Poems of To-Day | Page 9

and day?Our El Dorado gleams,
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Revealing--as the skies unfold--?A star without a stain,?The Glory of the Gates of Gold?Beyond the Spanish Main.
_Alfred Noyes._
13. MINORA SIDERA
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?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;
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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.
_Henry Newbolt._
14. MUSING ON A GREAT SOLDIER
_Fear? Yes_ . . . I heard you saying?In an Oxford common-room?Where the hearth-light's kindly raying?Stript the empanelled walls of gloom,?Silver groves of candles playing?In the soft wine turned to bloom--?At the word I see you now?Blandly push the wine-boat's prow?Round the mirror of that scored?Yellow old mahogany board--?_I confess to one fear! this,?To be buried alive!_
My Lord,?Your fancy has played amiss.
Fear not. When in farewell?While guns toll like a bell?And the bell tolls like a gun?Westminster towers call?Folk and state to your funeral,?And robed in honours won,?Beneath the cloudy pall?Of the lifted shreds of glory
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You lie in the last stall?Of that grey dormitory--?Fear not lest mad mischance?Should find you lapt and shrouded?Alive in helpless trance?Though seeming death-beclouded:
For long ere so you rest?On that transcendent bier?Shall we not have addressed?One summons, one last test,?To your reluctant ear??O believe it! we shall have uttered?In ultimate entreaty?A name your soul would hear?Howsoever thickly shuttered;?We shall have stooped and muttered?_England!_ in your cold ear. . . .?Then, if your great pulse leap?No more, nor your cheek burn,?Enough; then shall we learn?'Tis time for us to weep.
_Herbert Trench._
16. HE FELL AMONG THIEVES
"Ye have robbed," said he, "ye have slaughtered and made an end, Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead;?What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?"?"Blood for our blood," they said.
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He laughed: "If one may settle the score for five,?I am ready; but let the reckoning stand till day:?I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any alive."?"You shall die at dawn," said they.
He flung his empty revolver down the slope,?He climb'd alone to the Eastward edge of the trees;?All night long in a dream untroubled of hope?He brooded, clasping his knees.
He did not hear the monotonous roar that fills?The ravine where the Yassin river sullenly flows;?He did not see the starlight on the Laspur hills,?Or the far Afghan snows.
He saw the April noon on his books aglow,?The wistaria trailing in at the window wide;?He heard his father's voice from the terrace below?Calling him down to ride.
He saw the gray little church across the park,?The mounds that hid the loved and honoured dead;?The Norman arch, the chancel softly dark,?The brasses black and red.
He saw the School Close, sunny and green,?The runner beside him, the stand by the parapet wall,?The distant tape, and the crowd roaring between?His own name over all.
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He saw the dark wainscot and timbered roof,?The long tables, and the faces merry and keen;?The College Eight and their trainer dining aloof,?The Dons on the da?s serene.
He watch'd the liner's stem ploughing the foam,?He felt her trembling speed and the thrash of her screw; He heard her passengers' voices talking of home,?He saw the flag she flew.
And now it was dawn. He rose strong on his feet,?And strode to his ruin'd camp below the wood;?He drank the breath of the morning cool and sweet;?His murderers round him stood.
Light on the Laspur hills was broadening fast,?The blood-red snow-peaks chilled to a dazzling white;?He turn'd, and saw the golden circle at last,?Cut by the eastern height.
"O glorious Life, Who dwellest in earth and sun,?I have lived, I praise and adore Thee."
A sword swept.?Over the pass the voices one by one?Faded, and the hill slept.
_Henry Newbolt._
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16. ENGLAND
Shall we but turn from braggart pride?Our race to cheapen and defame??Before the world to wail, to chide,?And weakness as with vaunting claim??Ere the hour strikes, to abdicate?The steadfast spirit that made us great,?And rail with scolding tongues at fate?
If England's heritage indeed?Be lost, be traded quite away?For fatted sloth and fevered greed;?If, inly rotting, we decay;?Suffer we then what doom we must,?But silent, as befits the dust?Of them whose chastisement was just.
But rather, England, rally thou?Whatever breathes of faith that still?Within thee keeps the undying vow?And dedicates the constant will.?For such yet lives, if not among?The boasters, or the loud