With tears in their eyes and with grime on the faces,
The children of poverty, sorrow and weep,
With little to cheer them awake or asleep;
And remember that you who have much and to spare,
Can brighten their eyes and can lighten their cares,
If you take the example and work to the cause
Of your own benefactor, the good Santa Claus.

You need not climb chimneys in tempest and storm,
Nor creep into keyholes in fairy-like form;
You've a magical key for the dreariest place
In the light of your eyes and the smile of your face.
And remember the joy that you give to another
Will gladden your own heart as well as the other;
For troubles are halved when together we bear them,
And pleasures are doubled whenever we share them.

THE IMPERIAL RECITER

"And we are peacemen, also; crying for
Peace, peace at any price--though it be war!
We must live free, at peace, or each man dies
With death-clutch fast for ever on the prize."
--GERALD MASSEY.

The Editor's thanks are due to the Rev. A. Frewen Aylward for the use
of the poem "Adsum," and to Messrs. Harmsworth Bros, for permission
to include Mr. Rudyard Kipling's phenomenal success, "The
Absent-Minded Beggar," in this collection; also to Messrs. Harper and
Brothers, of New York, for special permission to copy from "Harper's
Magazine" the poem "Sheltered," by Sarah Orme Jewett; to Messrs.
Chatto and Windus for permission to use "Mrs. B.'s Alarms," from
"Humorous Stories," by the late James Payn; to Miss Palgrave and to
Messrs. Macmillan and Co., for the use of "England Once More," by the
late F. T. Palgrave; to Mr. Clement Scott for permission to include
"Sound the Assembly" and "The Midnight Charge"; to Mr. F. Harald
Williams and Mr. Gerald Massey for generous and unrestricted use of
their respective war poems, and to numerous other authors and
publishers for the use of copyright pieces.

PREFATORY.

There is a true and a false Imperialism. There is the Imperialism of
the vulgar braggart, who thinks that one Englishman can fight ten men
of any other nationality under the sun; and there is the Imperialism
of the man of thought, who believes in the destiny of the English
race, who does not shrink from the responsibilities of power from
"craven fear of being great," and who holds that an Englishman ought
to be ready to face