Sonnet

And is this all, this piety of prayer,
This sanctity in solemn chapel nave,
This coward supplication to the grave
Born of dull fear and nurtured by despair
In gloomy dungeons hid from sun and air,
With selfish strife their little souls to save
That all men's nobler instincts from them drave,
If there be God, then must I seek him there?

Nay rather in the glances of the moon
On dew-hung branches I shall find content,
Or where the south-wind, shod in silver shoon,
Makes the white blossoms tremble, or the tryst
Of wakening skylark with the bow half-bent
Of summer skies, sun-flooded amethyst.
September, 1918.

C.Q.P.

A Liberal, sir, in opinion is he,
Impatient of dogma, but sure as can be,
He's got the whole cheese where St. Paul had the germ:
He'll take the goodwill but it's not the Old Firm.

H.M.