old — 
 Snowdrifts sleeping on the wold. 
 Winter days so dark and cold, 
 
 Raining, snowing, sleeting ; 
 But thou bearest on thy way 
 April's buds and blossoms gay. 
 Sunny afternoons of May — 
 
 So we give thee greeting ! 
 
 Sweet the message thou dost bring. 
 Full of youth and hope and spring. 
 Making all our hearts to sing 
 51 
 
A NEW YEAR'S GREETING 
 
 With its glad repeating : — 
 ' Spring shall conquer winter's might, 
 Darkness vanish into light, 
 Morning's joy shall end the night ! ' — 
 
 So we give thee greeting ! 
 
 53 
 
A SONG OF SPRING 
 
 COME, my Beloved ! for the winter is over ; 
 Daisies once more all the meadowlands cover. 
 Soft in the woodlands the nightingales sing ; 
 Over and gone are the raining and snowing, 
 And in their stead comes a western wind blowing 
 Into our hearts the sweet message of spring. 
 
 Buttercups queenly and fair are beholden. 
 Changing the fields into thoroughfares golden. 
 
 Trod by invisible angels who bring 
 Blossoms to tell of rich gifts to be given. 
 Bluebells as blue as the pavement of heaven. 
 
 Cowslips that bear a sweet message of spring. 
 
 Sad were our hearts when last year lay a-dying : 
 Whilst through bare branches the wild winds were sighing, 
 
 Fading seemed all things to which we would cling ; 
 Gone was the summer with happiest pleasures, 
 Past was the autumn with costliest treasures. 
 
 Furthest of all seemed the brightness of spring. 
 53 
 
A SONG OF SPRING 
 
 Sad were we then — but our sadness has vanished j 
 Spring with her smiles cruel winter has banished, 
 
 Swallows to join us are now on the wingj 
 Starriest flowers are strewing the meadows, 
 Sunniest hours are chasing the shadows. 
 
 All the land welcomes the birthday of spring. 
 
 True is the lesson the springtide would teach us. 
 Sweet are the tones of her voice that can reach us, 
 
 Joyful the message she hastens to bring : 
 ' Sigh nevermore over sweet faded posies ; 
 Soon will the hedges be covered with roses — 
 
 Violets blue have returned with the spring. 
 
 *■ Old joys have fled — there are brighter ones looming ; 
 Old flowers are dead — there are sweeter ones blooming; 
 
 Old songs are hushed — there are new ones to sing. 
 Turn from the past to the future before you, 
 Lift up your hearts to the skies that are o'er you, 
 
 Offer up thanks for the message of spring ! ' 
 
 54 
 
BENEATH THE FADING LEAVES 
 
 I MET thee in the happy spring 
 When all the world was gay : 
 Thy graver presence seemed to fling 
 
 A shadow on my way. 
 * Oh ! leave me now to play,' I cried, 
 
 ' While spring her garland weaves ; 
 And then I '11 wander by thy side 
 Beneath the fading leaves.' 
 
 I saw thee in the summertime 
 
 When earth her wealth unrolled ; 
 When yellow cornfields in their prime 
 
 Shone forth like burnished gold. 
 ' Depart ! ' I cried. ' It falls to me 
 
 To glean the golden sheaves ; 
 There will be time to think of thee 
 
 Beneath the fading leaves.' 
 
 But now that spring has passed away 
 
 And summertide is o'er, 
 Although I wait the livelong day 
 
 I see thy face no more. 
 55 
 
BENEATH THE FADING LEAVES 
 
 For thee too late I make my moan, 
 
 For thee my spirit grieves; 
 But I am left to weep alone 
 
 Beneath the fading leaves. 
 
 S6 
 
THE COUNTRY OF CONCEIT 
 
 SAFE screened by hills on either hand 
 From winter storms and summer heat, 
 There lies a silly little land — 
 
 The Country of Conceit. 
 
 There adverse breezes never blow ; 
 
 And no one tries to teach, forsooth, 
 The things I do not care to know ; 
 Nor tells unpleasant truths. 
 
 There all the trees are gay and green. 
 
 And all the fields are bright with flowers ; 
 And there I sit enthroned as queen. 
 And pass delightful hours. 
 
 What boots it if it is a sham — 
 
 If I am really not beloved — 
 If what I want to be and am 
 
 Are far as poles removed ? 
 57 
 
THE COUNTRY OF CONCEIT 
 
 May I not therefore now and then 
 
 Pretend that all is well with me — 
 That I have won the praise of men, 
 With better things to be ? 
 
 It helps me better to withstand 
 
 The troubles I am bound to meet — 
 That charming, silly, little land, 
 
 The Country of Conceit. 
 
 58 
 
DESPOTISM 
 
 TO state that folks who rule with iron rods 
 Their friends, their neighbours, and their near re- 
 lations, 
 Are disapproved of both by men and gods, 
 
 Will surely raise no angry disputations. 
 It is not good for any child of man 
 
 To say or do exactly what he pleases ; 
 Nor has been, since the Devil first began 
 
 His long account of evils and diseases, 
 iiy changing service in a state of grace 
 For rule despotic in *■ Another Place.' 
 
 King Alexander was a man of might, 
 
 And by his armies kept the nations under ; 
 Hut, having drunk too much one fatal night, 
 
 He burned Persepolis, the world's eighth wonder. 
 Nebuchadnezzar was a monarch great. 
 
 With hosts at his command if he should need 'em , 
 But though his land excelled in royal state. 
 
 It could not boast of much religious freedom ; 
 Nor could good churchmen go as far as we go, 
 Excepting Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. 
 
 SO 
 
DESPOTISM 
 
 The Emperor Nero calmly put to death 
 
 His wife, his mother, and his special cronies ; 
 He filled with fear all people that drew breath, 
 
 And threw the Christian martyrs ad leones : 
 And while the fiery flames were gutting Rome 
 
 From side to side, and right across the middle, 
 He smiled upon each devastated home, 
 
 And played an obbligato on the fiddle ; 
 Simply because, as all historians say. 
 He 'd been allowed too much of his own way. 
 
 The Conqueror William with his royal sway 
 
 Closed early in the land of his adoption ; 
 His ' curfew tolled the knell of parting day,' 
 
 Without a reference to local option ; 
 A thoroughly uncomfortable plan 
 
 For entertainments social or dramatic ! 
 Yet doubtless he 'd have seemed a charming man. 
 
 If only he had been less autocratic. 
 And if he 'd now and then been called to order 
 Before the Magistrates or the Recorder. 
 
 Oliver Cromwell was a man of note. 
 
 Placed on the highest spiritual perches ; 
 
 But when he found he held the casting vote. 
 
 He took to stabling horses in the churches, 
 
 And speaking disrespectfully of kings. 
 
 And laying hands upon the Lord's Anointed, 
 60 
 
DESPOTISM 
 
 And generally doing many things 
 
 That must most horribly have disappointed 
 The Guardian Angel who was sent to hector 
 The private Tempter of the great Protector. 
 
 The Roman ladies rarely held their thumbs 
 
 The way that saved alive the gladiators ; 
 Lucrezia Borgia had poisoned crumbs 
 
 Handed at dinner by the hired waiters : 
 Tullia, if historians tell true, 
 
 Was ever an objectionable daughter : 
 Yet these had proved a most engaging crew 
 
 If each — as her Church Catechism taught her ■ 
 Herself had but submitted to her masters, 
 Governors, teachers, spiritual pastors. 
 
 And even in the humbler walks of life 
 
 There 's surely not a single soul but knoweth 
 How oft it leads to sore domestic strife, 
 
 When one says ' Go,' and then another goeth. 
 Which this conclusion to our minds doth bring — 
 
 Omnipotence is not for creatures human. 
 And despotism is a dangerous thing 
 
 For Man — and more especially for Woman. 
 (Except, of course, in those rare case when 
 Oneself is despot over other men.) 
 
 6i 
 
PART II 
 
 SACRED VERSES 
 
A HYMN OF PRAISE 
 
 * C^AVE the Queen of England,' be your prayer, O 
 
 ll^ English nation, 
 For the Sovereign who hath governed you for sixty glori- 
 ous years — 
 
 Who hath played her princely part 
 With a pure and perfect heart. 
 Who hath shared her people's sorrovi^s and hath dried her 
 
 people's tears ! 
 Ring the bells and clash the cymbals : clap your hands, 
 
 ye congregation : 
 Beat the drums and blow the trumpets and proclaim a 
 solemn feast ; 
 
 Let her name be blessed to-day 
 In the lands that own her sway. 
 From the shores beyond the sunset to the dayspring in 
 the East ! 
 
 Shout, ye men of England : let your thanks to God be 
 given 
 
 For the progress and the promise that this page of his- 
 tory shows ! 
 5 65 
 
A HYMN OF PRAISE 
 
 Since the crowning of your Queen 
 Mighty wonders have ye seen — 
 Ye have broken many fetters and have banished many 
 
 foes; 
 Ye have bound to be your messenger the h'ghtning out 
 
 of heaven ; 
 Ye have built ye huge leviathans to plough the pathless 
 waves ; 
 
 In your knowledge unafraid, 
 Ye have bade the plagues be stayed ; 
 And the steam-clouds are your chariots, and the ele- 
 ments your slaves. 
 
