WHAT MIGHT BE DONE CHARLES MACKAY WHAT might be done if men were wise, What glorious deeds, my suffering brother, Would they unite In love and right, And cease their scorn of one another? Oppression's heart might be imbued From shore to shore, Light on the eyes of mental blindness. All slavery, warfare, lies and wrongs, To each man born, Be free as warmth in summer weather. The meanest wretch that ever trod, In self-respect, And share the teeming world to-morrow. What might be done? This might be done, And more than this, my suffering brother, More than the tongue E'er said or sung, If men were wise, and loved each other. IN TIMES OF PEACE RICHARD WATSON GILDER "TWAS said: "When roll of drum and battle's roar Shall cease upon the earth, O, then no more 66 The deed, the race, of heroes in the land." But scarce that word was breathed when one small hand Lifted victorious o'er a giant wrong That had its victims crushed through ages long; Some woman set her pale and quivering face, A little child suffered in silence lest His savage pain should wound a mother's breast; Some quiet scholar flung his gauntlet down And risked, in Truth's great name, the synod's frown; A civic hero, in the calm realm of laws, Did that which suddenly drew a world's applause; And one to the pest his lithe young body gave VOICES OF THE SPIRITS From Prometheus Unbound PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY FIRST SPIRIT ON a battle-trumpet's blast SECOND SPIRIT A rainbow's arch stood on the sea, Mighty fleets were strewn like chaff His plank, then plunged aside to die. THIRD SPIRIT I sat beside a sage's bed, And the lamp was burning red FOURTH SPIRIT On a poet's lips I slept Dreaming like a love-adept In the sound his breathing kept; Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, But feeds on the aërial kisses Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses. The yellow bees in the ivy bloom, One of these awakened me, And I sped to succor thee. "WHEN THERE IS PEACE" AUSTIN DOBSON "When there is Peace our land no more Thus do our facile seers foretell And e'en the wisest must ignore. Shall we still strive for gear and store? This let us pray for, this implore: That, all base dreams thrust out at door, And, like men waking from a spell, |