Nothing in life has been made by man for man's using
But it was shown long since to man in ages
Lost as the name of the maker of it,
Who received oppression and shame for his wages,
Hate, avoidance, and scorn in his daily dealings,
Until he perished, wholly confounded

More to be pitied than he are the wise
Souls which foresaw the evil of loosing
Knowledge or Art before time, and aborted
Noble devices and deep-wrought healings,
Lest offence should arise.

Heaven delivers on earth the Hour that cannot be thwarted,
Neither advanced, at the price of a world nor a soul, and its Prophet
Comes through the blood of the vanguards who dreamed, too soon, it had sounded.

The witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag,
Was once the beauty Abishag,

The picture pride of Hollywood.
Too many fall from great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood.

Die early and avoid the fate.
Or if predestined to die late,
Make up your mind to die in state.

Make the whole stock exchange your own!
If need be occupy a throne,
Where nobody can call you crone.

Some have relied on what they knew;
Others on simply being true.
What worked for them might work for you.

No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard,
Or keeps the end from being hard.

Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!

Dear, had the world in its caprice
Deigned to proclaim “I know you both,
“Have recognized your plighted troth,
Am sponsor for you: live in peace!”
How many precious months and years
Of youth had passed, that speed so fast,
Before we found it out at last,
The world, and what it fears?


How much of priceless life were spent
With men that every virtue decks,
And women models of their sex,
Society’s true ornament,
Ere we dared wander, nights like this,
Thro’ wind and rain, and watch the Seine,
And feel the Boulevart break again
To warmth and light and bliss?


I know! the world proscribes not love;
Allows my finger to caress
Your lips’ contour and downiness,
Provided it supply a glove.
The world’s good word! the Institute!<...

The Young King fights in the trenches and the Old King fights in the rear,
Because he is old and feeble, and not for a thought of fear.
The Young King fights for the Future, and the Old King fights for the Past,
The Young King is fighting his first fight and the Old King is fighting his last.

It is ever the same old battle, be the end of it Beer or Blood,
Or whether the rifles rattle, or whether a friend flings mud;
Or a foe to the rescue dashes, and the touch of a stranger thrills,
Or the Truth, or the bayonet flashes; or the Lie, or a bullet kills.

The young man strives to determine which are the truths or lies,
And the old man preaches his sermon, and he takes to his bed and dies;
And the parson is there, and the nurse is (or the bread is there and the wine),
And the so...

'The mist is resting on the hill;
The smoke is hanging in the air;
The very clouds are standing still:
A breathless calm broods everywhere.
Thou pilgrim through this vale of tears,
Thou, too, a little moment cease
Thy anxious toil and fluttering fears,
And rest thee, for a while, in peace.'

'I would, but Time keeps working still
And moving on for good or ill:
He will not rest or stay.
In pain or ease, in smiles or tears,
He still keeps adding to my years
And stealing life away.
His footsteps in the ceaseless sound
Of yonder clock I seem to hear,
That through this stillness so profound
Distinctly strikes the vacant ear.
For ever striding on and on,
He pauses not by night or day;
And all my life will soon be gone
As these past year...

When mighty issues loom before us, all
The petty great men of the day seem small,
Like pigmies standing in a blaze of light
Before some grim majestic mountain-height.
War, with its bloody and impartial hand,
Reveals the hidden weakness of a land,
Uncrowns the heroes trusting Peace has made
Of men whose honour is a thing of trade,
And turns the searchlight full on many a place
Where proud conventions long have masked disgrace.
O lovely Peace! as thou art fair be wise.
Demand great men, and great men shall arise
To do thy bidding.    Even as warriors come,
Swift at the call of bugle and of drum,
So at the voice of Peace, imperative
As bugle's call, shall heroes spring to live
For country and for thee.    In every land,
In every age, men are what times deman...

The cross I bear no man shall know
No man can ease the cross I bear!
Alas! the thorny path of woe
Up the steep hill of care!

There is no word to comfort me;
No sign to help my bended head;
Deep night lies over land and sea,
And silence dark and dread.

To strive, it seems, that I was born,
For that which others shall obtain;
The disappointment and the scorn
Alone for me remain.

One half my life is overpast;
The other half I contemplate
Meseems the past doth but forecast
A darker future state.

Sick to the heart of that which makes
Me hope and struggle and desire,
The aspiration here that aches
With ineffectual fire;

While inwardly I know the lack,
The insufficiency of power,
Each past day's retrospect m...

Theme no poet gladly sung,
Fair to old and foul to young;
Scorn not thou the love of parts,
And the articles of arts.
Grandeur of the perfect sphere
Thanks the atoms that cohere.

An open country.
LAURENCE RABY and FORREST, BRIAN AYLMER and PRESCOT.

Forrest:
I’ve won the two tosses from Prescot;
Now hear me, and hearken and heed,
And pull that vile flower from your waistcoat,
And throw down that beast of a weed;
I’m going to give you the signal
I gave Harry Hunt at Boulogne,
The morning he met Major Bignell,
And shot him as dead as a stone;
For he must look round on his right hand
To watch the white flutter, that stops
His aim, for it takes off his sight, and
I cough while the handkerchief drops.
And you keep both eyes on his figure,
Old fellow, and don’t take them off.
You’ve got the sawhandled hair trigger,
You sight him and shoot when I cough.

Laurence (aside):
Though God will never forgive me,
Th...

Lonely and cold and fierce I keep my way,
Scourge of the lands, companioned by the storm,
Tossing to heaven my frontlet, wild and gray,
Mateless, yet conscious ever of a warm
And brooding presence close to mine all day.