 Sing, ye English women, to the workers and the weepers. 
 Of the freer life and fuller scope these sixty years have 
 brought ! 
 
 Now ye ply the brush and pen 
 In the company of men. 
 And ye follow in their footsteps through the maze of 
 
 modern thought ; 
 Now ye glean in fields of learning, unforbidden by the 
 
 reapers 
 Who drop handfuls from their sheaves for you to gather 
 as ye go ; 
 
 And your feet on foreign sward 
 Bring good tidings of the Lord, 
 As ye lead your dusky sisters where the leaves of heal- 
 ing grow. 
 
 66 
 
A HYMN OF PRAISE 
 
 Smile, ye English children, in your childish glee un- 
 
 chidden ! 
 For the dreary days are over when the babes were doomed 
 to toil 
 
 From the morning to the night. 
 Till their rosy lips grew white. 
 And they knew no peaceful slumber till they slept be- 
 neath the soil ; 
 When they wrongly learnt that merriment was held a 
 
 thing forbidden 
 And was punished by sharp arrows and by hot and burn- 
 ing coals ; 
 
 When their simple minds were vexed 
 By some mistranslated text. 
 And the iron of false doctrine entered little children's 
 souls. 
 
 Say, ye English people, do ye boast of your creations, 
 Of the noble deeds ye compassed, and the demigods ye 
 seemed ; 
 
 Of the many things ye did. 
 And the few things that were hid 
 From your wisdom which was greater than your fathers 
 
 ever dreamed ? 
 It were better ye should render, like the chosen of the 
 
 nations. 
 All the praise to Him Who smote the sea to lead His 
 servants through; 
 
 67 
 
A HYMN OF PRAISE 
 
 And Who beat down every foe, 
 That His hosts might forward go 
 To their battle-cry, ' The Lord our God hath helped us 
 hitherto ! ' 
 
 Stand, ye sons of England, in the centre of your story — 
 
 'Twixt the golden glow of eventide that gilds the British 
 throne. 
 
 And the misty morning-haze 
 Of the yet unnumbered days ; 
 
 And declare if even Englishmen shall dare to stand alone! 
 
 Ye were wise if ye made ansv/er, ' Not to us shall be the 
 
 Not to us shall be the honour or the triumph of a king ; 
 But to Him in Whom we trust 
 Though the nations are as dust. 
 
 And Who taketh up the islands as a very little thing.' 
 
 Swear, ye English nation, that His Word shall light and 
 
 guide you. 
 That His kingdom and His righteousness shall be the 
 ends ye seek ! 
 
 Ye shall spread from shore to shore. 
 Till the sea shall be no more. 
 As destroyers of the wicked and defenders of the weak. 
 If ye scorn to sell your birthright whatsoever may betide 
 you — 
 
 68 
 
A HYMN OF PRAISE 
 
 If ye follow in full daylight where at dawn your fathers 
 trod — 
 
 Ye shall go from strength to strength. 
 Till it comes to pass at length 
 That the whole world honours England because England 
 honours God. 
 
 69 
 
THE LEGEND OF SIR LEONARD 
 
 IN the half-forgotten days, which we look at through 
 the haze 
 Of the centuries between, 
 Lived Sir Leonard of the Lea ; and a gallant knight 
 was he, 
 With a spirit bold and keen. 
 
 And he swore a mighty oath, ' By my trust and by my 
 troth, 
 I will find the living Christ ! 
 He hath called me from above by a word of wondrous 
 love. 
 And with Him I keep my tryst.' 
 
 Then Sir Leonard took his sword, and defied the Paynim 
 horde 
 In that land beyond the sea. 
 Where the King of quick and dead had not where to 
 lay His head 
 When He walked in Galilee. 
 70 
 
THE LEGEND OF SIR LEONARD 
 
 And Sir Leonard went to war that the Christians might 
 once more 
 In the holy Temple meet ; 
 And might praise the Lord of earth in the city of His 
 Birth, 
 And bring presents to His Feet. 
 
 Fierce and fearful was the fray, and the sun of every day 
 
 Rose and set in seas of blood ; 
 And Sir Leonard fought right well, while his faithful 
 comrades fell 
 
 Fast around him where he stood. 
 
 Dark and dreadful was the hour when the Mussulman 
 had power 
 The Crusader to withstand ; 
 And the Christians, in their turn, were as pitiless and 
 stern 
 As the rulers of the land. 
 
 For long time Sir Leonard stayed, strong in heart and 
 unafraid. 
 To uphold the holy Cross 
 In that country fair and pleasant, which was conquered 
 by the Crescent 
 To man's lasting shame and loss ; 
 71 
 
THE LEGEND OF SIR LEONARD 
 
 But at last he bov/ed his head on his sword-hilt, and he 
 said, 
 ' I would fain from fighting cease. 
 While the Pagan I am routing, 'mid the captains and 
 the shouting, 
 I can find no Prince of Peace ; 
 
 'For the Turk is swift to kill, and the Christian takes 
 his fill 
 Of the flowing crimson flood ; 
 And the warrior waxes cruel 'mid the burning and the 
 fuel 
 And the garments rolled in blood. 
 
 ' 1 have gazed at death and hell till I know them passing 
 well — 
 
 I have seen their lust sufficed ; 
 But no glimpses have I caught of the glory that I sought. 
 
 And the Vision of the Christ.' 
 
 So Sir Leonard turned his back on the burnt and black- 
 ened track 
 Of the devastating hordes; 
 And he thought, ' Perchance at rest with the noblest and 
 the best 
 I shall find the Lord of lords.' 
 72 
 
THE LEGEND OF SIR LEONARD 
 
 Then in princely halls he dwelt, till his war-worn spirit 
 felt 
 
 That it was an easy thing 
 To forswear his early vows, and forget his Father's House, 
 
 In the palace of a king. 
 
 There the feasts were late and long, and the nights were 
 filled with song, 
 And the days with joy and mirth ; 
 While the glory of the vine made the vessels run with 
 wine. 
 And rejoiced the sons of earth ; 
 
 There the rafters were of fir, and the floors were strewn 
 with myrrh, 
 
 And the treasures were untold ; 
 All of ivory was the throne, set about with precious stone 
 
 And o'erlaid with purest gold. 
 
 Through the richly watered valleys passed the royal 
 pleasure galleys 
 In the sunny days of the spring. 
 When the breezes from the north made the pomegranates 
 bud forth 
 In the garden of the king. 
 
 For a time Sir Leonard lingered, while the harps so softly 
 fingered 
 Held his spirit with a spell ; 
 73 
 
THE LEGEND OF SIR LEONARD 
 
 Then he cried, ' O sons and daughters of this land of 
 running waters, 
 I have loved you passing well ; 
 
 ' Yet your yesterdays of gladness held no knowledge of 
 life's sadness, 
 Or its one Divine Relief; 
 And through all your bright to-morrows 1 shall find no 
 Man of Sorrows, 
 Well acquainted with men's grief. 
 
 * I have heard your songs and laughter when the minstrels 
 followed after — 
 
 I have seen your gems unpriced ; 
 But no glimpses have I caught of the glory that I sought, 
 
 And the Vision of the Christ.' 
 
 So he travelled long and late when he left the palace gate. 
 
 Till he reached a little well 
 In the shadow of a mountain ; and beside the bubbling 
 fountain 
 
 Brave Sir Leonard built a cell. 
 
 In that solitary glen, undefiled by feet of men, 
 
 He abode for many a day ; 
 And he watched the grasses grow, and he learnt at last 
 to know 
 What the birds and breezes say. 
 74 
 
THE LEGEND OF SIR LEONARD 
 
 There he saw the giant sun on his daily journey run ; 
 
 And he trembled in the gale, 
 .When the snowflakes were brought forth from the 
 chambers of the north 
 
 With the treasures of the hail. 
 
 There he tarried many a year ; then he said, ' No longer 
 here 
 
 Must I watch and pray and wait. 
 I have listened to the thunder as it tore the clouds asunder 
 
 And rolled up to heaven's gate ; 
 
 ' I have seen the fir-tree's fork form a dwelling for the 
 stork 
 
 Where no human foot has trod ; 
 I have learnt the conies' lore ; I have heard the lions roar 
 
 As they seek their meat from God ; 
 
 ' I have loved the earth that gives food to everything that 
 lives, 
 
 And man's hunger is sufficed ; 
 But no glimpses have I caught of the glory that I sought, 
 
 And the Vision of the Christ.' 
 
