Yet at the last, ere our spearmen had found him,
Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save,
Yet at the last, with his masters around him,
He spoke of the Faith as a master to slave.
Yet at the last, though the Kafirs had maimed him,
Broken by bondage and wrecked by the river,
Yet at the last, tho' the darkness had claimed him,
He called on Allah, and died a Believer!

Along that gloomy river's brim,
Where Charon plies the ceaseless oar,
Two mighty Shadows, dusk and dim,
Stood lingering on the dismal shore.
Hoarse came the rugged Boatman's call,
While echoing caves enforced the cry
And as they severed life's last thrall,
Each Spirit spoke one parting sigh.
"Farewell to earth! I leave a name,
Written in fire, on field and flood

Wide as the wind, the voice of fame,
Hath borne my fearful tale of blood.
And though across this leaden wave,
Returnless now my spirit haste,
Napoleon's name shall know no grave,
His mighty deeds be ne'er erased.
The rocky Alp, where once was set
My courser's hoof, shall keep the seal,
And ne'er the echo there forget
The clangor of my glorious steel.
Marengo's hill-sides flow ...

        Small Scotland nobly held its own
        Against the might of England's throne,
        And shall this land with its vast bounds
        Shrink with fear ere the trumpet sounds.

        While British blood doth course each vein,
        Proudly this heritage maintain,
        With fertile acres by the billions,
        Future homes for two hundred millions.

        Each son could have a fertile farm,
        Brave men who ne'er will feel alarm,
        And they have both the nerve and skill
        To work land with a right good will.

        And she has got within her shores
        Renowned mines of many ores,
        While her furnaces and forges
        Iron in useful shape disgorges.

        Her mighty forests they do yiel...

    We are the smirched.    Queen Honor is the spotless.
    We slept thro' wars where Honor could not sleep.
    We were faint-hearted.    Honor was full-valiant.
    We kept a silence Honor could not keep.

    Yet this late day we make a song to praise her.
    We, codeless, will yet vindicate her code.
    She who was mighty, walks with us, the beggars.
    The merchants drive her out upon the road.

    She makes a throne of sod beside our campfire.
    We give the maiden-queen our rags and tears.
    A battered, rascal guard have rallied round her,
    To keep her safe until the better years.

I am glad that you have come,
    Arthur, from the dusty town;
You must throw aside your cares,
    And relax your legal frown.
Coke and Littleton, avaunt!
    You have ruled him through the day;
In this quiet, sylvan haunt,
    Be content to yield your sway.

It is pleasant, is it not,
    Sitting here beneath the trees,
While the restless wind above
    Ripples over leafy seas?

Often, when the twilight falls,
    In the shadow, quite alone,
I have sat till starlight came,
    Listening to its monotone.
Yet not always quite alone,--
    Brother, let me take the place
Just behind you now the moon
    Shines no longer in my face.

It is near two months ago
    Since I met him, as I think,
By God's mercy, when my hor...

I do not cry, beloved, neither curse.
Silence and strength, these two at least are good.
He gave me sun and stars and ought He could,
But not a woman's love; for that is hers.

He sealed her heart from sage and questioner--
Yea, with seven seals, as he has sealed the grave.
And if she give it to a drunken slave,
The Day of Judgment shall not challenge her.

Only this much: if one, deserving well,
Touching your thin young hands and making suit,
Feel not himself a crawling thing, a brute,
Buried and bricked in a forgotten hell;

Prophet and poet be he over sod,
Prince among angels in the highest place,
God help me, I will smite him on the face,
Before the glory of the face of God.

Still goes the strife; the anguish does not die.
Stronger the flesh is grown from earthy years,
In siege about my soul that upward peers
To see and hold its Good. The spirit's eye
Approves the better things; but senses spy
The passing sweets, spurning the present fears,
And take their moment's prize. Ah, then hot tears
Deluge my soul, and contrite moans my cry!

Courage, my heart: bright patience to the end!
Few years remain; then goes the warring wall
Of sensely flesh, that men will throw to earth.
So be it; so the contrite soul shall wend
A homeward way unto the Captain's call,
Eternally to know contrition's worth.

The mighty conflict, which we call existence,
    Doth wear upon the body and the soul.
Our vital forces wasted in resistance,
    So much there is to conquer and control.

The rock which meets the billows with defiance.
    Undaunted and unshaken day by day,
In spite of its unyielding self-reliance,
    Is by the warfare surely worn away.

And there are depths and heights of strong emotions
    That surge at times within the human breast,
More fierce than all the tides of all the oceans
    Which sweep on ever in divine unrest.

I sometimes think the rock worn with adventures,
    And sad with thoughts of conflicts yet to be,
Must envy the frail reed which no one censures,
    When overcome 'tis swallowed by the sea.

This life is all resi...

                    He wrought in poverty, the dull grey days,
                    But with the night his little lamp-lit room
                    Was bright with battle flame, or through a haze
                    Of smoke that stung his eyes he heard the boom
                    Of Bluecher's guns; he shared Almeida's scars,
                    And from the close-packed deck, about to die,
                    Looked up and saw the "Birkenhead"'s tall spars
                    Weave wavering lines across the Southern sky:

                    Or in the stifling 'tween decks, row on row,
                    At Aboukir, saw how the dead men lay;
                        Charged with the fiercest in Busaco's strife,
                    Brave dreams are his -- the flick'ring lamp bur...

Too tall our structures, and too swift our pace;
Not so we mount, not so we gain the race.
Too loud the voice of commerce in the land;
Not so truth speaks, not so we understand.
Too vast our conquests, and too large our gains;
Not so comes peace, not so the soul attains.

But the need of the world is a faith that will live anywhere;
In the still dark depths of the woods, or out in the sun's full glare.
A faith that can hear God's voice, alike in the quiet glen,
Or in the roar of the street, and over the noises of men.

