RANK AND FILE

(SOUTH AFRICA, 1900-1)

O UNDISTINGUISHED Dead!

Whom the bent covers, or the rock-strewn steep
Shows to the stars, for you I mourn, -I weep,
O undistinguished Dead!

None knows your name.

Blacken'd and blurr'd in the wild battle's brunt Hotly you fell... with all your wounds in front: This is your fame!

FOR A CHARITY ANNUAL

(ANGEL-COURT)

IN

N Angel-Court the sunless air

Grows faint and sick; to left and right The cowering houses shrink from sight, Huddled and hopeless, eyeless, bare.

Misnamed, you say? For surely rare
Must be the angel-shapes that light
In Angel-Court?

Nay! the Eternities are there.

Death at the doorway stands to smite; Life in its garrets leaps to flight;

And Love has climbed that crumbling stair In Angel-Court.

THE SONG OF THE SEA WIND

HOW it sings, sings, sings,

Blowing sharply from the sea-line,
With an edge of salt that stings;
How it laughs aloud, and passes,
As it cuts the close cliff-grasses;

How it sings again, and whistles
As it shakes the stout sea-thistles-
How it sings!

How it shrieks, shrieks, shrieks,
In the crannies of the headland,

In the gashes of the creeks;

How it shrieks once more, and catches
Up the yellow foam in patches;

How it whirls it out and over
To the corn-field and the clover-
How it shrieks!

How it roars, roars, roars,

In the iron under-caverns, In the hollows of the shores; How it roars anew, and thunders, As the strong hull splits and sunders: And the spent ship, tempest-driven, On the reef lies rent and rivenHow it roars !

How it wails, wails, wails,

In the tangle of the wreckage,
In the flapping of the sails;

How it sobs away, subsiding,
Like a tired child after chiding;

And across the ground-swell rolling,
You can hear the bell-buoy tolling—
How it wails!

1901 [1879].