 So he left his lair secure, and he lived among the poor 
 
 In a city of the plain ; 
 Where he watched by them that slept, and he mourned 
 with them that wept. 
 And he tended those in pain. 
 75 
 
THE LEGEND OF SIR LEONARD 
 
 There he saw the children play in the market-place all 
 day; 
 And he felt the thrill of life ; 
 And he shared in friends' communion, and revered the 
 mystic union 
 Of the husband and the wife ; 
 
 Till to him each heart that beat in the bustling, busy street 
 
 Seemed a consecrated shrine : 
 Through his love for what was human in his fellow-man 
 and woman 
 
 He discovered the Divine ! 
 
 By each sufferer's dying bed he beheld the thorn-crowned 
 Head, 
 
 And he heard the tender Plea — 
 * I have told you. Inasmuch as ye did it unto such, 
 
 Ye have done it unto Me.' 
 
 Where men worked and sold and bought, he re-learned 
 the lesson taught 
 By the Life without a flaw — 
 Not by loveless toil and labour, but by living for his 
 neighbour, 
 Man fulfils the perfect law. 
 
 Then Sir Leonard cried aloud, ' Not beneath the battle- 
 cloud 
 Where the noise of war began ; 
 76 
 
THE LEGEND OF SIR LEONARD 
 
 Nor in palaces of pride, nor on lonely mountain-side, 
 Could I find the Son of Man ; 
 
 ' So I turned and sought Him then in the haunts of com- 
 mon men, 
 
 With their load of love and care ; 
 Till I felt His gracious Touch, and I heard His Inasmuch^ 
 
 And I met the Master there. 
 
 * To His own He did not come to the beating of the 
 drum, 
 With His legions at His Feet ; 
 But they knew Him, it is said, in the breaking of the 
 bread. 
 As He sat with them at meat. 
 
 'Not through lordly pleasure-halls, nor by cloistered 
 convent walls. 
 Lies the path that leads above ; 
 Through their love and sorrow keen for the brother they 
 have seen. 
 Men must learn the Father's Love, 
 
 ' 'Mid the common joys and cares of life's crowded 
 thoroughfares 
 
 I have kept my holy tryst ; 
 In the centre of a city, full of human pain and pity, 
 
 I have seen the Face of Christ.' 
 
 77 
 
A GRAVEN IMAGE 
 
 GOOD Brother Jake was held a godly man 
 In bygone days ; 
 And early in his life the world began 
 To sing his praise. 
 
 His food was scarce, his form was sparely clad. 
 
 His faith was such 
 That freely he gave tithes of all he had, 
 
 And fasted much. 
 
 He kept the fear of God before his eyes ; 
 
 But light was dim, 
 And Brother Jake was not exceeding wise 
 
 Alas for him ! 
 
 To render straiter still the narrow lane 
 
 The righteous trod. 
 He conjured up an image in his brain. 
 
 And called it God. 
 
 78 
 
A GRAVEN IMAGE 
 
 To make this image strong and great and high 
 
 He strove his best, 
 Enduing it with every quality 
 
 That he possessed. 
 
 He looked into his heart, and saw therein 
 
 The selfish pride 
 Which scornfully from foolishness and sin 
 
 Would turn aside ; 
 
 The justice also which would mete the rod 
 
 To human guilt ; 
 And these he freely lavished on the god 
 
 That he had built. 
 
 Quoth Jake, ' I love to see my fellows weep, 
 
 And loathe their mirth ; 
 Therefore my deity all joy shall sweep 
 
 From off the earth. 
 
 * Sweet songs of simple gladness are a sign 
 
 Of careless ease; 
 Therefore the graven image that is mine 
 Must silence these. 
 
 * The laughter of the children is a sound 
 
 That jars my ears ; 
 Therefore this new religion that I found 
 Demands their tears. 
 79 
 
A GRAVEN IMAGE 
 
 ' Such souls as differ from me I would doom 
 
 To endless flame ; 
 Therefore the god that governs in my room 
 
 Must do the same. 
 
 ' Ye peoples and ye tongues and nations all, 
 
 'T is right and fit 
 That ye should down before mine image fall 
 
 And worship it ! ' 
 
 And men — as ever prone to be betrayed 
 
 To some mistake — 
 Bowed down before the image that was made 
 
 By Brother Jake, 
 
 And to its bounden service plighted then 
 
 Their sacred troth. 
 But God, Who sees with other eyes than men, 
 
 Was very wroth ; 
 
 And sent His Angel unto Brother Jake 
 
 With fiery sword, 
 Who cried in trumpet-blast, ' Awake, awake ! 
 
 Thus saith the Lord — 
 
 * What right hadst thou to take a piece of delf, 
 
 A worthless clod, 
 Made in the image of thy sordid self, 
 
 And call it God ? 
 
 80 
 
A GRAVEN IMAGE 
 
 ' Because false witness thou hast freely borne 
 
 Against My Name, 
 Thou art condemned to universal scorn 
 
 And open shame. 
 
 ' On thine uncovered head shall be congealed 
 
 The dews of heaven : 
 Thy food shall be the grasses of the field 
 
 For summers seven : 
 
 ' Thy comrades shall be beasts : thy covering 
 
 A skin of fur : 
 To Nature and her teaching thou shalt cling, 
 
 And learn of her. 
 
 ' Anew each morning doth the sun disperse 
 
 The shades of night j 
 And shall the Maker of the universe 
 
 Shut out the light ? 
 
 ' To cheer the heart of man the earth doth give 
 
 Corn, wine, and oil ; 
 And shall the Lord, Who died that he might live. 
 
 His pleasure spoil ? 
 
 ' The sparrow and the swallow guard their young 
 
 By night and day ; 
 Shall He, Whose praise the morning-stars have sung. 
 
 Love less than they ? 
 6 8i 
 
A GRAVEN IMAGE 
 
 ' Thy lying lips, which spake this grievous thing, 
 
 Must silenced be, 
 To prove that He, Whose Name is Love, is King — 
 
 And none but He ! ' 
 
 So Brother Jake was banished from the feasts 
 
 Of human cheer, 
 And ate the grass and herded with the beasts 
 
 For many a year ; 
 
 Until he saw, by light no longer dim 
 
 From heaven above. 
 How great had been his sinfulness towards Him 
 
 Whose Name is Love ; 
 
 And learned that He, Who sends the raven food 
 
 And clothes the flower. 
 Gives to His children all things that are good 
 
 As royal dower. 
 
 When seven years had passed, Jake humbly prayed 
 
 With bated breath : 
 ' Forgive me, Father, that I disobeyed 
 
 Thy Word Which saith : 
 
 ' " Thou shalt not make an image of thine own 
 
 For men to see — 
 A god with head of wood and heart of stone — 
 
 And call it Me : 
 
 82 
 
A GRAVEN IMAGE 
 
 ' " Thou shalt not take My Holy Name in vain, 
 
 And with it sign 
 False edicts framed for punishment and pain 
 
 By thee and thine." 
 
 ' Lord, save my soul from hell's rapacious ]zws 
 
 Which open vi^ide ! 
 Not that I merit mercy, but because 
 
 Thy Son hath died.' 
 
 God heard his prayer, and made his spirit whole 
 
 For Christ His sake ; 
 And granted life eternal to the soul 
 
 Of Brother Jake. 
 
 The evil that men do lives on in spite 
 
 Of all their tears ; 
 And floods of weeping fail to wash it white 
 
 Through countless years. 
 
 Though Jake long centuries ago was laid 
 
 Beneath the sod. 
 Men still adore the image that he made, 
 
 And call it God. 
 
 83 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE LITTLE 
 SOUL 
 
 NOW it happened once in Heaven that a little Soul 
 was standing 
 In the outer courts of Paradise where lilies blossom 
 fair ; 
 But her voice and harp were silent as she paced the star- 
 paved landing, 
 And gazed down the endless distance of the sloping 
 golden stair. 
 
 Then the angels blamed her gently that she joined not 
 in their chanting, 
 Nor took freely of the twelve-fold fruits that lined 
 the river-side ; 
 And they cried : ' Thou little earth-born Soul, what ever 
 can be wanting 
 That in all these ivory palaces thou art not satisfied? ' 
 
 And the little Soul made answer : ' Long ago I had a 
 brother, 
 In the season of my sojourn on the planet ye call 
 Earth ; 
 
 84. 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE LITTLE SOUL 
 
 And not all the gold, nor all the songs, nor all the bliss 
 can smother 
 The great love wherewith I loved him in the 
 country of our birth. 
 
 ' In a star beyond the sea of space my brother's soul is 
 learning 
 All the lessons that he failed to learn on little Earth 
 below ; 
 And I know that from that distant bourne there can be 
 no returning 
 Till his warfare is accomplished — and 't is right it 
 should be so. 
 
 ' But I long to stand beside him, and more perfectly to 
 show him 
 Just the simple truths he failed to see in life's un- 
 certain light. 
 Not the wisest of the cherubim so well as I who know 
 him 
 Could point out the things wherein he failed, and 
 bid him read aright. 
 
