IV

'Lost one and all' were the words
Mutter'd in our dismay;

But they rode like victors and lords
Thro' the forest of lances and swords
In the heart of the Russian hordes,
They rode, or they stood at bay
Struck with the sword-hand and slew,
Down with the bridle-hand drew
The foe from the saddle and threw
Underfoot there in the fray

Ranged like a storm or stood like a rock
In the wave of a stormy day;
Till suddenly shock upon shock
Stagger'd the mass from without,
Drove it in wild disarray,

For our men gallopt up with a cheer and a shout,

And the foeman surged, and waver'd, and reel'd

Up the hill, up the hill, up the hill, out of the field,

And over the brow and away.

POET.

Yet tho' this cheek be gray,
And that bright hair the modern sun,
Those eyes the blue to-day,
You wrong me, passionate little friend.
I would that wars should cease,

I would the globe from end to end
Might sow and reap in peace,
And some new Spirit o'erbear the old,
Or Trade re-frain the Powers
From war with kindly links of gold,

Or Love with wreaths of flowers.
Slav, Teuton, Kelt, I count them all
My friends and brother souls,
With all the peoples, great and small,
That wheel between the poles.
But since our mortal shadow, Ill,
To waste this earth began
Perchance from some abuse of Will
In worlds before the man

Involving ours he needs must fight
To make true peace his own,

He needs must combat might with might,
Or Might would rule alone;

And who loves war for war's own sake
Is fool, or crazed, or worse;
But let the patriot-soldier take

His meed of fame in verse;
Nay- tho' that realm were in the wrong
For which her warriors bleed,

It still were right to crown with song
The warrior's noble deed -

A crown the Singer hopes may last,
For so the deed endures;
But Song will vanish in the Vast;
And that large phrase of yours
'A star among the stars,' my dear,
Is girlish talk at best;

For dare we dally with the sphere
As he did half in jest,

Old Horace? I will strike,' said he,

Let it live then-ay, till when? Earth passes, all is lost

In what they prophesy, our wise men,
Sun-flame or sunless frost,

And deed and song alike are swept
Away, and all in vain

As far as man can see, except

The man himself remain;
And tho', in this lean age forlorn,

Too many a voice may cry
That man can have no after-morn,
Not yet of those am I.
The man remains, and whatsoe'er

He wrought of good or brave
Will mould him thro' the cycle-year
That dawns behind the grave.

I salute thee, Mantovano,

I that loved thee since my day began, Wielder of the stateliest measure

ever moulded by the lips of man.

of Sermione (the Latin Sirmio), where Catullus had his country house, is about three miles and a half to the east of Desenzano. There are some slight remains of an ancient building on the edge of the lake, said to belong to the poet's villa; and on a hill near by are fragments of Roman baths.

Row us out from Desenzano, to your Sirmione row!

So they row'd, and there we landed - 'O venusta Sirmio !'

There to me thro' all the groves of olive in the summer glow,

There beneath the Roman ruin where the purple flowers grow,

Came that Ave atque Vale' of the Poet's hopeless woe,

Tenderest of Roman poets nineteen hundred years ago,

'Frater Ave atque Vale' as we wander'd to and fro

Gazing at the Lydian laughter of the Garda Lake below

Sweet Catullus's all-but-island, olive-silvery Sirmio!

HELEN'S TOWER

[Written at the request of my friend, Lord Dufferin.]

Inscribed on the walls of a tower erected in 1860 by the Earl of Dufferin on his estate near Belfast, as a tribute to his mother, the late Countess of Gifford, and named after her. The fourth line refers to a poetical inscription on the tower, written by Lady Gifford to her

son.

Later, in 1861, 'Helen's Tower' was privately printed by Lord Dufferin. It was also printed in Good Words' for January, 1884, before it appeared in the Tiresias' volume.

HELEN'S TOWER, here I stand,
Dominant over sea and land.
Son's love built me, and I hold
Mother's love in letter'd gold.
Love is in and out of time,
I am mortal stone and lime.
Would my granite girth were strong
As either love, to last as long!
I should wear my crown entire
To and thro' the Doomsday fire,
And be found of angel eyes
In earth's recurring Paradise.