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"O Lady, thy Lover is Dead"

LADY, thy lover is dead," they cried;
"He is dead, but hath slain the foe;
He hath left his name to be magnified
In a song of wonder and woe."

"Alas! I am well repaid," said she,
"With a pain that stings like joy;
For I feared, from his tenderness to me,
That he was but a feeble boy.

"Now I shall hold my head on high,
The queen among my kind.

If ye hear a sound, 't is only a sigh
For a glory left behind."

George Mac Donald.

The Only Son

BITTER wind toward the sunset blowing,
What of the dales to-night?

In yonder gray old hall what fires are glow-
ing,

What ring of festal light?

"In the great window as the day was dwindling
I saw an old man stand;

His head was proudly held and his eyes kindling,
But the list shook in his hand."

O wind of twilight, was there no word uttered,
No sound of joy or wail?

"A great fight and a good death,' he muttered;
'Trust him, he would not fail,'

What of the chamber dark where she was lying For whom all life is done?

"Within her heart she rocks a dead child, crying

'My son, my little son.

The Fair Brass

A

N effigy of brass

Trodden by careless feet
Of worshippers that pass,
Beautiful and complete,

Lieth in the sombre aisle
Of this old church unwreckt,
And still from modern style
Shielded by kind neglect.

It shows a warrior arm'd:
Across his iron breast,

His hands by death are charmed
To leave his sword at rest,

Wherewith he led his men
O'ersea, and smote to hell
The astonisht Saracen,
Nor doubted he did well.

Would we could teach our sons

His trust in face of doom,

Or give our bravest ones
A comparable tomb:

Such as to look on shrives
The heart of half its care;

So in each line survives
The spirit that made it fair,

So fair the characters,
With which the dusty scroll,
That tells his title, stirs
A requiem for his soul.

Yet dearer far to me, And brave as he are they, Who fight by land and sea For England at this day;

Whose vile memorials,
In mournful marbles gilt,
Deface the beauteous walls
By growing glory built.

Heirs of our antique shrines,
Sires of our future fame,
Whose starry honour shines
In many a noble name

Across the deathful days,
Link'd in the brotherhood

That loves our country's praise,

And lives for heavenly good.

Robert Bridges.

Dulce et Decorum

In Memoriam H.P.P.-F.M.-J.W.A.C.-1900-1

W

HEN I lie dying in my bed,

A grief to wife, and child, and friendHow I shall grudge you gallant dead Your sudden, swift, heroic end!

Dear hands will minister to me,

Dear eyes denote each shallower breath: You had your battle-cries, you three,

To cheer and charm you to your death.

You did not wane from worse to worst,
Under coarse drug or futile knife,
But in one grand mad moment burst
From glorious life to glorious Life. . . .

These twenty years ago and more,

'Mid purple heather and brown crag, Our whole school numbered scarce a score, And three have fallen for the Flag.

You two have finished on one side,
You who were friend and foe at play;
Together you have done and died;

But that was where you learnt the way.

And the third face! I see it now,
So delicate and pale and brave.
The clear grey eye, the unruffled brow,
Were ripening for a hero's grave.

Ah! gallant three, too young to die!
The pity of it all endures.
Yet, in my own poor passing, I

Shall lie and long for such as yours.

E. W. Hornung.

Minora Sidera

(The Dictionary of National Biography)

ITTING at times over a hearth that burns
With dull domestic glow,

My thought, leaving the book, gratefully
turns

To you who planned it so.

Not of the great only you deigned to tell-
The stars by which we steer—

But lights out of the night that flashed, and fell
To night again, are here.

Such as were those, dogs of an elder day,
Who sacked the golden ports,

And those later who dared grapple their prey
Beneath the harbour forts:

Some with flag at the fore, sweeping the world

To find an equal fight,

And some who joined war to their trade, and hurled
Ships of the line in flight.

Whether their fame centuries long should ring

They cared not over-much,

But cared greatly to serve God and the king,

And keep the Nelson touch;