 ' He was rich in worldly wisdom, and he proved that it 
 was better 
 To succeed in low endeavours than to fail in higher 
 things — 
 
 8S 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE LITTLE SOUL 
 
 To be Earth's financial creditor than Heaven's pardoned 
 debtor — 
 And to hear the bank-notes rustling than the rush 
 of angel-wings. 
 
 ' He was fain to take his fill of all such outer husks of 
 fashion 
 As the pride of high position and the greed of paltry 
 gain ; 
 So he missed life's deeper meaning and the soul's sublimer 
 passion, 
 And the feast within the Father's House for him 
 was spread in vain. 
 
 ' He preferred ambition's slavery to a happy home and 
 marriage — 
 For romance and for religion he had never time to 
 spare : 
 He resigned a crown of glory for a crest upon his carriage, 
 And a mansion in the Heavens for a palace in 
 May fair. 
 
 ' He did well according to his lights, and hoarded many 
 a shekel. 
 Till men inscribed the word Success upon his 
 honoured tomb : 
 
 86 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE LITTLE SOUL 
 
 But the angels crossed it out and wrote above it, Mene 
 Tekel. 
 And they bade him learn his lesson in the very 
 lowest room. 
 
 ' It is just and right it should be so, for nothing else 
 could teach him 
 All the truths he often heard on earth, and lightly 
 laughed to scorn. 
 But how can I take my share of any joy that cannot 
 reach him. 
 And how can my lips be filled with praise while he 
 is left forlorn ? ' 
 
 Then the angels were astonied, and they cried aloud in 
 chorus : 
 *Who can sorrow for a foolish soul who spurned 
 the highest bliss ? 
 For of all our brethren in the heights, and all that went 
 before us, 
 There was surely never one who did so vile a thing 
 as this ! 
 
 ' In the time when earth's foundations were not formed, 
 and none had laid them — 
 In the yesterday that came before Creation's cycles 
 seven — 
 
 87 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE LITTLE SOUL 
 
 There were seraphim that strove to stand above the Lord 
 that made them, 
 And who braved the curse of Hell at last to win the 
 crown of Heaven. 
 
 ' They forsook their place 'mid stars that rolled where 
 light and law were leading, 
 For the anarchy of devils and the chaos of despair; 
 But they never left the Father's P east to feed where 
 swine were feeding. 
 Nor resigned the courts of Heaven for the houses 
 of Mayfair.' 
 
 And the angels blamed the little Soul, and bid her cease 
 from dreaming 
 Of a brother who was banished to a strange out- 
 landish star 
 For the sin of thinking less of inner truth than outer 
 seeming. 
 And of judging things by how they look, and not 
 by what they are. 
 
 But the Lord of all the angels understood, and smiled 
 upon her. 
 For He knew the mysteries hidden from the highest 
 seraphim ; 
 
 88 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE LITTLE SOUL 
 
 And He bade the Soul go forward in His Name and for 
 His Honour, 
 To bear witness to His Word and bring her brother 
 back to Him. 
 
 l'envoi 
 
 Still the seraphs are astonied — are astonied beyond 
 measure — 
 To see mortals underneath the sun, by men ac- 
 counted wise, 
 Who would sell their hopes of Heaven for a heap of 
 earthly treasure, 
 And who look at life and death and love with all- 
 unseeing eyes. 
 
 And the cherubs gaze with wonder, as the light of 
 Heaven flashes 
 Down the stairway of the golden steps that compass 
 land and sea, 
 At the souls who leave the Father's Feast to feed on 
 dust and ashes. 
 And exchange the things that really are for those 
 that seem to be. 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE LITTLE SOUL 
 
 But the Lord of all the angel-hosts, Who chargeth them 
 with blindness, 
 And Who holds the earth and heavens in the hollow 
 of His Hand, 
 Is most pitiful and gracious, of exceeding loving- 
 kindness, 
 And still waits to teach His children to perceive 
 and understand. 
 
 90 
 
LIFE'S REMEDY 
 
 THE world is weary of new tracks of thought 
 That lead to naught — 
 Sick of quack remedies prescribed in vain 
 
 For mortal pain ; 
 Yet still above them all One Figure stands 
 With outstretched Hands. 
 
 Men's ears are deafened with conflicting cries — 
 
 ' Here wisdom lies ! ' — 
 ' Here rest and peace are found ! ' — * Lo here, lo there, 
 
 Are all things fair ! ' 
 Yet still One Voice repeats the tender Plea, 
 
 * Come unto Me ! * 
 
 Fools stumble on strange paths their fathers trod 
 
 In search of God, 
 But found Him not ; and in the desert died 
 
 Unsatisfied : 
 Yet now as then One ceases not to say, 
 
 * I am the Way.' 
 
 91 
 
LIFE'S REMEDY 
 
 Would-be philosophers make blind our eyes 
 
 With sophistries, 
 And bid our faith by science stand appalled 
 
 (Falsely so called) : 
 Yet still ring out those Words of tender ruth, 
 
 * I am the Truth.' 
 
 Men seek in vain some charm whereby to flee 
 
 Mortality — 
 Some magic potion which to them shall give 
 
 The power to live : 
 Yet still One Message sounds above the strife, 
 
 ' I am the Life.' 
 
 92 
 
FRAGMENTS 
 
 ALL ye that are depressed and old and worn with 
 vain endeavour 
 To do some little good on earth that shall continue ever ; 
 Leave not the feast of life while yet one morsel is 
 
 untasted, 
 But gather all the fragments up that nothing may be 
 wasted. 
 
 Ye say there are but fragments left ; for you the feast 
 is over ; 
 
 And hidden from your mortal eyes are friend, acquaint- 
 ance, lover. 
 
 Still gather all those fragments up ; the Master deigns 
 to ask it, 
 
 And He shall bless them till indeed they fill the seventh 
 basket. 
 
 Remember that the Lord Who brake the barley-loaves 
 
 and fishes. 
 Will multiply abundantly beyond our thoughts or wishes ; 
 Until the fragments left, when all success seems past 
 
 the winning, 
 Exceed by sevenfold the store there was in the beginning. 
 
 93 
 
A CHRISTMAS HYMN 
 
 JOYFUL was the Christmas carol. 
 Making angel-hearts to glow, 
 Sung by those in white apparel 
 
 Nineteen hundred years ago. 
 Now the world grows old in sadness — 
 
 Worn with care and strife and wrong ; 
 And forgotten is the gladness 
 Of the herald-angels' song. 
 
 Now we kneel to wealth and power, 
 
 And despise the weak and poor; 
 Now the hero of the hour 
 
 Scorns the beggar at his door : 
 In a stable, round a manger. 
 
 Eastern kings were bending low. 
 Worshipping the Royal Stranger, 
 
 Nineteen hundred years ago. 
 
 Now those beacons false and fiery, 
 
 Fame and honour, power and might. 
 
 Lead us into places miry 
 
 By their weird, delusive light : 
 94 
 
A CHRISTMAS HYMN 
 
 By the guide the heavens gave them. 
 Men of old were brought to know 
 
 Him Whose knowledge was to save them, 
 Nineteen hundred years ago. 
 
 Now amidst the din and bustle 
 
 And the whirl of earthly things. 
 We can never hear the rustle 
 
 Of a passing angel's wings : 
 'Neath the stars that glisten o'er us 
 
 As their silent praises flow, 
 Shepherds heard the heavenly chorus 
 
 Nineteen hundred years ago. 
 
 * For self-glory we are striving — 
 
 War to all who stop our way ! ' — 
 That 's the life which we are living, 
 That 's the motto for to-day : 
 
 * To the One above be glory ! 
 
 Peace to all who dwell below ! ' — 
 That is how they told the story 
 Nineteen hundred years ago. 
 
 95 
 
AN EPIPHANY HYMN 
 
 LORD of light, Who by the leading 
 Of Thy bright and morning Star, 
 Once didst bring to joy exceeding 
 Gentile strangers from afar : 
 Grant to us, who tell the story 
 
 Of Thy dayspring in the East, 
 To behold Thy perfect glory 
 
 At the heavenly Marriage-feast. 
 
 Lord of love, to Whom were proffered 
 
 Presents rare in times of old — 
 Unto Whom the princes offered 
 
 Myrrh and frankincense and gold : 
 Grant that we in fellow-heirship 
 
 May with gifts Thy Presence greet, 
 And our wealth and woe and worship 
 
 Bring to Thy most blessed Feet. 
 
 Lord of life. Whose love surprising 
 
 Put the shades of death to flight — 
 At the brightness of Whose rising 
 
 King and Gentiles saw the light : 
 96 
 
AN EPIPHANY HYMN 
 
 Grant that we of every nation, 
 
 Tribe and kindred now may be 
 
 One in humble adoration, 
 
 Holy, Holy Lord, of Thee. 
 
 97 
 
A LENTEN HYMN 
 
 WHEN the flesh false wisdom borrows 
 From the tempter, and would say, 
 ' None can count on dim to-morrows — 
 
 Feast, make merry, then to-day ! ' 
 Grant that we may shrink from tasting 
 
 Food to which the foe invites, 
 Lord, Who for our sakes wert fasting 
 Forty days and forty nights. 
 
