Scathe, and shame, and a waefu' name, And a weary time and strange, Shame and scorn may we thole that mourn, But ill may we bide the thoughts we hide, Ill may we thole the night's watches, And the dreams that keep the gates of sleep, A waefu' gift gie they; For the sangs they sing us, the sights they bring us, On Aikenshaw the sun blinks braw, On Keilder-side the wind blaws wide: That rings sae sweet as the winds that beat The Wansbeck sings with all her springs, But the wood that rings wi' the sang I may not see nor hear; For far and far thae blithe burns are, And strange is a' thing near. she sings The light there lightens, the day there brightens, The loud wind there lives free: Nae light comes nigh me or wind blaws by me But O gin I were there again, Afar ayont the faem, Cauld and dead in the sweet, saft bed That haps my sires at hame! We'll see nae mair the sea-banks fair, And none shall know but the winds that blow Algernon Charles Swinburne. XCVI NEW YEAR'S DAY NEW Year, be good to England. Bid her name Shine sunlike as of old on all the sea: Make strong her soul: set all her spirit free : Bind fast her home-born foes with links of shame More strong than iron and more keen than flame: Seal up their lips for shame's sake: so shall she Who was the light that lightened freedom be, For all false tongues, in all men's eyes the same. O last-born child of Time, earth's eldest lord, XCVII TO WILLIAM MORRIS TRUTH, winged and enkindled with rapture Of troublous and chivalrous years But wider the wing and the vision Man's hope to be more than his dead. The wars and the woes and the glories For you, and for none of us other, Hence is it that life, everlasting In the sound of the surge of it, casting Algernon Charles Swinburne. XCVIII THE GOING OF THE BATTERY RAIN came down drenchingly; but we unblenchingly Trudged on beside them through mirk and through mire, They stepping steadily-only too readily!- Scarce as if stepping brought parting-time nigher. Great guns were gleaming there seeming there living things Cloaked in their tar cloths, upnosed to the night: Wheels wet and yellow from axle to felloe, Throats blank of sound, but prophetic to sight. Lamplight all drearily, blinking and blearily Not to court peril that honour could miss. Sharp were those sighs of ours, blinded those eyes of ours, When at last moved away under the arch All we loved. Aid for them each woman prayed for them Treading back slowly the track of their march. Someone said 'Nevermore will they come! Evermore Are they now lost to us!' Oh, it was wrong! Though may be hard their ways, some Hand will guard their ways— Bear them through safely-in brief time or long. Yet-voices haunting us, daunting us, taunting us, Hint, in the night-time, when life-beats are low, Other and graver things. . . . Hold we to braver things ... Wait we-in trust-what Time's fullness shall show. Thomas Hardy. XCIX BALLAD OF THE ARMADA KING Philip had vaunted his claims; He was coming to fagot and stack us; But we had bold Neptune to back us- His carackes were christened of dames And Hawkins bowl rubbers to Bacchus- Let his Majesty hang to St. James Alas! that his Greatness should lack us!- ENVOY GLORIANA !-the Don may attack us He must reach us before he can rack us, |