So 'ark an" eed, you rookies, which is always g

blin' sore,

There's worser things than marchin' from Umballa to Cawnpore;

An' if your 'eels are blistered, an' they feels to 'urt like 'ell,

You drop some tallow in your socks, an' that will make 'em well.

For it's best foot first, etc.

We 're marchin' on relief over Injia's coral strand Eight 'undred fightin' Englishman, the Colonel, and the Band.

Ho! get away, you bullock-man! you 've 'eard the bugle blowed

There's a regiment a-comin' down the Grand Trunk

With its best foot first,

An' the road a-slidin' past,

An' every bloomin' campin'-ground exactly like the

last;

While the big drum says,

With its "Rowdy dowdy-dow!"

“Kiko kissywarsti don't you hamsher argy jow?”

"RUDYARD" AND "KIPLING"

[Several years ago, a western railway official, being an enthusiastic admirer of Mr. Kipling's, named two stations in the upper peninsula of Michigan "Rudyard" and "Kipling,' respectively, one being in the wheat lands, the other among the iron mines. When the poet learned of the compliment, he wrote the following lines.]

66

Wise is the child who knows his sire,"

The ancient proverb ran,

But wiser far the man who knows

How, where, and when his offspring grows,
For who the mischief would suppose

I've sons in Michigan ?

Yet am I saved from midnight ills
That warp the soul of man.
They do not make me walk the floor,
Nor hammer at the doctor's door;
They deal in wheat and iron ore,
My sons in Michigan.

O tourist, in the Pullman car
(By Cook's or Raymond's plan),
Forgive a parent's partial view;
But maybe you have children, too
So let me introduce to you

My sons in Michigan.

THE GIFT OF THE SEA

The dead child lay in the shroud,

And the widow watched beside;

And her mother slept, and the Channel swept The gale in the teeth of the tide.

But the widow laughed at all.

"I have lost my man in the sea,

And the child is dead. Be still," she said. "What more can ye do to me?"

And the widow watched the dead,
And the candle guttered low,
And she tried to sing the Passing Song
That bids the poor soul go.

And "Mary take you now," she sang,
"That lay against my heart.”

And "Mary smooth your crib to-night,"
But she could not say

66

Depart."

Then came a cry from the sea,

But the sea-rime blinded the glass,

And "Heard ye nothing, mother?" she said; "'Tis the child that waits to pass."

The Gift of the Sea

And the nodding mother sighed.

"T is a lambing ewe in the whin.

For why should the cherished soul cry out,
That never knew of sin ?”

"Oh, feet I have held in my hand,
Oh, hands at my heart to catch,

How should they know the road to go,
And how should they lift the latch?"

They laid a sheet to the door,

With the little quilt atop,

That it might not hurt from the cold or the dirt, But the crying would not stop.

The widow lifted the latch

And strained her eyes to see,

And opened the door on the bitter shore.

To let the soul go free.

There was neither glimmer nor ghost,
There was neither spirit or spark,
And "Heard ye nothing, mother?" she said,
"'Tis crying for me in the dark."

And the nodding mother sighed.

"'Tis sorrow makes ye dull;

Have ye yet to learn the cry of the tern,
Or the wail of the wind-blown gull?"

"The terns are blown inland,

The gray gull follows the plough. 'Twas never a bird, the voice I heard, O mother, I hear it now!"

"Lie still, dear lamb, lie still;

The child is passed from harm,

'Tis the ache in your breast that broke your rest, And the feel of an empty arm.”

She puts her mother aside,

"In Mary's name let be!

For the peace of my soul I must go," she said,

And she went to the calling sea.

In the heel of the wind-bit pier,

Where the twisted weed was piled,

She came to the life she had missed by an hour, For she came to a little child.

She laid it into her breast,

And back to her mother she came,

But it would not feed, and it would not heed,
Though she gave it her own child's name.

And the dead child dripped on her breast,
And her own in the shroud lay stark;
And "God forgive us, mother," she said,
We let it die in the dark!"