 When against the flesh victorious 
 
 We survey the promised land, 
 Feeling that some mountain glorious 
 
 Is the place where we should stand ; 
 Keep such sinful pride from casting 
 
 Down our souls from dizzy heights. 
 Lord, Who for our sakes wert fasting 
 
 Forty days and forty nights. 
 
 When the world with all its pleasures 
 Lies before our gaze unrolled. 
 
 Offering for our hidden treasures 
 All the glitter of its gold ; 
 98 
 
A LENTEN HYMN 
 
 Give us glory everlasting 
 
 Rather than such vain delights, 
 Lord, Who for our saices wert fasting 
 
 Forty days and forty nights. 
 
 LofC. 
 
 99 
 
AN EASTER HYMN 
 
 LORD, Who by Thine only Son 
 Endless life for us hast won : 
 Us with special grace prevent — 
 Fill our hearts with good intent, 
 That we may perform the same 
 To the glory of Thy Name. 
 
 Lord, Whose Son hath come to save 
 Sinners from the conquered grave : 
 Now Thy work in us begin — 
 Put away the leaven of sin — 
 Let our lives be free from blame 
 To the glory of Thy Name. 
 
 Lord, Whose Son came down to die 
 For our immortality : 
 Give us grace that we may tread 
 Where our great Ensample led — 
 Come to Thee the way He came, 
 For the glory of Thy Name. 
 
AN EASTER HYMN 
 
 Lord, Whose Son by mortal strife 
 Opened wide the gate of life : 
 Give us faith to follow Him — 
 Grant us hope that grows not dim 
 Graft in us the love we claim 
 By the glory of Thy Name. 
 
 loz 
 
A WHITSUNTIDE HYMN 
 
 GOD, Who once at Pentecost 
 Sentest down the Holy Ghost 
 Grant us by that Spirit's light 
 Evermore a judgment right ; 
 Through the Son, Who reigns with Thee 
 In that Spirit's unity. 
 
 God, Who by Thy Spirit taught 
 
 Humble souls that asked and sought : 
 
 Grant that He to us may bring 
 
 All His holy comforting ; 
 
 Through the Son, Who reigns with Thee 
 
 In that Spirit's unity. 
 
 God, Whose Spirit came to guide 
 Faithful people to Thy Side : 
 Let Him lead us to that shore 
 Whither Christ is gone before ; 
 Through the Son, Who reigns with Thee 
 In that Spirit's unity. 
 
 102 
 
HYMN FOR S. PETER'S DAY 
 
 IN days of old God gave the Word : 
 Our fathers heard it with their ears, 
 And then declared what they had heard 
 
 To us of all succeeding years, 
 And showed the things the Lord had done 
 Or ever we had seen the sun. 
 
 They told how night eclipsed the land 
 And darkness brooded o'er the deep. 
 
 Until their God, with outstretched Hand, 
 Arose like one refreshed from sleep. 
 
 To bid the shadows flee away 
 
 And fade before the dawning day. 
 
 They told of those who, strong through faith. 
 The alien armies backward hurled ; 
 
 Who conquered kings, despising death. 
 Of whom unworthy was the world ; 
 
 Of those at rest beneath the sod 
 
 Who were not, for they walked with God. 
 103 
 
HYMN FOR S. PETER'S DAY 
 
 And now as then His servants strive, 
 
 With loosened tongue and ready pen, 
 
 To preach the Word that saves alive 
 The sinful souls of mortal men — 
 
 To teach that God is ours indeed. 
 
 Who can supply our utmost need. 
 
 Fierce persecutions now are past. 
 
 And righteousness and peace have kissed ; 
 Yet still He holds His children fast 
 
 Through doubt's dark shades and error's mist, 
 And bids His flock to be at one — 
 The friends of all, the foes of none. 
 
 Our fathers in the desert found 
 
 Strange paths they failed to understand ; 
 But we have climbed to higher ground, 
 
 And view afar the promised land. 
 While morning-light the landscape fills 
 And floods the everlasting hills. 
 
 104 
 
A HARVEST HYMN 
 
 NOW to God we lift our voices, 
 For each thankful heart rejoices 
 That the reaping-time has come ! 
 Now the church her psean raises. 
 To the Father singing praises 
 
 For the joys of Harvest-home. 
 
 While the wintry winds were blowing, 
 Through the fields we went forth sowing. 
 
 Doubting what the year would bring 
 But we tell a brighter story 
 Now the hills are crowned with glory. 
 
 And the valleys laugh and sing. 
 
 All the autumn's treasure golden 
 Tells us of the promise olden 
 
 Which our future peace ensures — 
 As it was it will be ever. 
 Seed and harvest-time shall never 
 
 Cease as long as earth endures. 
 
A HARVEST HYMN 
 
 For the Lord, Who clothes the meadows, 
 Will His flock through grateful shadows 
 
 And refreshing pastures lead ; 
 He, Who from the highest heavens 
 Stoops to feed the hungry ravens. 
 
 Will supply His children's need. 
 
 Though we sow the seed in sadness, 
 We shall come again with gladness 
 
 Bringing home the golden sheaves : 
 After nights of toil and sorrow 
 Dawns at last a bright to-morrow 
 
 Which all former loss retrieves. 
 
 If we sow the seed from heaven, 
 Unto us there shall be given 
 
 Treasure in the world to come. 
 Where the silver bells are ringing. 
 And the angel-reapers singing 
 
 Joyful songs of Harvest-home. 
 
 io6 
 
AN AUTUMN HYMN 
 
 SUMMER now is over, 
 Winter draweth near ; 
 Soon the snow will cover 
 
 All the landscape drear : 
 Faded leaves are lying 
 
 Underneath the trees, 
 And a sound of sighing 
 
 Mingles with the breeze. 
 
 Yet the autumn sadness 
 
 Doth but teach us this — 
 That it were but madness 
 
 Here to seek for bliss ; 
 It is sent in pity, 
 
 Telling us who roam 
 No abiding city 
 
 Here can be our home ; 
 
 Where the dearest treasures 
 Longer cannot last ; 
 
 Where the sweetest pleasures 
 All too soon are past ; 
 107 
 
AN AUTUMN HYMN 
 
 Where a bleak November 
 
 Kills the summer flowers, 
 
 Where a chill December 
 
 Strips the summer bowers. 
 
 And it comes to teach us 
 
 There remains a rest, 
 Where no change can reach us 
 
 In those mansions blest ; 
 Where distress and crying 
 
 Can no longer stay — 
 Sorrow too and sighing 
 
 Swiftly flee away. 
 
 Here all beauties vernal 
 
 But awhile are seen — 
 There a spring eternal 
 
 Decks the pastures green; 
 Here the summer's story 
 
 Far too soon is told — 
 There unchanging glory 
 
 Floods the streets of gold ; 
 
 Winter frosts come stealing 
 
 Autumn's treasures here — 
 
 There the tree of healing 
 
 Blooms throughout the year; 
 io8 
 
AN AUTUMN HYMN 
 
 Here the sunshine's brightness 
 Turns to darkness soon — 
 
 There the dazzling whiteness 
 Needs nor sun nor moon. 
 
 Here our heartstrings quiver 
 
 'Neath their burdens sad — 
 There a shining river 
 
 Makes the city glad ; 
 Here disciples fervent 
 
 Toil and strive and fight — 
 There each faithful servant 
 
 Walks with Christ in white; 
 
 Here the voice of weeping 
 
 Hushed can never be — 
 There glad psalms are sweeping 
 
 O'er the crystal sea ; 
 Here remotest regions 
 
 Raise the cry ' How long ? ' - 
 There triumphant legions 
 
 Sing the victor's song. 
 
 So we feel no sadness — 
 This is not our homej 
 
 But we seek with gladness 
 One that is to come, 
 109 
 
AN AUTUMN HYMN 
 
 Where, beyond the sorrow 
 And beyond the strife. 
 
 Dawns the bright to-morrow 
 Of eternal life. 
 
 no 
 
A HYMN FOR WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 UP, and do your bounden duty, 
 O ye daughters of the King ! 
 Stand before Him in your beauty — 
 At His feet your talents fling: 
 Bring your needlework and raiment — 
 
 All your lamps arise and trim ; 
 Yet the whole will be scant payment 
 Of the debt you owe to Him. 
 
 Go ye down into His garden, 
 
 Where the foxes spoil the vine ; 
 Where the tempests blight and harden 
 
 Clinging tendrils meant to twine; 
 Where the ground with tears is sodden, 
 
 And the dragons haunt the fen ; 
 Where the lilies fair are trodden 
 
 Underfoot of cruel men. 
 
