And crying loves and passions still,
In every key from soft to shrill
And numbers never done,

Dog-loyalties to faith and friend,
And loves like Ruth's of old no end,

And intermission none

And burst on burst for beauty and
For numbers not behind,

From men whose love of motherland
Is like a dog's for one dear hand,
Sole, selfless, boundless, blind-

And song

of some with hearts beside

For men and sorrows far and wide,

Who watch the world with pity and pride

And warm to all mankind—

And endless joyous music rise
From children at their play,

And endless soaring lullabies
From happy, happy mothers' eyes,
And answering crows and baby cries,
How many who shall say !

And many a song as wondrous well
With pangs and sweets intolerable
From lonely hearths too gray to tell,
God knows how utter gray!

And song from many a house of care
When pain has forced a footing there
And there's a Darkness on the stair
Will not be turn'd away---

And song-that song whose singers come

With old kind tales of pity from

The Great Compassion's lips,

That make the bells of Heaven to peal
Round pillows frosty with the feel
Of Death's cold finger tips-

The song of men all sorts and kinds,
As

many tempers, moods and minds As leaves are on a tree,

As

many faiths and castes and creeds, As many human bloods and breeds As in the world may be ;

The song of each and all who gaze
On Beauty in her naked blaze,
Or see her dimly in a haze,
Or get her light in fitful rays
And tiniest needles even,

The song of all not wholly dark,
Not wholly sunk in stupor stark
Too deep for groping Heaven-

And alleluias sweet and clear

And wild with beauty men mis-hear, From choirs of song as near and dear To Paradise as they,

The everlasting pipe and flute

Of wind and sea and bird and brute,
And lips deaf men imagine mute
In wood and stone and clay,

The music of a lion strong

That shakes a hill a whole night long,

A hill as loud as he,

The twitter of a mouse among

Melodious greenery,

The ruby's and the rainbow's song,

The nightingale's—all three,

The song of life that wells and flows
From every leopard, lark and rose
And everything that gleams or goes
Lack-lustre in the sea.

Of every lung and tongue and throat,
Ay, every rhythm and rhyme
Of everything that lives and loves
And upward, ever upward moves
From lowly to sublime!

Earth's multitudinous Sons of Light,
I heard them lift their lyric might
With each and every chanting sprite
That lit the sky that wondrous night
As far as eye could climb!

I heard it all, I heard the whole
Harmonious hymn of being roll
Up through the chapel of my soul
And at the altar die,

And in the awful quiet then
Myself I heard, Amen, Amen,
Amen I heard me cry!

I heard it all and then although
I caught my flying senses, Oh,
A dizzy man was I !

I stood and stared; the sky was lit,
The sky was stars all over it,
I stood, I knew not why,
Without a wish, without a will,
I stood upon that silent hill
And stared into the sky until

My eyes were blind with stars and still
I stared into the sky.

Ralph Hodgson.

209*

Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul,
Whose nature is its own divine control,

Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea;
Familiar acts are beautiful through love;

Labour, and pain, and grief, in life's green grove Sport like tame beasts, none knew how gentle they could be!

His will, with all mean passions, bad delights,
And selfish cares, its trembling satellites,

A spirit ill to guide, but mighty to obey,

Is as a tempest-winged ship, whose helm

Love rules, through waves which dare not overwhelm, Forcing life's wildest shores to own its sovereign sway.

All things confess his strength. Through the cold mass Of marble and of colour his dreams pass;

Bright threads whence mothers weave the robes their children wear;

Language is a perpetual Orphic song,

Which rules with Dædal harmony a throng

Of thoughts and forms, which else senseless and shapeless were.

The lightning is his slave; heaven's utmost deep Gives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep They pass before his eye, are number'd, and roll on ! The tempest is his steed, he strides the air;

And the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare, Heaven, hast thou secrets? Man unveils me; I have

none.

Shelley.

210

. . He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,

That dares not put it to the touch,
To gain or lose it all.

...

Montrose.*

211

Sacramentum Supremum

YE that with me have fought and fail'd and fought
To the last desperate trench of battle's crest,
Not yet to sleep, not yet; our work is nought;
On that last trench the fate of all
Draw near, my friends; and let your thoughts be high;
Great hearts are glad when it is time to give;

may rest.

Life is no life to him that dares not die,

And death no death to him that dares to live.

Draw near together; none be last or first;
We are no longer names, but one desire ;
With the same burning of the soul we thirst,
And the same wine to-night shall quench our fire.
Drink! to our fathers who begot us men,

To the dead voices that are never dumb;
Then to the land of all our loves, and then
To the long parting, and the age to come.

212*

Henry Newbolt.

Now, God be thank'd Who has match'd us with His hour, And caught our youth, and waken'd us from sleeping, With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpen'd power, To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,