The New Morning | Page 8

shores they sought

Were armoured, past all thought.
O, they knew fear, be assured, as the brave must know it,
With youth
and its happiness bidding their last good-byes; Till thoughts, more dear

Than life, cast out all fear.
For if, as we think, they remembered the brown-roofed homesteads,
And the scent of the hawthorn hedges when daylight dies,
Old happy places,
Young eyes and fading faces;
One dream was dearer that night than the best of their boyhood, One
hope more radiant than any their hearts could prize.
The touch of
your hand,
The light of your face, England!
So, age to age shall tell how they sailed through the darkness Where,
under those high, austere, implacable stars,
Not one in ten
Might
look for a dawn again.
They saw the ferry-boats, _Iris_ and _Daffodil_, creeping
Darkly as
clouds to the shimmering mine-strewn bars,
Flash into light!
Then
thunder reddened the night.
The wild white swords of the search-lights blinded and stabbed them,
The sharp black shadows fought in fantastic wars.
Black waves leapt
whitening,
Red decks were washed with lightning.

But, under the twelve-inch guns of the black land-batteries The hacked
bright hulk, in a glory of crackling spars,
Moved to her goal
Like an
immortal soul;
That, while the raw rent flesh in a furnace is tortured,
Reigns by a law
no agony ever can shake,
And shines in power
Above all shocks of
the hour.
O, there, while the decks ran blood, and the star-shells lightened The
old broken ship that the enemy never could break,
Swept through the
fire
And grappled her heart's desire.
There, on a wreck that blazed with the soul of England,
The lads that
died in the dark for England's sake
Knew, as they died,
Nelson was
at their side;
Nelson, and all the ghostly fleets of his island,
Fighting beside them
there, and the soul of Drake!--
Dreams, as we knew,
Till these lads
made them true.
_How should we praise you, lads of the old Vindictive,
Who looked
death straight in the eyes,
Till his gaze fell
In those red gates of
hell?_
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS
THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPS OF CHELTENHAM
When hawthorn buds are creaming white,
And the red foolscap all
stuck with may,
Then lasses walk with eyes alight,
And it's
chimney-sweepers' dancing day.
For the chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham town,
Sooty of face as a
swallow of wing,
Come whistling, singing, dancing down
With
white teeth flashing as they sing.

And Jack-in-the green, by a clown in blue,
Walks like a two-legged
bush of may,
With the little wee lads that wriggled up the flue
Ere
Cheltenham town cried "dancing day."
For brooms were short and the chimneys tall,
And the gipsies caught
'em these blackbirds cheap,
So Cheltenham bought them, spry and
small,
And shoved them up in the dark to sweep.
For Cheltenham town was cruel of old,
But she has been gathering
garlands gay,
And the little wee lads are in green and gold,
For it's
chimney-sweepers' dancing day.
And red as a rose, and blue as the sky,
With teeth as white as their
faces are black,
The master-sweeps go dancing by,
With a gridiron
painted on every back.
But when they are ranged in the market-place,
The clown's wife
comes with an iron spoon,
And cozens a penny for her sweet face

To keep their golden throats in tune.
Then, hushing the riot of that mad throng,
And sweet as the voice of a
long-dead May,
A wandering pedlar lifts 'em a song,
Of
chimney-sweepers' dancing day;
And the sooty faces, they try to recall....
As they gather around in
their spell-struck rings....
But nobody knows that singer at all
Or the
curious old-time air he sings:--
Why are you dancing, O chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham,
And where
did you win you these may-coats so fine;
For some are red as roses,
and some are gold as daffodils,
But who, ah, who remembers, now, a
little lad of mine?
Lady, we are dancing, as we danced in old England
When the may
was more than may, very long ago:
As for our may-coats, it was your

white hands, lady,
Filled our sooty hearts and minds with blossom,
white as snow.
It was a beautiful face we saw, wandering through Cheltenham. It was
a beautiful song we heard, very far away,
Weeping for a little lad
stolen by the gipsies,
Broke our hearts and filled 'em with the glory of
the may.
Many a little lad had we, chirruping in the chimney-tops,
Twirling
out a sooty broom, a blot against the blue.
Ah, but when we called to
him, and when he saw and ran to her, All our winter ended, and our
world was made anew.
Then she gave us may-coats of gold and green and crimson,
Then,
with a long garland, she led our hearts away,
Whispering,
"Remember, though the boughs forget the hawthorn, Yet shall I return
to you, that was your lady May."--
But why are you dancing now, O chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham, And
why are you singing of a May that is fled?--
O, there's music to be
born, though we pluck the old fiddle-strings, And a world's May
awaking where the fields