 Tend the flowerets that are faded j 
 
 Train the fig-tree's tender shoots ; 
 
 By the royal Banner shaded 
 
 Gather stores of pleasant fruits ; 
 
A HYMN FOR WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 In the place where Marah's rill is 
 
 Make the healing trees to grow j 
 
 And among the drooping lilies 
 
 Let the breath of heaven blow ; 
 
 Be of scattered flocks the leaders — 
 
 Guide them to the hills of myrrh ; 
 For the sycamores plant cedars — 
 
 For the prickly thorn, the fir ; 
 Gladden solitary spaces 
 
 Where no milk nor honey flows. 
 Till the waste and desert places 
 
 Blossom gaily as the rose. 
 
 Then your feet, O Prince's daughters. 
 
 Shall with perfect peace be shod ; 
 Ye shall walk beside the waters 
 
 Of the river of our God. 
 In green fields by quiet fountains 
 
 Ye shall wait the coming day. 
 Till the morning gilds the mountains 
 
 And the shadows flee away. 
 
 112 
 
LOST AND FOUND 
 
 (a hymn for the children's home) 
 
 SHEPHERD, on the pathless mountains, 
 These Thy lambs had gone astray ; 
 And we found them by the fountains 
 
 Where the wolves await their prey. 
 To Thy fold we safely brought them, 
 
 In Thy fields Thy flock we keep ; 
 Shepherd, for Whose sake we sought them. 
 Feed Thy sheep ! 
 
 King, the tribute due from strangers 
 
 Which Thy treasury receives. 
 Once was cast by money-changers 
 
 Down into a den of thieves. 
 Thence we took these silver pieces 
 
 Which Thy superscription bear; 
 Keep them. King Whose realm increases, 
 
 In Thy care ! 
 8 113 
 
LOST AND FOUND 
 
 Father, from the far-ofF city 
 
 Where men swallow husks for bread, 
 Finding none to help or pity, 
 
 These Thy children have been led : 
 From its toils and snares bewildering 
 
 Now we strive to set them free; 
 Father, let Thy little children 
 Come to Thee ! 
 
 114 
 
PANTOMIME CHILDREN 
 
 IN the glare of the footlights we see them as fairies 
 Born only to dance and to sing, 
 As light as the breeze that sweeps ever the prairies, 
 
 As bright as the blossoms of spring. 
 The care of their souls we leave calmly to others — 
 
 What business of ours can it be ? 
 ' Inasmuch as ye did it to one of My brothers, 
 I say that ye did it to Me.' 
 
 We see them again by the light of the morrow, 
 
 A company, pallid and thin. 
 Of little ones treading the pathways of sorrow 
 
 That lead to the pitfalls of sin : 
 Unkept by their fathers, unloved by their mothers. 
 
 Their strength and their shield is the Plea, 
 ' Inasmuch as ye did it to one of My brothers, 
 
 I say that ye did it to Me.' 
 
 But Heaven regards them as flowers that we gather, 
 Then trample to death on earth's sod — 
 
 Whose angels see always the Face of the Father — 
 Of whom is the Kingdom of God. 
 
PANTOMIME CHILDREN 
 
 Whoever his love for these little ones smothers 
 Had better have sunk in the sea : 
 
 ' Inasmuch as ye did it to one of My brothers, 
 I say that ye did it to Me.' 
 
 ii6 
 
AN UNPROFITABLE SERVANT 
 
 OLORD, I trembled at the sound 
 Of all Thy thunders rolling round; 
 So hid Thy talent in the ground, 
 And now restore the same : 
 And if this talent did not find 
 The use for which it was designed 
 By Thee in Thine unfathomed Mind, 
 Good Lord, am I to blame ? 
 
 O Lord, I stood in awe of Thee ; 
 So kept the soul Thou gavest me 
 Apart from frail humanity — 
 
 From maimed and halt and lame: 
 And if my soul, once fresh and fair, 
 Has starved for lack of light and air. 
 And stands, a shrivelled spectre, there, 
 
 Good Lord, am I to blame ? 
 
 O Lord, I knew Thou wert austere ; 
 And so my heart was filled with fear. 
 And dared not count Thy creatures dear 
 For dread of Thy great Name : 
 117 
 
AN UNPROFITABLE SERVANT 
 
 And if its terrors of Thy rod 
 Has left my heart a lifeless clod, 
 Untouched by love of man or God, 
 Good Lord, am I to blame ? 
 
 O Lord, not I this evil wrought ; 
 
 False prophets came, who wrongly taught 
 
 That Thou wert, even as they thought, 
 
 A fierce, consuming Flame ; 
 And if I shared this vast mistake. 
 Nor dreamed that Thou dost love to make 
 Thy children glad for Christ His sake, 
 
 Good Lord, am I to blame ? 
 
 Thou slothful servant^ thou couldst see 
 God's Touch in field and flower and tree — 
 Couldst learn how once to Galilee 
 
 The Lord of glory came : 
 And if from these thou couldst not prove 
 The central truth that God is Love^ 
 Thou hast no fellowship above ^ 
 
 And art indeed to blame. 
 
 ii8 
 
THE FOOL THAT SAID IN 
 HIS HEART 
 
 HE knew he was a clever man 
 Compared with other men. 
 So thought that God could form no plan 
 Which was beyond his ken. 
 
 He turned to Nature, and made known 
 How she had made herself; 
 
 Nor guessed the Potter's Hand alone 
 Can change and shape the delf. 
 
 He proved that man is nothing more 
 
 Than educated sod ; 
 Unheeding that the schoolmen's lore 
 
 Is fooUshness with God. 
 
 He showed that God is but a kind 
 
 Of fundamental Cause ; 
 Nor dreamed it takes a perfect Mind 
 
 To fashion perfect laws. 
 119 
 
THE FOOL THAT SAID IN HIS HEART 
 
 He taught that human love is just 
 
 A sentimental whim ; 
 Forgetting that God took the dust 
 
 And made it like to Him. 
 
 So, when he 'd proved it all, he died 
 
 To put it to the test : 
 He faced the God he had denied — 
 
 And no man knows the rest. 
 
 120 
 
BLOSSOMS 
 
 FAIR are blossoms, fair to see, 
 Touching every bush and tree 
 With a silver brightness ; 
 Fair are blossoms, passing fair. 
 Making all the valleys wear 
 
 Robes of snowy whiteness. 
 
 But their beauties cannot last ; 
 For there blows a bitter blast. 
 
 Sent to chill and harden ; 
 And before this cruel foe 
 Straight they fall like flakes of snow 
 
 Over all the garden. 
 
 Just at first we grieve and sigh 
 That such tender things must die 
 
 In their youthful gladness — 
 Die in all their beauty's bloom. 
 Leave the garden wrapped in gloom 
 
 And in dreary sadness. 
 
 121 
 
BLOSSOMS 
 
 But a message sweet they leave. 
 Saying, ' Wherefore should ye grieve 
 
 O'er our early dying ? 
 Though our petals frail be shed, 
 Richest fruits shall come instead. 
 
 All your need supplying. 
 
 ' It is meet that we should go. 
 Otherwise ye 'd never know 
 
 Autumn's treasures golden : 
 Ere the gain must come the loss — 
 Ere the crown must come the cross — 
 
 'T is a lesson olden. 
 
 ' Let this thought with you abide ; 
 For the bells at Eastertide 
 
 Tell the same old story : — 
 Conquest only comes through strife, 
 Death is but the gate of life — 
 
 Life and light and glory ! ' 
 
 122 
 
SUNLIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 
 
 THE moonlight casts its gentle beams 
 O'er hill and dale and meadow, 
 But where it lingers not there seems 
 A dark and dreary shadow ; 
 
 The sunlight pours its dazzling ray& 
 
 Across the landscape golden, 
 But where we miss its brighest blaze 
 
 A softer is beholden. 
 
 So human love, like moonlight pale. 
 
 Our virtues seeth dimly, 
 And throweth o'er our faults a veil 
 
 Of shadows haunting grimly. 
 
 But Love Divine doth never fall 
 
 On good or evil solely ; 
 It knoweth all, embraceth all. 
 
 And understandeth wholly. 
 
 123 
 
THE APPLE-TREE 
 
 ONE autumn day I chanced to stand 
 Alone within a garden old, 
 Where pear-trees tall on either hand 
 
 Bowed down beneath their weight of gold, 
 And almost seemed to bend the knee 
 Before a fruit-crowned apple-tree. 
 
 And as I gazed thereon I mused 
 
 How not so very long ago 
 Those heavy-laden pear-trees used 
 
 To look like wreaths of driven snow ; 
 While clouds at sunset could not be 
 Much brighter than the apple-tree. 
 
 Though autumn days had brought a store 
 Of rich and luscious fruits instead, 
 
 The apple-tree enjoyed no more 
 
 That rosy cloud of blossoms dead : 
 
 The happy spring was forced to flee 
 
 Ere autumn crowned the apple-tree. 
 124 
 
THE APPLE-TREE 
 
 And so with us one joy must go 
 
 Ere we can find a better thing : 
 
 But even in the summer's glow 
 
 We ne'er forget the glee of spring j 
 
 We eat the fruit — yet grieve to see 
 
 No blossom on the apple-tree. 
 
