AN ARCTIC EPITAPH No grave more nobly graced, No whiter pall than that which wraps the heads Of those who sleep where the lone land outspreads Its ice-bound waste. These, Mother, were thy sons, Brood of thy brood, whose seed by sea and land Still man to-day, and in days gone have manned Our English guns. No mortal foe defied. What Nature in her silent holds of snow Hides from all outer ken, they strove to know, And striving-died. ON THE FUTURE OF POETRY OARDS of the Future! you that come BAR With striding march, and roll of drum, What will your newest challenge be What magic will you find to stir Will Pegasus return again I know not. Far be it from me Still less to render more perplexed The last vagary, or the next. Leave Pindus Hill for those who list, Iconoclast or anarchist So be it. "They that break shall pay." I stand upon the ancient way. I hold it for a certain thing, That, blank or rhyming, song must sing; I hold that they who deal in rhyme That the old notes are still the new, Nor can the hand that knows its trade, That your first theme is Human Life, For this, beyond all doubt, is plain : The Truth that pleased will please again, When Hector's wife smiled through her tears. 1914 [1913]. THE BALLAD OF THE BEGGAR 'HE starlings fly in the windy sky, THE The rabbits run out a-row, The pheasants stalk in the stubble dry, As I tramp, tramp, tramp, and grow More weary at every stride, And think, as the riders pass and go If I had a horse to ride! The Farmer trots by on his roadster high, The Squire on his pony low; Young Miss sweeps out from the Park-Gate nigh, And canters away with her beau :— They are proud of themselves, I trow, And couldn't I too cut a dash and show, The Farmer is four times as fat as I, The Squire he is blind and slow; Young Miss has not nearly so bright an eye Ah, wouldn't I cry "Gee-hup, Gee-ho," And wouldn't I teach him to gallop it though, If I had a horse to ride! ENVOY. It was only a Beggar that grumbled so, As his blistered feet he eyed; But the cry is a cry that we all of us knowIf I had a horse to ride! |