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CCXIX

DAMPIER'S DREAM

THE seaman slept-all nature sleeps; a sacred stillness there

Is on the wood-is on the waves-is in the silver air. The sky above-the silent sea-with stars were all aglow;

There shone Orion and his belt-Arcturus and his bow!

The seaman slept-or does he sleep? what chorus greets him now?—

Wild music breaking from the deep around the vessel's bow?

He starts, he looks, he sees rise shadowy-can he only dream?

A sovereign form, wrathful, yet beauteous-in the moon's cold beam!

Mortal, hath fallen my star in the hour

Of the dread eclipse, that thou scornest my power? Herald thus soon of that mystic race

Fated to reign in my people's place,

Bringing arts of might-working wondrous spells
Where now but the simple savage dwells;
Before whom my children shall pass away,
As the morntide passes before the day.
The time is not yet, why dost thou come,
The bale of thy presence to cast o'er my home?
Its shadow of doom is on air and waves-
E'en the still soft gloom of my deep sea caves
A shudder has reached; over shore and bay
Bodeful the shivering moonbeams play!

The Spirit of this zone am I

Mine are the isles and yon mainlands nigh;

And roused from my rest by the wood-wraith's

sigh,

And the sea-maid's moan on the coral reef-
Voices never till now foreboding grief—
Hither I fly-

Here at the gate of my South Sea realm
To bid thee put back thy fateful helm !
Not yet is the hour, why art thou here
Presaging dole, and scaith, and fear?'

Not yet is the time

Woe-bringer, go back to thy cloud-wrapped clime!
Meeter for thee the drear Northern sky,
And where wintry breakers ceaseless roar,
And strew with wrecks a dusky shore;
Where the iceberg rears its awful form,
Where along the billows the petrels cry-
For, like thee, that dark bird loves the storm!
Thou child of the clime of the Vikings wild-
Who wert nursed upon the tempest's wing,
A boy on the wind-beaten mast to cling-
Whose quest is prey, who hailest the day

When gleam the red swords and the death-bolts ring!

Thy joy is with restless men and seas,

What dost thou in scenes as soft as these?

The hour is not yet, but the doom appears
As I gaze thro' the haze of long distant years.
A mighty people speaking thy tongue,
Sea-borne from their far, dark strands
Shall spread abroad over all these lands
Where man now lives as when Time was young.
I see their stately cities rise

Thro' the clouds where the future's horizon lies;
Thro' the purple mists shrouding river and plain,
Where the white-foaming bay marks the hidden

main;

And clearer now-I behold more clear

Great ships-sails swelling to the breeze,

Their keels break all the virgin seas;

Vast white-winged squadrons, they come and go
Where only has skimmed the light canoe!
Yes, the seats and the paths of empire veer,
A highway of nations will yet be here!
As Tyre was in an ancient age;

As Venice of palaces, strong and sage;
As the haughty ports of your native shore
Whose fleets override the waters' rage,
So shall the pride of yon cities soar.
From the frigid Pole to the torrid Line,
Their sway shall stretch-their standards shine!'
Gerald Henry Supple.

CCXX

BY FLOOD AND FIELD

I REMEMBER the lowering wintry morn,
And the mist on the Cotswold hills,

Where I once heard the blast of the huntsman's

horn,

Not far from the seven rills.

Jack Esdale was there, and Hugh St. Clair,
Bob Chapman, and Andrew Kerr,

And big George Griffiths on Devil-May-Care,
And-black Tom Oliver.

And one who rode on a dark brown steed,
Clean-jointed, sinewy, spare,

With the lean game head of the Blacklock breed,
And the resolute eye that loves the lead,
And the quarters massive and square-
A tower of strength, with a promise of speed
(There was Celtic blood in the pair).

I remember how merry a start we got,
When the red fox broke from the gorse,
In a country so deep, with a scent so hot,
That the hound could outpace the horse;

I remember how few in the front rank show'd,
How endless appeared the tail,

On the brown hillside, where we cross'd the road
And headed towards the vale.

The dark brown steed on the left was there,
On the right was a dappled grey,

And between the pair on a chestnut mare
The duffer who writes this lay.

What business had 'this child' there to ride?
But little or none at all;

Yet I hold my own for awhile in the pride
That goeth before a fall.

Though rashness can hope but for one result,

We are heedless when fate draws nigh us, And the maxim holds good, Quem perdere vult Deus dementat prius.'

The right-hand man to the left-hand said,
As down in the vale we went,
'Harden your heart like a millstone, Ned,
And set your face as flint;
Solid and tall is the rasping wall

That stretches before us yonder;
You must have it at speed or not at all,
"Twere better to halt than to ponder;

For the stream runs wide on the take off side,
And washes the clay bank under;

Here goes for a pull, 'tis a madman's ride,
And a broken neck if you
blunder!'

No word in reply his comrade spoke,

Nor waver'd, nor once look'd round, But I saw him shorten his horse's stroke

As we splash'd through the marshy ground;

I remember the laugh that all the while

On his quiet features played:

So he rode to his death, with that careless smile,
In the van of the Light Brigade;

So stricken by Russian grape, the cheer
Rang out while he toppled back,

From the shattered lungs as merry and clear

As it did when it roused the pack.

Let never a tear his memory stain,
Give his ashes never a sigh,

One of the many who fell-not in vain-
A TYPE OF OUR CHIVALRY!

I remember one thrust he gave to his hat,
And two to the flanks of the brown,
And still as a statue of old he sat,

And he shot to the front, hands down;
I remember the snort and the stag-like bound
Of the steed six lengths to the fore,

And the laugh of the rider while, landing sound,
He turned in his sadle and glanced around;
I remember-but little more,

Save a bird's-eye gleam of the dashing stream,
A jarring thud on the wall,

A shock, and the blank of a nightmare's dream,-I was down with a stunning fall!

Adam Lindsay Gordon.

CCXXI

FULFILMENT
(January 1, 1901)

Aн, now we know the long delay
But served to assure a prouder day,
For while we waited, came the call

To prove and make our title good-
To face the fiery ordeal

That tries the claim to Nationhood—
And now, in pride of challenge, we unroll,
For all the world to read, the record-scroll
Whose bloody script attests a Nation's soul.

O ye, our Dead, who at the call
Fared forth to fall as heroes fall,
Whose consecrated souls we failed
To note beneath the common guise
Till all-revealing Death unveiled
The splendour of your sacrifice,