Vera Figner.

(Note.—Vera Figner, Russian Revolutionary; a woman of great charm and radiant beauty. She was condemned to imprisonment for life, and for twenty years was immured in the living grave of the Schlusselburg Fortress. When these lines were composed the writer thought that Vera figner was still in prison. By a strange chance, on the day after the lines were written, he read that Vera Figner had been released.)

I.
Vera Figner, when the breezes blow,
Do you awaken to the hostile morn?
Or do you live so numbed you do not know,
Like a toad in a granite tempest-worn?
Vera Figner, are the eyes bedewed
That men had died for in the far-away?
Is your face like a wounded soul—subdued
To grief that never heals for any day?

II.
Does the clock in the turret tell you now
The morn is vanishing, the day declines?
Or is all thought beneath the drooping brow
Vacant and gloomy as the winter pines?
Have men betrampled through the many years
You soul submitting till its very deep
Has oozed away to dust : till you lack tears,
Denied the unhappy ones who cannot weep?

page 71

III.
Oh marvel of misfortune that a soul
So full of liberty and love should be
Tried, ever tired, to creep like any mole
From wall to wall in darkling vacancy.
To wrap the rich thought of the brain in death,
For never any sound may let it forth—
Oh God, that gayest consecrated breath
To holy truth, why tarryeth Thy wrath?

IV.
Beloved of all spirits that achieve
Through agony—Oh miserable, thou,
Who hast all suffering, but cannot leave
Thy burden ever! What is breathing now
But a poor disinheritance of days?
And even that poor remnant is defiled;
For thee that shouldst have trod delicious ways
No morn, no eve, no love, no roof, no child.

V.
Thou canst not be endungeoned evermore:
Thy soul is where the breezes blow with pain
Past Ladoga : there is not any shore
That hath not felt thy yearning. If again
Thou hast all agony, thou hast the crown,
The heaven within the spirit that shall save,
Though earth be cruel. Death hath his renown,
But cannot pass our conquerable grave.

Hubert Church.

Ballade.

Some Way After Villon.

Alieni Temporis Flores.

Tell me where, in what hidden way is
She, whose pencil entranced each mortal;
Seen no more at desk or on dais,
Head no more where the choice wits chortle;
Whither gone in the world now drear,
Leaving the "old familiar" portal?
But where are the books of yester-year?

page 72

Where is the maid whose vocal charm
Might beckon an angel from the sky?
Vainly we hoped 'twas a false alarm
When she sang (by Tosti) a fond good-bye.
Say do we miss her presence here?
Ask of a club whose members sigh!
(But where are the books of yester-year?)

And all the fair that have fled these halls
For the precincts dark of an alien land;
The educational clarion calls.
They rise and flutter a farewell hand,
The educational clarion calls.
They rise and flutter a farewell hand,
And fly with never a sigh or tear.
Ah where are they gone, that joyful band?
But where are the books of yester-year?

Envoi.
They pass,—and elsewhere pursue their way;
Ask not of them the question here.
'Tis only the fallen few can say
The fate of the "books" of yester-year.

"E."

Antipodean Horace.

Carmen VIII.

Come, chloe, tell me, pray,
By all the gods, why you with too fond wooing
Young Strephon lead astray
To his undoing.

Say why he loathes the field,
Who once of dust and heat was so enduring,
And does to softness yield,
All sport abjuring.

'Tis said he never tries,
In Tennis Tournament 'neath sun that mellows
To bear away the prize
Among his fellows.

page 73

Why does he fear to plunge
Into the tide, or through what aberration,
Like poison, shun the sponge
And embrocation?

Where are the bruiséd limbs,
Once black and blue with standing at the wicket;
What is the cloud that dims
Hi fame at cricket?

Why is he never seen
A footballer at Miramar together
With wearers of the green
Chasing the leather?

Say why the fair youth shirks
His round of manly sport, and what his plea is,
Who, like Achilles, lurks
With what Briseis?

Chloe, you are to blame
That Strephon now has lost all zeal athletic;
He owns it to his shame,
Captive pathetic.

Arthur Chorlton.

Eheu Fugaces!

O lover of the strident Strand,—
In London's roar imperial,
Dost thou remember Maoriland ?

The combers croon on leagues of sand;
The blue Pacific laughs its thrall :
O lover of the strident Strand!

On ranges Isolation planned,
The sheep bleat, and the wild ducks call :
Dost thou remember Maoriland ?

page 74

The smoke curls where the homesteads stand,
By thatched stockade, and slip-railed stall :
O lover of the strident Strand !

Lost mates of saddle, weather-tanned,
Still line the old red woolshed-wall :
Dost thou remember Maoriland ?

And gifts the Gods held in their hand,—
Their ghosts in camp-fires dance and fall.
O lover of the strident Strand,
Dost thou remember Maoriland?

Seaforth Mackenzie.