 Then whispered low the rustling leaves 
 
 Through which the balmy breezes blew : 
 
 ' The thoughts which now thy fancy weaves 
 Are sweet, but still they are not true ; 
 
 So learn a lesson now from me, 
 
 The worn and gnarled apple-tree. 
 
 ' 'T is true that spring has passed away 
 And all her rosy blooms are shed ; 
 
 But yet will dawn a happy day 
 
 When she again will wreathe my head, 
 
 And with her hand so fair and free 
 
 Rain blossoms on the apple-tree. 
 
 * Thou thinkest that thy spring has flown, 
 And left to fill her vacant place 
 
 The summer's gifts more fully blown 
 
 Which lack the youthful glee and grace 
 
 Yet springtime shall return to thee 
 
 As to the gnarled old apple-tree. 
 125 
 
THE APPLE-TREE 
 
 * To me each sunny April brings 
 
 More clouds of blossom than the last- 
 
 So thou shalt find thy later springs 
 
 More rich in blessings than the past; 
 
 If thy Support and Strength is He 
 
 Who clothes with bloom the apple-tree.' 
 
 126 
 
LOVE AND DUTY 
 
 STERN duty took her iron pen, 
 And writ her strict decrees in blood 
 ' Obey my laws, ye sons of men j 
 For I alone am good. 
 
 ' Despise the pleasant things of earth, 
 And pass affection quickly by ; 
 
 For human joys are little worth. 
 And human love must die.' 
 
 A Voice made answer from above : 
 
 ' The way is long, the light is dim ; 
 
 But woe to those proud souls that love 
 Their duty more than Him j 
 
 «• Who by His own example showed 
 The life of love without a flaw ! 
 
 Duty may preach a perfect code. 
 But love fulfils the law.' 
 
 127 
 
TIME 
 
 TIME speeds on his relentless track, 
 And — though we beg on bended knees — 
 No prophet's hand for us puts back 
 The shadow ten degrees : 
 
 Yet dream we each returning spring, 
 
 When woods are decked in gold and green. 
 
 The dawning year to us will bring 
 The best that yet has been. 
 
 Which is an earnest of the truth 
 
 That when the years have passed away. 
 We shall receive eternal youth 
 
 And never-ending day. 
 
 An angel to each land and clime 
 
 Shall locust-eaten years restore. 
 And swear by Him Who conquered Time 
 
 That Time shall be no more. 
 
 128 
 
PART III 
 SONNETS 
 
A NEW YEAR'S WISH 
 
 TO every fellow-soul that calls me friend 
 May this New Year unfailing treasure bring ; 
 With lavish hand his royal largesse fling, 
 And bounteous gifts in all our borders send : 
 To dreary lives delights that know no end — 
 
 To silent voices strange new songs to sing — 
 To joyful lips the fuller joy of spring — 
 To gracious spirits greater strength to spend. 
 To sad hearts may new years bring sweet new love, 
 As welcome to the soul as summer dew, 
 
 And warm as April sunshine after rain : 
 To glad hearts may new years like new moons prove. 
 Which slily make believe that they are new, 
 But really are the old ones back again. 
 
 131 
 
SONNETS 
 
 SPRING 
 
 DEAR Friend, the land is filled with hope and spring. 
 Right gaily dance the golden daffodils 
 To murmuring music of the rippling rills, 
 Whilst happy birds in fullest chorus sing ; 
 The blushing woods with children's laughter ring ; 
 The thrush her joyous paean loudly trills ; 
 The lark the earth and sky with rapture fills, 
 And cleaves the azure dome with gladsome wing. 
 Spring brings their beauty to the budding trees ; 
 
 She decks the smiling fields with flowerets fair. 
 
 And teaches warbling birds their songs of glee : 
 To me she brought a greater joy than these, 
 
 A crowning gladness sweet beyond compare — 
 
 She brought me thee, dear Friend, she brought 
 me thee. 
 
 132 
 
SONNETS 
 
 SUMMER 
 
 NO more the noisy mirth of spring is ours, 
 But in its stead a joy more calm, more sweet — 
 The happy stillness of the summer heat, 
 The full-blown glory of the summer flowers. 
 We take no thought of rolling golden hours, 
 
 Nor dream that Time can march with footsteps 
 
 fleet 
 Whilst crimson roses spring around his feet 
 To bar his entrance to the summer bowers. 
 No more our hearts can feel the joy of spring — 
 
 That joy that came whilst wild March winds did 
 blow. 
 That thrill of pleasure when our love was 
 new ; 
 But in its stead we have a better thing — 
 
 The still delight of summer's golden glow. 
 
 The peace of friendship that is tried and true. 
 
 133 
 
SONNETS 
 
 AUTUMN 
 
 SO thou art gone, the Friend I held so dear. 
 No more the swallows build beneath the eaves ; 
 No more the reapers gird the golden sheaves ; 
 The landscape — like my life — is dark and drear. 
 I mourn the sunny days when thou wert here ; 
 For summer and for thee my spirit grieves : 
 My joys have withered with the withered leaves — 
 My hopes are dying with the dying year. 
 New years will come when this is past and gone ; 
 But all their roses red and violets blue 
 
 Can ne'er the thought of faded flowers efface : 
 New friends will meet me as I travel on ; 
 
 They may be kind, perchance, and good and true, 
 Yet none, dear Friend, can ever fill thy place. 
 
 134 
 
SONNETS 
 
 WINTER 
 
 THE snow is falling softly o'er the plain, 
 And slowly hiding 'neath a veil of white 
 The fields that once with flowers were bedight 
 In days of summer sun and summer rain. 
 'T is thus forgetfulness has healed my pain — 
 By slowly hiding from my inward sight 
 The dear dead joys that made the past so bright ; 
 And therefore I am happy once again. 
 Yet e'en this painless peace must have an end ; 
 The sun will melt the snow in happy tears, 
 And gild the earth with glory as of yore : 
 So if I meet thee once again, dear Friend, 
 
 Thy smile will straightway melt the mists of years. 
 And all the happy past be ours once more. 
 
 135 
 
SONNETS 
 
 PATIENCE 
 
 BECAUSE thou hast not said one angry word 
 To me who ofttimes have deserved the same — 
 Nor even when I knew I was to blame 
 Hast let me guess thy wrath hath been incurred — 
 I feel that it would be a crime unheard 
 
 To put such gentleness to open shame : 
 Though I should deem it no unlawful game 
 To rouse an anger that was lightly stirred. 
 Some souls, who did not prize long-sufFering so, 
 Might take advantage of thy patience rare 
 
 And scorn a pardon thou wast sure to give : 
 But I am not like these ; and since I know 
 
 Thou wilt forgive me everything, I swear 
 
 Thou shalt forgive me nothing whilst I live. 
 
 136 
 
SONNETS 
 
 ON AN OLD PORTRAIT 
 
 A DAINTY lady, decked in ancient style, 
 Whose lips have smiled for full two hundred years. 
 Delights the dull descendants of her peers 
 With charms which still bewitch and still beguile. 
 And some might blame her that she dared to smile 
 So long upon a world of doubts and fears, 
 Whose graves are watered well by women's tears — 
 Might bid her cease from mirth, and weep awhile. 
 But she would answer proudly, smiling still : 
 
 *I earned the right to smile that distant day 
 
 When love's first kiss my lover's fondness 
 proved. 
 Though times may change and seasons work their will. 
 Not twice two hundred years can wipe away 
 
 The smile he sealed upon the lips he loved.' 
 
 137 
 
SONNETS 
 
 ON A SUIT OF ARMOUR 
 
 ONCE on a time my own true knight had I, 
 Who wore upon his helmet's crest my sleeve ; 
 And all my heart was ready to believe 
 That my true knight for me would gladly die. 
 But on the day before my youth slipped by, 
 
 I raised his visor and unclapsed his greave ; 
 Then found how knightly armour can deceive ; 
 His limbs were straw, his face a painted lie. 
 Which was to blame for this ? Not he, forsooth, 
 
 Who, being but straw, appeared a friend of kings — 
 A virtue this in him, and praised as such : 
 But I, who was too greedy for the truth. 
 
 Too prone to pry beneath the face of things, 
 
 And therefore, to my sorrow, learned too much. 
 
 138 
 
SONNETS 
 
 ASLEEP 
 
 IT seems to me that somewhere in my soul 
 There lies a secret self as yet asleep ; 
 No stranger hath disturbed its slumbers deep — 
 No friend dispersed the clouds that round it roll, 
 But it is written on my fortune's scroll 
 
 That should some hand the chords of being sweep 
 To strike a certain sound, this self would leap 
 To fullest life, and be awake and whole. 
 And I am conscious — how, I cannot say — 
 
 That thou art able, shouldst thou deem it fit. 
 
 To sound the note that wakes to weal or woe ; 
 But dost thou ask me if I bid thee play 
 
 The magic strain, or shield my soul from it — 
 I dare not tell thee, for I do not know. 
 