What is this alien thing, so near, so far,
Close to my life always, but blending never?
Hemmed in by walls whose crystal gates unbar
Not at the instance of my strong endeavor
To pierce the stronghold where their secrets are?

Buoyant, impalpable, relentless, thin,
Rise the clear, mocking walls. I strive in vain
To reach the pulsing heart that beats within,
Or with persistence of a cold disdain,
To quell the gladness which I may not win.

Forever sundered and forever one,
Linked by a bond whose spell I may not guess,
Our hos...

"In pace decus, in bello praesidium." - Tacitus.


I.

Your arms are stacked, your splendid colors furled,
Your drums are still, aside your trumpets laid,
But your dumb muskets once spoke to the world -
And the world listened to Mahone's Brigade.

Like waving plume upon Bellona's crest,
Or comet in red majesty arrayed,
Or Persia's flame transported to the West,
Shall shine the glory of Mahone's Brigade.

Not once, in all those years so dark and grim,
Your columns from the path of duty strayed;
No craven act made your escutcheon dim -
'Twas burnished with your blood, Mahone's Brigade.

Not once on post, on march, in camp, or field,
Was your brave leader's trust in you betrayed,
And never yet has old Virginia's shield
Su...

The Sun, whose rays
Are all ablaze
With ever living glory,
Does not deny
His majesty
He scorns to tell a story!
He don't exclaim
"I blush for shame,
So kindly be indulgent,"
But, fierce and bold,
In fiery gold,
He glories all effulgent!

I mean to rule the earth.
As he the sky
We really know our worth,
The Sun and I!

Observe his flame,
That placid dame,
The Moon's Celestial Highness;
There's not a trace
Upon her face
Of diffidence or shyness:
She borrows light
That, through the night,
Mankind may all acclaim her!
And, truth to tell,
She lights up well,
So I, for one, don't blame her!

Ah, pray make no mistake,
We are not shy;
We're very wide awake,
The Moon and I!

When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
'Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man's timid heart is burst...

The Eastern day was well-nigh o'er
When, parched with thirst and travel sore,
Two of McPherson's flanking corps
Across the Desert were tramping.
They had wandered off from the beaten track
And now were wearily harking back,
Ever staring round for the signal jack
That marked their comrades camping.

The one was Corporal Robert Dick,
Bearded and burly, short and thick,
Rough of speech and in temper quick,
A hard-faced old rapscallion.
The other, fresh from the barrack square,
Was a raw recruit, smooth-cheeked and fair
Half grown, half drilled, with the weedy air
Of a draft from the home battalion.

Weary and parched and hunger-torn,
They had wandered on from early morn,
And the young boy-soldier limped forlorn,
Now stumbling and now fall...

[1]


Missing or lost, last Sunday night,
    A Waterloo coin whereon was traced
The inscription, "Courage!" in letters bright,
    Tho' a little by rust of years defaced.

The metal thereof is rough and hard,
    And ('tis thought of late) mixt up with brass;
But it bears the stamp of Fame's award,
    And thro' all Posterity's hands will pass.

How it was lost God only knows,
    But certain City thieves, they say,
Broke in on the owner's evening doze,
    And filched this "gift of gods" away!

One ne'er could, of course, the Cits suspect,
    If we hadn't that evening chanced to see,
At the robbed man's door a Mare elect
    With an ass to keep her company.

Whosoe'er of this lost treasure k...

The men who camp with Danger
Are mostly quiet men:
And one may use a rifle,
And one may use a pen,
And one may strap a camera
In deserts to his bike;
But men who sleep with Danger
Are pretty much alike.
To men in places pleasant
Or in the barren West
There’s Danger ever present,
A half unheeded guest.
But, thoughtful for the stranger,
The timid or the weak,
The men who camp with Danger
Keep watch but do not speak.
The men who go with Danger
Are mostly dreamy-eyed
Upon the swooping fo’c’sle.
Or by the camp-fire side,
And when they sit in darkness,
To show us where they are:
The glowing of a pipe-bowl
And often a cigar
The men who camp with Danger
Have quiet humour too,
And songs that you’ve forgotten,
And r...

Lines To Hogan.


Chisel the likeness of The Chief,
Not in gaiety, nor grief;
Change not by your art to stone,
Ireland's laugh, or Ireland's moan.
Dark her tale, and none can tell
Its fearful chronicle so well.
Her frame is bent--her wounds are deep--
Who, like him, her woes can weep?

He can be gentle as a bride,
While none can rule with kinglier pride;
Calm to hear, and wise to prove,
Yet gay as lark in soaring love.
Well it were, posterity
Should have some image of his glee;
That easy humour, blossoming
Like the thousand flowers of spring!
Glorious the marble which could show
His bursting sympathy for woe:
Could catch the pathos, flowing wild,
Like mother's milk to craving child.

And oh! how princely were the ar...

How strange, in some brief interval of rest,
    Backward to look on her far-stretching past.
To see how much is conquered and repressed,
    How much is gained in victory at last!
The shadow is not lifted, - but her faith,
Strong from life's miracles, now turns toward death.


Though much be dark where once rare splendor shone,
    Yet the new light has touched high peaks unguessed
In her gold, mist-bathed dawn, and one by one
    New outlooks loom from many a mountain crest.
She breathes a loftier, purer atmosphere,
And life's entangled paths grow straight and clear.


Nor will Death prove an all-unwelcome guest;
    The struggle has been toilsome to this end,
Sleep will be sweet, and after labor rest,
    And all will be atoned with him to fr...