And the need of the world is a creed that is founded on joy;
A creed with the turrets of hope and trust, no winds can destroy;
A creed where the soul finds rest, whatever this life bestows,
And dwells undoubting and unafraid, because it knows, it kno...

Where the ragged, snow-capped saw tooth
    Cuts the azure of the sky
And watches o'er the lonely land
    As ages wander by;
Where the sentinel pines in grandeur
    Murmur to the glacier stream
As it, ice-gorged, gluts the canyon,
    Never brightened by the gleam
Of sun at brightest noon day,
    Nor moon of Arctic night,
And whose only link with Heaven
    Is the fitful Northern Light.
Where the Whistler shrills in triumph
    And the Big Horn dreams in peace,
Where the Brown Bear skulks to cover
    Up where silence holds the lease;
Where the land is as God left it
    Nor has known the tread of man,
There's a treasure ledge a-waiting--
    Go and find it if you can.

If your heart be steeled to triumph
    Nor beats less at ...

By many a bard the Cameron clan is sung,
    Their march, their charge, their war cry, their array;
Their laurels that from bloody fields have sprung,
    Where they have kept the sternest foes at bay.

The flowing tartan and the eagle plume,
    The gathering, and the glories of the clan,
Let others sing, we will not so presume,
    We bring our humble tribute to the man.

The man with heart benevolent and kind,
    The man with earnest and persuasive tongue;
Would there were many like him heart and mind
    To combat with this fashionable wrong;

Who longs to remedy these human ills,
    Feeling God made of one blood all the earth;
Whose sympathies have passed his native hills,
    And spread beyond the clan that gave him birth.

Is it no...

First champion of the Crucified!
Who, when the fight began
Between the Church and worldly pride
So nobly fought, so nobly died,
The foremost in the van;
While rallied to your valiant side
The red-robed martyr-band;
To-night with glad and high acclaim
We venerate thy saintly name;
Accept, Saint Stephen, to thy praise
And glory, these our lowly lays.

The chosen twelve with chrismed hand
And burning zeal within,
Led forth their small yet fearless band
On Pentecost, and took their stand
Against the world and sin --
While rang aloud the battle-cry:
"The hated Christians all must die!
As died the Nazarene before,
The God they believe in and adore."
Yet Stephen's heart quailed not with fear
At persecution's cry;
But loving, as he d...

I would be a torch unto your hand,
A lamp upon your forehead, Labor,
In the wild darkness before the Dawn
That I shall never see...

We shall advance together, my Beloved,
Awaiting the mighty ushering...
Together we shall make the last grand charge
And ride with gorgeous Death
With all her spangles on
And cymbals clashing...
And you shall rush on exultant as I fall -
Scattering a brief fire about your feet...

Let it be so...
Better - while life is quick
And every pain immense and joy supreme,
And all I have and am
Flames upward to the dream...
Than like a taper forgotten in the dawn,
Burning out the wick.

"Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him."

Shall hearts that beat no base retreat
In youth's magnanimous years--
Ignoble hold it, if discreet
When interest tames to fears;
Shall spirits that worship light
Perfidious deem its sacred glow,
Recant, and trudge where worldlings go,
Conform and own them right?

Shall Time with creeping influence cold
Unnerve and cow? the heart
Pine for the heartless ones enrolled
With palterers of the mart?
Shall faith abjure her skies,
Or pale probation blench her down
To shrink from Truth so still, so lone
Mid loud gregarious lies?

Each burning boat in Caesar's rear,
Flames--No return through me!
So put the torch to ties though dear,
If ties but tempters be.
Nor cringe if come the...

Still, as of old, in Beavor's Vale,
O man of God! our hope and faith
The Elements and Stars assail,
And the awed spirit holds its breath,
Blown over by a wind of death.

Takes Nature thought for such as we,
What place her human atom fills,
The weed-drift of her careless sea,
The mist on her unheeding hills?
What reeks she of our helpless wills?

Strange god of Force, with fear, not love,
Its trembling worshipper! Can prayer
Reach the shut ear of Fate, or move
Unpitying Energy to spare?
What doth the cosmic Vastness care?

In vain to this dread Unconcern
For the All-Father's love we look;
In vain, in quest of it, we turn
The storied leaves of Nature's book,
The prints her rocky tablets took.

I pray for faith, I long to t...

(From the "Globe.")


        October's leaf was sere;
        The day was dark and drear.
Wild war was loosed in rage o'er our quiet country then;
        When at Moravian town,
        Where the little Thames flows down,
In the net of battle caught was Proctor and his men.

        Caught in an evil plight,
        When he'd rather march than fight,
Every bit of British pluck and resolution gone.
        And sternly standing near,
        As a British brigadier,
Stood Tecumthe, our ally, the forests' bravest son.

        A prince, a leader born,
        His dark eye flashed with scorn,
He said: "My father, listen, there's rumours from afar,
        Of mishaps, and mistakes,
        Of disasters on the lakes,
My father need not ...

A shell surprised our post one day
And killed a comrade at my side.
My heart was sick to see the way
    He suffered as he died.

I dug about the place he fell,
And found, no bigger than my thumb,
A fragment of the splintered shell
    In warm aluminum.

I melted it, and made a mould,
And poured it in the opening,
And worked it, when the cast was cold,
    Into a shapely ring.

And when my ring was smooth and bright,
Holding it on a rounded stick,
For seal, I bade a Turco write
    'Maktoob' in Arabic.

'Maktoob!' "'Tis written!" . . . So they think,
These children of the desert, who
From its immense expanses drink
    Some of its grandeur too.

Within the book of Destiny,
Whose leaves are time, whose cover, sp...