Poems of To-Day | Page 8

tomb.
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Time, you old gipsy man,
Will you not stay,
Put up your caravan

Just for one day?
_Ralph Hodgson._
6. A HUGUENOT
O, a gallant set were they,
As they charged on us that day,
A
thousand riding like one!
Their trumpets crying,
And their white
plumes flying,
And their sabres flashing in the sun.
O, a sorry lot were we,
As we stood beside the sea,
Each man for
himself as he stood!
We were scattered and lonely--
A little force
only
Of the good men fighting for the good.
But I never loved more
On sea or on shore
The ringing of my own
true blade,
Like lightning it quivered,
And the hard helms shivered,

As I sang, "None maketh me afraid!"
_Mary E. Coleridge._
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7. ON THE TOILET TABLE OF QUEEN MARIE-ANTOINETTE
This was her table, these her trim outspread
Brushes and trays and
porcelain cups for red;
Here sate she, while her women tired and
curled
The most unhappy head in all the world.
_J. B. B. Nichols._
8. UPON ECKINGTON BRIDGE, RIVER AVON
O pastoral heart of England! like a psalm
Of green days telling with a
quiet beat--
O wave into the sunset flowing calm!
O tired lark
descending on the wheat!
Lies it all peace beyond that western fold

Where now the lingering shepherd sees his star
Rise upon Malvern?
Paints an Age of Gold
Yon cloud with prophecies of linked ease--

Lulling this Land, with hills drawn up like knees,
To drowse beside
her implements of war?
Man shall outlast his battles. They have swept
Avon from Naseby
Field to Severn Ham;
And Evesham's dedicated stones have stepp'd

Down to the dust with Montfort's oriflamme.
Nor the red tear nor
the reflected tower
Abides; but yet these eloquent grooves remain,

Worn in the sandstone parapet hour by hour
By labouring bargemen
where they shifted ropes.
E'en so shall man turn back from violent
hopes
To Adam's cheer, and toil with spade again.
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Ay, and his mother Nature, to whose lap
Like a repentant child at
length he hies,
Not in the whirlwind or the thunder-clap
Proclaims
her more tremendous mysteries:
But when in winter's grave, bereft of
light,
With still, small voice divinelier whispering
--Lifting the
green head of the aconite,
Feeding with sap of hope the hazel-shoot--

She feels God's finger active at the root,
Turns in her sleep, and
murmurs of the Spring.

_Arthur Quiller-Couch._
8. BY THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES AT CHARING
CROSS
Sombre and rich, the skies;
Great glooms, and starry plains.
Gently
the night wind sighs;
Else a vast silence reigns.
The splendid silence clings
Around me: and around
The saddest of
all kings
Crowned, and again discrowned.
Comely and calm, he rides
Hard by his own Whitehall:
Only the
night wind glides:
No crowds, nor rebels, brawl.
Gone, too, his Court; and yet,
The stars his courtiers are:
Stars in
their stations set;
And every wandering star.
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Alone he rides, alone,
The fair and fatal king:
Dark night is all his
own,
That strange and solemn thing.
Which are more full of fate:
The stars; or those sad eyes?
Which are
more still and great:
Those brows; or the dark skies?
Although his whole heart yearn
In passionate tragedy:
Never was
face so stern
With sweet austerity.
Vanquished in life, his death
By beauty made amends:
The passing
of his breath
Won his defeated ends.
Brief life and hapless? Nay:
Through death, life grew sublime.

_Speak after sentence?_ Yea:
And to the end of time.
Armoured he rides, his head
Bare to the stars of doom:
He triumphs
now, the dead,
Beholding London's gloom.

Our wearier spirit faints,
Vexed in the world's employ:
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His soul was of the saints;
And art to him was joy.
King, tried in fires of woe!
Men hunger for thy grace:
And through
the night I go,
Loving thy mournful face.
Yet when the city sleeps;
When all the cries are still:
The stars and
heavenly deeps
Work out a perfect will.
_Lionel Johnson._
10. TO THE FORGOTTEN DEAD
To the forgotten dead,
Come, let us drink in silence ere we part.
To
every fervent yet resolvèd heart
That brought its tameless passion and
its tears,
Renunciation and laborious years,
To lay the deep
foundations of our race,
To rear its stately fabric overhead
And
light its pinnacles with golden grace.
To the unhonoured dead.
To the forgotten dead,
Whose dauntless hands were stretched to grasp
the rein
Of Fate and hurl into the void again
Her thunder-hoofed
horses, rushing blind
Earthward along the courses of the wind.
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Among the stars, along the wind in vain
Their souls were scattered
and their blood was shed,
And nothing, nothing of them doth remain.

To the thrice-perished dead.
_Margaret L. Woods._
11. DRAKE'S DRUM

Drake he's in his hammock an' a thousand mile away,
(Capten, art tha
sleepin' there below?)
Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios
Bay,
An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
Yarnder lumes the
Island, yarnder lie the ships,
Wi' sailor-lads a-dancin' heel-an'-toe,

An' the shore-lights flashin', an' the night-tide dashin', He sees et arl so
plainly as he saw et long ago.
Drake he was a Devon man, an' ruled the Devon seas,
(Capten, art tha
sleepin' there below?)
Rovin' tho' his death fell, he went wi' heart at
ease,
An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
"Take my drum to
England,