FLEET STREET_

I never see the newsboys run
Amid the whirling street,
With swift untiring feet,
To cry the latest venture done,
But I expect one day to hear
Them cry the crack of doom
And risings from the tomb,
With great Archangel Michael near;
And see them running from the Fleet
As messengers of God,
With Heaven's tidings shod
About their brave unwearied feet.

_NIGHTMARE_

I dreamt that the heavens were beggared
And angels went chanting for bread,
And the cherubs were sewed up in sackcloth,
And Satan anointed his head.
I dreamt they had chalked up a price
On the sun and the stars at God's feet,
And the Devil had bought up the Church,
And put out the Pope in the street.

_TO A NOBLEMAN BECOMING SOCIALIST_

I do remember thee so blest and filled
With all life offered thee,
Yet unsurprised I learn that thou hast willed
To share or lose her fee.

It seems a very great and stalwart thing
To toss defence away,
To tear the golden feathers from thy wing
And lie with shards of clay.

To some far vision's light thine eyes are set
That mock life's treasure trove,
And see the changing woof not woven yet
As God would have it wove.

The red thou flauntest bravely, friend, for me
Hast lost alarming power;
For who but guilty men will quake their knee,
And who but robbers cower?

For many hallowed things are symbolled red,
Live fire and cleansing war,
And the bright sealing Blood that Christ once shed,
And Martyrs yet must pour.

O friend, choose one of these ourselves to link;
For how could friendship be
If from the foaming cup thou hast to drink
The dregs come not to me?

Dividing much, thou makest little thine
Except the gain of loss;
Yet haply Christ's true peer hath better sign
Than coronet--the Cross.

_ST. GEORGE-IN-THE-EAST_

'Mid the quiet splendour of a pennoned crowd,
Gently proud,
Moved in armour, silvered in celestial forge,
Great Saint George,
Stands he in the crimson-woven air of fight
Speared with light--
Hell is harried by the holy anger poured
From his sword.

Where the sweated toilers of the river slum
Shiver dumb,
Passed to-day a poorly clad and poorly shod
Knight of God;
Where the human eddy smears with shame and rags
Paving flags,
Hell shall weakly wail beneath the words he cries
Piteous-wise.

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