Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side,
So in the sand lay Rustum by his son.

And night came down over the solemn waste,
And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair,
And darkened all; and a cold fog, with night,
Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose,
As of a great assembly loosed, and fires
Began to twinkle through the fog; for now
Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal;
The Persians took it on the open sands
Southward, the Tartars by the river marge;
And Rustum and his son were left alone.
But the majestic river floated on,

Out of the mist and hum of that low land,
Into the frosty starlight, and there moved,
Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasmian waste,
Under the solitary moon;-he flowed
Right for the polar star, past Orgunjè,

Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin
To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,
And split his currents; that for many a league
The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along
Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles—
Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had
In his high mountain cradle in Pamere
A foiled circuitous wanderer—till at last

The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide
His luminous home of waters opens, bright

And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.

CIX

FLEE FRO' THE PRESS

O BORN in days when wits were fresh and clear
And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames;

Before this strange disease of modern life,
With its sick hurry, its divided aims,

Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts, was rife—
Fly hence, our contact fear!

Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood!
Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern

From her false friend's approach in Hades turn, Wave us away and keep thy solitude!

Still nursing the unconquerable hope,
Still clutching the inviolable shade,

With a free, onward impulse brushing through,
By night, the silvered branches of the glade-
Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue,
On some mild pastoral slope

Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales
Freshen thy flowers as in former years
With dew, or listen with enchanted ears,
From the dark dingles, to the nightingales!

But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly!
For strong the infection of our mental strife,
Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest;

And we should win thee from thy own fair life,

Like us distracted, and like us unblest.

Soon, soon thy cheer would die,

Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfixed thy powers, And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made; And then thy glad perennial youth would fade, Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours.

Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles!
As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea,
Descried at sunrise an emerging prow
Lifting the cool-haired creepers stealthily,
The fringes of a southward-facing brow
Among the Ægæan isles;

And saw the merry Grecian coaster come,
Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,
Green, bursting figs, and tunnies steeped in

brine

And knew the intruders on his ancient home,

The young light-hearted masters of the waves—

And snatched his rudder, and shook out more

sail;

And day and night held on indignantly

O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale,

Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,

To where the Atlantic raves

Outside the western straits; and unbent sails

There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam,

Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come;

And on the beach undid his corded bales.

CX

SCHOOL FENCIBLES

WE come in arms, we stand ten score,
Embattled on the castle green;
We grasp our firelocks tight, for war

Is threatening, and we see our Queen.
And 'Will the churls last out till we

Have duly hardened bones and thews
For scouring leagues of swamp and sea
Of braggart mobs and corsair crews?'
We ask; we fear not scoff or smile

At meek attire of blue and grey,
For the proud wrath that thrills our isle
Gives faith and force to this array.
So great a charm is England's right,
That hearts enlarged together flow,
And each man rises up a knight

To work the evil-thinkers woe.
And, girt with ancient truth and grace,
We do our service and our suit,
And each can be, whate'er his race,
A Chandos or a Montacute.

Thou, Mistress, whom we serve to-day,

Bless the real swords that we shall wield,

Repeat the call we now obey

In sunset lands, on some fair field. Thy flag shall make some Huron rock As dear to us as Windsor's keep,

And arms thy Thames hath nerved shall mock The surgings of th' Ontarian deep.

The stately music of thy Guards,

Which times our march beneath thy ken,
Shall sound, with spells of sacred bards,
From heart to heart, when we are men.
And when we bleed on alien earth,

We'll call to mind how cheers of ours
Proclaimed a loud uncourtly mirth
Amongst thy glowing orange bowers.
And if for England's sake we fall,
So be it, so thy cross be won,
Fixed by kind hands on silvered pall,
And worn in death, for duty done.

Ah! thus we fondle Death, the soldier's mate,
Blending his image with the hopes of youth
To hallow all; meanwhile the hidden fate

Chills not our fancies with the iron truth.
Death from afar we call, and Death is here,

To choose out him who wears the loftiest mien; And Grief, the cruel lord who knows no peer, Breaks through the shield of love to pierce our Queen.

CXI

THE TWO CAPTAINS

WHEN George the Third was reigning a hundred years ago,

He ordered Captain Farmer to chase the foreign foe. 'You're not afraid of shot,' said he, 'you're not afraid of wreck,

So cruise about the west of France in the frigate called Quebec.