Collected Poems 1897 - 1907 | Page 6

earthly lips, "What of the ships, O Carthage?
Carthage, what of the ships?"
They reached the wall, and nowise strange it seemed To find the gates
unguarded and open wide; They climbed the shoulder, and meet
enough they deemed The black that shrouded the seaward rampart's
side And veiled in drooping gloom the turrets' pride; But this was
nought, for suddenly down the slope They saw the harbour, and sense
within them died; Keel nor mast was there, rudder nor rope; It lay like a
sea-hawk's eyry spoiled of life and hope.
Beyond, where dawn was a glittering carpet, rolled From sky to shore
on level and endless seas, Hardly their eyes discerned in a dazzle of
gold That here in fifties, yonder in twos and threes, The ships they
sought, like a swarm of drowning bees By a wanton gust on the pool of

a mill-dam hurled, Floated forsaken of life-giving tide and breeze,
Their oars broken, their sails for ever furled, For ever deserted the
bulwarks that guarded the wealth of the world.
A moment yet, with breathing quickly drawn And hands agrip, the
Carthaginian folk Stared in the bright untroubled face of dawn, And
strove with vehement heaped denial to choke Their sure surmise of
fate's impending stroke; Vainly--for even now beneath their gaze A
thousand delicate spires of distant smoke Reddened the disc of the sun
with a stealthy haze, And the smouldering grief of a nation burst with
the kindling blaze.
"O dying Carthage!" so their passion raved, "Would nought but these
the conqueror's hate assuage? If these be taken, how may the land be
saved Whose meat and drink was empire, age by age?" And bitter
memory cursed with idle rage The greed that coveted gold beyond
renown, The feeble hearts that feared their heritage, The hands that cast
the sea-kings' sceptre down And left to alien brows their famed
ancestral crown.
The endless noon, the endless evening through, All other needs
forgetting, great or small, They drank despair with thirst whose torment
grew As the hours died beneath that stifling pall. At last they saw the
fires to blackness fall One after one, and slowly turned them home, A
little longer yet their own to call A city enslaved, and wear the bonds of
Rome, With weary hearts foreboding all the woe to come.

Minora Sidera
(The Dictionary Of National Biography)
Sitting 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 Tonight 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;
And fought to build Britain above the tide Of wars and windy fate; And
passed content, leaving to us the pride Of lives obscurely great.

Laudabunt Alii
(After Horace)
Let others praise, as fancy wills, Berlin beneath her trees, Or Rome
upon her seven hills, Or Venice by her seas; Stamboul by double tides
embraced, Or green Damascus in the waste.
For me there's nought I would not leave For the good Devon land,
Whose orchards down the echoing cleeve Bedewed with spray-drift
stand, And hardly bear the red fruit up That shall be next year's
cider-cup.
You too, my friend, may wisely mark How clear skies follow rain, And,
lingering in your own green park Or drilled on Laffan's Plain, Forget
not with the festal bowl To soothe at times your weary soul.
When Drake must bid to Plymouth Hoe Good-bye for many a day, And
some were sad and feared to go, And some that dared not stay, Be sure
he bade them broach the best, And raised his tankard with the rest.
"Drake's luck to all that sail with Drake For promised lands of gold!
Brave lads, whatever storms may break, We've weathered worse of old!
To-night the loving-cup we'll drain, To-morrow for the Spanish Main!"

Admiral Death
Boys, are ye calling a toast to-night? (Hear what the sea-wind saith)
Fill for a bumper strong and bright, And here's to Admiral Death! He's
sailed in a hundred builds o' boat, He's fought in a thousand kinds o'
coat, He's the senior flag of all that float, And his name's Admiral
Death!
Which of