windy fate;
And passed content, leaving to us the pride
Of lives obscurely great.

_Henry Newbolt._

14. MUSING ON A GREAT SOLDIER

_Fear? Yes_ . . . I heard you saying
In an Oxford common-room
Where the hearth-light's kindly raying
Stript the empanelled walls of gloom,
Silver groves of candles playing
In the soft wine turned to bloom--
At the word I see you now
Blandly push the wine-boat's prow
Round the mirror of that scored
Yellow old mahogany board--
_I confess to one fear! this,
To be buried alive!_

My Lord,
Your fancy has played amiss.

Fear not. When in farewell
While guns toll like a bell
And the bell tolls like a gun
Westminster towers call
Folk and state to your funeral,
And robed in honours won,
Beneath the cloudy pall
Of the lifted shreds of glory

{17}

You lie in the last stall
Of that grey dormitory--
Fear not lest mad mischance
Should find you lapt and shrouded
Alive in helpless trance
Though seeming death-beclouded:

For long ere so you rest
On that transcendent bier
Shall we not have addressed
One summons, one last test,
To your reluctant ear?
O believe it! we shall have uttered
In ultimate entreaty
A name your soul would hear
Howsoever thickly shuttered;
We shall have stooped and muttered
_England!_ in your cold ear. . . .
Then, if your great pulse leap
No more, nor your cheek burn,
Enough; then shall we learn
'Tis time for us to weep.

_Herbert Trench._

16. HE FELL AMONG THIEVES

"Ye have robbed," said he, "ye have slaughtered and made an end,
Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead;
What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?"
"Blood for our blood," they said.

{18}

He laughed: "If one may settle the score for five,
I am ready; but let the reckoning stand till day:
I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any alive."
"You shall die at dawn," said they.

He flung his empty revolver down the slope,
He climb'd alone to the Eastward edge of the trees;
All night long in a dream untroubled of hope
He brooded, clasping his knees.

He did not hear the monotonous roar that fills
The ravine where the Yassin river sullenly flows;
He did not see the starlight on the Laspur hills,
Or the far Afghan snows.

He saw the April noon on his books aglow,
The wistaria trailing in at the