 ^39 
 
 1 
 
SONNETS 
 
 FORGETFULNESS 
 
 AS long as thou art with me nought can spoil 
 The faithful friendship that I feel for thee : 
 Time will not fathom its intensity, 
 Nor future interests serve but as a foil. 
 But shouldst thou leave me for some foreign soil 
 
 Where I no more thy face and form could see, 
 Forgetfulness might flood the soul of me. 
 And newer friends pour forth their healing oil. 
 Say, wouldst thou blame me if — from thee apart — 
 Thy vacant place I filled, and then was fain 
 
 To bid fresh flowers in fields forsaken grow ? 
 Nay, rejoice rather that a foolish heart 
 
 Can find a balm in Gilead for its pain : 
 
 And praise the Power that formed weak crea- 
 tures so. 
 
 140 
 
SONNETS 
 
 TWO POINTS OF VIEW 
 
 HERS 
 
 I SAW my love and said that it was good : 
 Then laid it as an offering at thy feet, 
 And dreamed that it could make thy life complete, 
 And be thy spirit's satisfying food. 
 This thought by thee was never understood ; 
 
 For thou my precious gift didst lightly treat 
 As some new toy to make thy leisure sweet, 
 And be thy plaything in a happy mood. 
 Thy careless moments are reserved for me. 
 
 Who long in vain to comfort thee with love 
 
 And wrest thy struggling soul from sorrow's 
 power. 
 Dear, is it right that such a thing should be ? — 
 That all the passion of my heart should prove 
 A pleasant pastime for an idle hour ? 
 
 141 
 
SONNETS 
 
 TWO POINTS OF VIEW 
 II 
 
 HIS 
 
 UPON thy love I made no great demands 
 Nor daily needs before it dared to bring, 
 Because I held it such a holy thing 
 I feared to touch it with unwashen hands. 
 Do travellers brush the stains of dusty lands 
 
 With feathers borrowed from an angel's wing ? 
 Or sons of toil the songs of Sion sing 
 Beside the busy Babylonian strands ? 
 Though common cares are hidden from thine eyes, 
 And sorrow never ventures in thy sight. 
 
 Let not the glory of thy love grow dim. 
 Nay, Sweetheart — shall the sun refuse to rise 
 Because he never saw the world by night. 
 
 So thinks the morning has no need of him ? 
 
 142 
 
SONNETS 
 
 A BOON 
 
 WHAT do I ask of Life ? Not careless glee 
 Which dances to the merry lute and fife ; 
 Not conquest in the struggle and the strife ; 
 Nor fame whereto the nations bend the knee ; 
 Nor wealth that may have power to shelter me 
 When poverty and pestilence are rife : 
 I ask for none of these ; but beg of Life 
 This only boon, that I may be with thee. 
 What do I ask of Death ? Not endless calm 
 In everlasting meadows, with the breath 
 
 Of asphodels to bring surcease of pain ; 
 Nor crowns reserved for them that bear the palm 
 And reign triumphant ; nought I ask of Death 
 Save the old boon, to be with thee again. 
 
 143 
 
SONNETS 
 
 FAIRYLAND 
 
 ' t INHERE is not such a place as fairyland,' 
 1 I said ; ' 't is but an idle children's tale : 
 The road of real life is flat and stale, 
 Leading through dreary wastes of desert sand.' 
 But at one touch, my Dearest, of thy hand, 
 A gateway opened to a magic vale 
 Where storms ne'er blow, and pleasures never fail ; 
 New joys I feel yet cannot understand. 
 So now I know that fairyland is here ; 
 
 A sacred spot where thou and I, my Own, 
 
 May rest awhile from carking care and pain ; 
 But having seen it at thy bidding. Dear, 
 How can I wander on my way alone 
 
 To tread the old familiar path again? 
 
 144 
 
SONNETS 
 
 ERRATA 
 
 ONCE, in the half-forgotten days, I took 
 The volume of my life, and wrote therein 
 The contents (just as other books begin) : 
 ' This triumph I will gain by hook or crook — 
 That prize (so ran the index of my book) 
 
 With mine unaided arm I mean to win ' — 
 And so on. It may be accounted sin, 
 Yet nought my faith in mine own prowess shook. 
 Now everything is different : when I read 
 
 Such words as ' I ' and ' me,' I seize my pen 
 Once and for ever to cross out the same. 
 Because they spoil the book in every deed 
 I carefully erase them all ; and then 
 
 Where they have been. Sweetheart, I write thy 
 name. 
 
 145 
 
SONNETS 
 
 IN TIME OF WAR 
 
 SHALL we sit still and shall our brethren fight ? 
 Shall we in peace and plenty stay at home, 
 Whilst they in waste and desert places roam, 
 Waging their country's wars with main and might ? 
 Yet so it is ordained : for it is right 
 
 That some to ploughshares are foredoomed, and 
 
 some 
 To swords and spears ; and what must come must 
 come. 
 For none may change what Fate has deigned to write. 
 Then what shall we do ? Shall we merely look 
 From far at valiant deeds, with drowsy eyes. 
 
 Thankful that war to us no work can bring ? — 
 Forgetting how 't is written in the Book, 
 
 ' When goes the host against thine enemies, 
 
 Keep thee at home from every wicked thing.' 
 
 146 
 
SONNETS 
 
 THE CHAPEL ROYAL, SAVOY 
 
 MEN raised a lordly pile, where kinglihood 
 Might dwell at ease and play a princely part ; 
 Then built a chapel near the city's heart 
 For prayer and praise ; and saw that both were good. 
 The Thames and Time rolled on in ceaseless flood. 
 And swept away all trace of royal art : 
 But 'twixt the river and the thronging mart 
 For six long centuries the fane hath stood. 
 Gone is the palace, — blotted from the page 
 
 Of life by thrice three thousand river-tides : 
 
 And yet the house of prayer unaltered stands, 
 To testify through every changing age 
 
 To One that changeth not, but still abides 
 
 'Midst busy men, in temples made with hands. 
 
 147 
 
SONNETS 
 
 THEM THAT SIT AT MEAT 
 
 JUST for the sake of them that sat with him 
 At meat, King Herod kept his sinful oath 
 And slew the Baptist, though his heart was loth 
 To crown his record with a crime so grim. 
 We live in fuller day ; his light was dim : 
 
 Yet oftentimes we make high heaven wroth 
 By deeds which stay our souls' eternal growth, 
 To satisfy some senseless, social whim. 
 We laugh with flippant scorn at what full well 
 
 We know we should adore on bended knees ; 
 We trample our ideals 'neath our feet : 
 And this for no great cause approved of hell, 
 
 Which devils might applaud ; but just to please 
 The whims of them that sit with us at meat. 
 
 148 
 
SONNETS 
 
 TO THE PLANET MARS 
 
 (a sonnet for epiphany) 
 
 WEIRD sister-world, we wonder what thou art 
 When in the east we see thy crimson flame ; 
 But fail to catch faint echoes of thy fame, 
 So view thee vaguely as a thing apart. 
 Still dost thou speak to every humble heart 
 
 Of Him Who calleth all the stars by name. 
 Yet — as at this time — down from heaven came 
 To steal the sting from death's envenomed dart. 
 And we believe that He Who guides the spheres 
 Will guard His children, even to the least, 
 
 Along life's path and through death's portal 
 grim. 
 So cry we gladly, like the ancient seers, 
 
 ' We saw His star shine brightly in the east. 
 
 And therefore we are come to worship Him.' 
 
 149 
 
SONNETS 
 
 A BIRTHDAY GREETING 
 
 MOST loving birthday greetings now I send 
 To thee, dear Friend, upon thy natal day. 
 These days like milestones mark thine onward 
 way. 
 As through the world thy winding path doth wend. 
 Be of good comfort ! for the road, sweet Friend, 
 
 That leads thee from thy childhood glad and gay, 
 But leaves behind that time of mirth and play 
 To bring thee nearer to thy journey's end. 
 So each year farther from that happy state. 
 
 When childhood's fields and fruits and flowerets 
 fair 
 Shone hazy-bright in morning's golden 
 mist — 
 Is one year nearer to that City great. 
 
 Which hath foundations built of jasper rare. 
 
 With gates of pearl and walls of amethyst. 
 
 150 
 
SONNETS 
 
 BYGONE YEARS 
 
 FAREWELL, Old Year! 'tis time that thou 
 shouldst go 
 The way that all the years have gone before : 
 They vanished in a hollovi^ nevermore 
 Filled with the echoes of the long-ago. 
 As tapers for a while are all aglow 
 
 Then fall to ashes and their day is o'er, 
 So faded all the years we loved of yore, 
 And turned to ashes all we used to know. 
 Yet blackened ashes are not charred in vain ; 
 For, hid for ages from the daily light. 
 
 They slowly change from dust to sparkling 
 gems : 
 So shall we find our long-lost years again. 
 
 When, changed by conquered Time to jewels 
 bright. 
 They crown our brows with royal diadems. 
 
 151 
 
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