Successful Recitations | Page 3

of a friend; His word is the liberty of labour; His blow
the beginning of the end. Then here's to the Lord of the Island;

Highland and lowland and lea; And here's to the team--be it horse, be it
steam-- He drives from the sea to the sea, Here's to his nod for the
stranger; Here's to his grip for a friend; And here's to the hand, on the
sea, or the land, Ever ready the right to defend.
There's a troop of trusty children from the Island Who've planted
Englands up and down the sea; Who cultivate the lowland and the
highland And fly the gallant colours of the free: Their hearts are as
loyal as their mother's; Their hands are as ready as their sire's Their
bond is a union of brothers,-- Who fear not a holocaust of fires! Then
here's to the Sons of the nation Flying the flag of the free; Holding the
farm and the station, Keeping the Gates of the Sea; Handed and banded
together, In Arts, and in Arms, and in Song, Father and son, united as
one, Bearing her Banners along, Peacefully furled in the van of the
world, Or waving and braving the wrong!

THE RED ROSE OF WAR.
BY F. HARALD WILLIAMS.
God hath gone forth in solemn might to shake The peoples of the earth,
Through the long shadow and the fires that make New altar and new
hearth! And with the besom of red war He sweeps The sin and woe
away, To purge with fountains from His ancient deeps The dust of old
decay. O not in anger but in Love He speaks From tempest round Him
drawn, Unveiling thus the fair white mountain peaks Which tremble
into dawn.
Not otherwise would Truth be all our own Unless by flood and flame,
When the last word of Destiny is known-- God's fresh revealed Name.
For thence do windows burst in Heaven and light Breaks on our
darkened lands, And sovereign Mercy may fulfil through night The
Justice it demands. Ah, not in evil but for endless good He bids the
sluices run And death, to mould His blessed Brotherhood Which had
not else begun.

For if the great Arch-builder comes to frame Yet broader empires, then
He lays the stones in blood and splendid shame With glorious lives of
men. He takes our richest and requires the whole Nor is content with
less, He cannot rear by a divided dole The walls of Righteousness. And
so He forms His grand foundations deep Not on our golden toys, But in
the twilight where the mourners weep Of broken hearts and joys.
And He will only have the best or nought, A full and willing price,
When the tall towers eternal are upwrought With tears and sacrifice.
Our sighs and prayers, the loveliness of loss, The passion and the pain
And sharpest nails of every noble cross, Were never borne in vain. That
fragrant faith the incense of His courts, Whereon this dim world thrives
And hardly gains at length His peaceful ports, Is wrung from bruised
lives.
Lo, when grim battle rages and is shed A dreadful crimson dew, God is
at work and of the gallant dead He maketh man anew. The hero
courage, the endurance stout, The self-renouncing will, The shock of
onset and the thunder shout That triumph over ill-- All wreak His
purpose though at bitter cost And fashion forth His plan, While not a
single sob or ache is lost Which in His Breath began.
Each act august, which bravely in despite Of suffering dared to be, Is
one with the grand order infinite Which sets the kingdoms free. The
pleading wound, the piteous eye that opes Again to nought but pangs,
Are jewels and sweet pledges of those hopes On which His empire
hangs. But if we travail in the furnace hot And feel its blasting ire, He
learns with us the anguish of our lot And walketh in the fire.
He wills no waste, no burden is too much In the most bitter strife;
Beneath the direst buffet is His touch, Who holds the pruning knife. We
are redeemed through sorrow, and the thorn That pierces is His kiss, As
through the grave of grief we are re-born And out of the abyss. The
blood of nations is the precious seed Wherewith He plants our gates
And from the victory of the virile deed Spring churches and new states.
And they that fall though but a little space Fall only in His hand, And
with their lives they pave the fearful place Whereon the pillars stand.

God treads no more the winepress of His wrath As once He did alone,
He bids us share with Him the perilous path The altar and the