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Rather, it may be over much

He shunned the common stain and smutch,

From soilure of ignoble touch

Too grandly free,

Too loftily secure in such

Cold purity.

But he preserved from chance control
The fortress of his 'stablisht soul;
In all things sought to see the whole;
Brooked no disguise;

And set his heart upon the goal,
Not on the prize.

With those Elect he shall survive
Who seem not to compete or strive,
Yet with the foremost still arrive,
Prevailing still:

Spirits with whom the stars connive
To work their will.

And ye, the baffled many, who,
Dejected, from afar off view
The easily victorious few

Of calm renown,—
Have ye not your sad glory too,
And mournful crown?

Great is the facile conqueror ;
Yet haply he, who wounded sore,
Breathless, unhorsed, all covered o'er
With blood and sweat

Sinks foiled, but fighting evermore,
Is greater yet.

T. HERBERT WARREN.

IN MEMORIAM-ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

Last left of the mortal Immortals, art thou too taken at last,

Loved part so long of the present, must thou too pass to the past?

Thou hast lain in the moonlight and lapsed in a glory from rest into rest,

And still is the teeming brain, and the warm heart cold in the breast,

And frozen the exquisite fancy, and mute the magical

tongue,

From our century's tuneful morn to its hushing eve that

had sung.

Crowned poet and crown of poets, whose wealth and whose wit could combine

Great echoes of old-world Homer, the grandeur of Milton's line,

The sad sweet glamour of Virgil, the touch of Horace

divine,

Theocritus' musical sigh, and Catullus daintily fine!

Poet of Art and of Nature, of sympathies old and new, Who read in the earth and the heavens, the fair and the good and the true,

And who wrote no line and no word that the world will ever rue!

Singer of God and of men, the stars were touched by thy brow,

But thy feet were on English meadows, true singer of England thou!

We lose thee from sight, but thy brothers with honour receive thee now,

From earliest Chaucer and Spenser to those who were nearer allied,

The rainbow radiance of Shelley, and Byron's furious

pride,

Rich Keats and austere Wordsworth, and Browning who yesterday died

By sunny channels of Venice, and Arnold from Thames' green side.

Knells be rung, and wreaths be strung, and dirges be sung for the laurelled hearse,

Our tears and our flowers fade scarce more fast than our transient verse,

For even as the refluent crowds from the glorious Abbey disperse,

They are all forgotten, and we go back to our fleeting

lives;

But we are the dying, and thou the living, whose work

survives,

The sum and the brief of our time, to report to the

after years

Its thoughts and its loves and its hopes and its doubts and its faiths and its fears;

They live in thy lines for ever, and well may our era

rejoice

To speak to the ages to come with so sweet and so noble a voice.

EMILY M. P. HICKEY.

"EMPEROR EVERMORE"

Who bad thee do and suffer bids thee rest:
Sleep, greatest Hohenzollern, on His breast.

He gave thee strength of body and soul, and then thee will to do and think for men.

He

gave

He taught thee to possess thy soul and wait:
He called thee to the ruler's high estate,

Soldier and statesman, great in field and rede,
Strong in thy thought and glorious in thy deed;

Yet mightier strength and brighter glory shed,
Kaiser, on thee, by suffering perfected:

For more than Empire welded, battle won,
Is to have learnt to say Thy Will be done.

So, on thy life of life He wrote it plain,
All the divine significance of pain.

Thee, when the great death-angel came, he found
King unanointed, emperor uncrowned.

Better than gold and oil of sovranty,

His patience crowned thee and anointed thee;

Thee by His grace who loved and did and bore,
King over pain and suffering's emperor.

HAREBELLS

Blue bells, on blue hills, where the sky is blue,
Here's a little blue-gowned maid come to look at you;
Here's a little child would fain, at the vesper time,

Catch the music of your hearts, hear the harebells chime,

"Little hares, little hares," softly prayeth she,

"Come, come across the hills, and ring the bells
for me."

When do hares ring the bells, does my lady say?
Is it when the sky is rosed with the coming day?
Is it in the strength of noon, all the earth aglow?
Is it when at eventide sweet dew falleth slow?
Any time the bells may ring, morn, or noon, or even ;
Lovebells, joybells, earthbells heard in heaven.
Any time the happy hills may be lightly swept

By the ringers' little feet; any time, except

When by horse and hound and man, chased and frighted

sore,

Weak and panting, little hares care to ring no more. It must be upon the hills where the hunt comes ne'er, Chimes of bells ring out to greet touch of little hare.

Harebells, blue bells, ring, ring again!

Set a-going, little hares, the joyaunce of the strain.

Not a hare to ring the bells on the whole hillside?
Could she make the harebells ring, if my darling tried?
Harebells, harebells, a little child blue-gowned
Stands and listens longingly; little hands embrowned
Touch you; rose mouth kisses you; ring out!
Is a little child a thing any flower should flout?
Child's hand on poet's heart makes it bloom in song:
Let her hear your fairy chimes, delicate ding-dong.

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