green the earth, how blue the sky,
How pleasant all the days that pass,
Here where the British settlers lie
Beneath their cloaks of grass!

Here ancient peace resumes her round,
And rich from toil stand hill and plain;
Men reap and store; but they sleep sound,
The men who sowed the grain.

Hard to the plough their hands they put,
And wheresoe'er the soil had need
The furrow drave, and underfoot
They sowed themselves for seed.

Ah! not like him whose hand made yield
The brazen kine with fiery breath,
And over all the Colchian field
Strewed far the seeds of death;

Till, as day sank, awoke to war
The seedlings of the dragon's teeth,
And death ran multiplied once more
Across the hideous heath.

But rich in flocks be all these farms,
And fruitful be the fields which hide
Brave eyes that loved the light, and arms
That never clasped a bride!

O willing hearts turned quick to clay,
Glad lovers holding death in scorn,
Out of the lives ye cast away
The coming race is born.

SONG

Sleep lies in every cup
Of land or flower:
Look how the earth drains up
Her evening hour!

Each face that once so laughed,
Now fain would lift
Lips to Life's sleeping-draught,
The goodlier gift.

Oh, whence this overflow,
This flood of rest?
What vale of healing so
Unlocks her breast?

What land, to give us right
Of refuge, yields
To the sharp scythes of light
Her poppied fields?

Nay, wait! our turn to make
Amends grows due!
Another day will break,
We must give too!

EMILIA STUART LORIMER

LOVE SONGS

I

White-dreaming face of my dear,
Waken; the dawn is here.

Ope, oh so misty eyes;
Keep ope, and recognize!

Mouth, o'er the far sleep-sea
Spread now thy smile-wings for me.

II

Take from me the little flowers
And the bright-eyed beasts and the birds;
And the babies, oh God, take away;
Hearken my praying-words;
Empty my road of them,
Empty my house and my arm,
For black is my heart with hate,
And I would not these come to harm.

STORM

Twigs of despair on the high trees uplifted,
Torn cloud flying behind;
Whistling wind through the dead leaves drifted;
Oho! my mind
With you is racked and ruined and rifted.

Waves of the angry firth high-flying,
Rainstorm striping the sea,
Sleet-mist shrouding the hills; day dying;
Now around me
Closes the darkness of night in, wild crying.

God of the storm, in thy storm's heart unmete