An' the pore dead that look so old An' was so young an hour ago, An' legs tied down before they're cold- A thousand Places left be'ind- So much more near than I 'ad known, To do with little things again. Look after me in Thamesfontein! If England was what England seems 'Ow quick we'd chuck 'er! But she ain't! AN ASTROLOGER'S SONG1 To the Heavens above us O look and behold The Planets that love us All harnessed in gold! 1 From Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling. Copy right by Doubleday, Page and Co. and A. P. Watt & Son. What chariots, what horses While the Stars in their courses All thoughts, all desires, All fashion, all frame, Their strength from the same. (Oh, man that deniest All power save thine own, Their power in the highest Is mightily shown. Not less in the lowest That power is made clear. Earth quakes in her throes She thrills in her station And yearns to her Lord. The waters have risen, The springs are unboundThe floods break their prison, And ravin around. No rampart withstands 'em, Till the Sign that commands 'em Through abysses unproven Our burden is brought. Whose Nature we share, Make us who must bear it Well able to bear. Though terrors o'ertake us Nor yet beyond reason Or hope shall we fall— Then, doubt not, ye fearful— And lustily sing:- Against us shall bide While the Stars in their courses Do fight on our side? RECESSIONAL God of our fathers, known of old, An humble and a contrite heart. On dune and headland sinks the fire: Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget-lest we forget! If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe, Such boastings as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law- And guarding, calls not Thee to guard, Born in 1867, Lionel (Pigot) Johnson received a classical education at Oxford, and his poetry is a faithful reflection of his studies in Greek and Latin literatures. Though he allied himself with the modern Irish poets, his Celtic origin is a literary myth; Johnson, having been converted to Catholicism in 1891, became imbued with Catholic and, later, with Irish traditions. His verse, while sometimes strained and overdecorated, is chastely designed, rich and, like that of the Cavalier poets of the seventeenth century, mystically devotional. Poems (1895) contains his best work. Johnson died in 1902 as a result of a fall. MYSTIC AND CAVALIER Go from me: I am one of those who fall. Go from me, dear my friend! Yours are the victories of light: your feet I rest in clouds of doom. Have you not read so, looking in these eyes? When gracious music stirs, and all is bright, Yet, am I like them, then? |