But yet, now living, fain were I BEFORE SEDAN "The dead hand clasped a letter." Here in this leafy place Quiet he lies, Cold with his sightless face "Tis but another dead; Carry his body hence, What was the white you touched, There, at his side? Paper his hand had clutched Tight ere he died; Message or wish, may be; Smooth the folds out and see. Hardly the worst of us Here could have smiled! Only the tremulous Words of a child; Prattle, that has for stops Look. She is sad to miss, Tries to be bright, Good to mamma, and sweet. Ah, if beside the dead kiss; WILFRID SCA WEN BLUNT Wilfrid Scawen Blunt was born at Crabbet Park, Crawley, Sussex, in 1840. He was educated at St. Mary's College, Oscott, and was a member of the diplomatic service from 1858 to 1870. He spent many years in the East, his observations making him strongly sympathetic to lesser nationalities and all the down-trodden. He favored the cause of the Egyptians; his voice was always lifted for justice to Ireland. As a poet, he is best known by his The Love Sonnets of Proteus (1881) and The New Pilgrimage (1889). Both volumes reveal a deep, philosophical nature expressing itself in terms of high seriousness. His remarkable My Diaries appeared when Blunt was an octogenarian, in 1921. He died in London, September 11, 1922. LAUGHTER AND DEATH There is no laughter in the natural world Has dared to check the mirth-compelling shout. To sleeping woods. The eagle screams her cry. Fear, anger, jealousy, have found a voice. Her nobler sorrows. Who has dared foretell Should learn to laugh who learns that he must die? ANDREW LANG Andrew Lang, critic and essayist, was born in 1844 and educated at Balliol College, Oxford. Besides his many well-known translations of Homer, Theocritus and the Greek Anthology, he published numerous biographical works. As a poet, his chief claim rests on his delicate light verse. Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (1872), Ballades in Blue China (1880), and Rhymes à la Mode (1884) disclose Lang as a lesser Austin Dobson. His death occurred July 20, 1912. SCYTHE SONG Mowers, weary and brown and blithe, Sings to the blades of the grass below? Sings the Scythe to the flowers and grass? Hush, ah, hush, the Scythes are saying, Robert (Seymour) Bridges was born in 1844 and educated at Eton and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. After traveling extensively, he studied medicine in London and practiced until 1882. Most of his poems, like his occasional plays, are classical in tone as well as treatment. He was appointed poet laureate in 1913, following Alfred Austin. His command of the secrets of rhythm, especially exemplified in Shorter Poems (1894), through a subtle versification give his lines a firm delicacy of pattern. WINTER NIGHTFALL The day begins to droop - The hazy darkness deepens, And up the lane You may hear, but cannot see, The homing wain. An engine pants and hums The soaking branches drip, A tall man there in the house His heart is worn with work; As the nearest rick: He thinks of his morn of life, His hale, strong years; ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY The Irish-English singer, Arthur (William Edgar) O'Shaughnessy, was born in London in 1844. He was connected, for a while, with the British Museum, and was transferred later to the Department of Natural History. His first literary success, Epic of Women (1870), promised a splendid future for the young poet, a promise strengthened by his Music and Moonlight (1874). Always delicate in health, his hopes were dashed by periods of illness. He met an early death in London in 1881. The poem here reprinted, like all of O'Shaughnessy's, owes much to its editor. The "Ode," which has become one of the classics of this age, originally had seven verses, the last four being mere versifying. When Palgrave compiled his Golden Treasury, he recognized the great difference between the first three inspired stanzas and the others and calmly and courageously dropped the final four. William Alexander Percy recently performed a similar service for this singer who, nine-tenths of the time, was an undistinguished minor poet. It is a series of liberties he has taken in his Poems of Arthur O'Shaughnessy (1922), but the editorial omissions are all justifiable. ODE We are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, And sitting by desolate streams; On whom the pale moon gleams: With wonderful deathless ditties |