Alas! in my old home,
Even flies sting men!

As I went up by Ovillers
In mud and water cold to the knee,
There went three jeering, fleering spectres,
That walked abreast and talked of me.

The first said, ‘Here's a right brave soldier
That walks the dark unfearingly;
Soon he'll come back on a fine stretcher,
And laughing for a nice Blighty.’

The second, ‘Read his face, old comrade,
No kind of lucky chance I see;
One day he'll freeze in mud to the marrow,
Then look his last on Picardie.’

Though bitter the word of these first twain
Curses the third spat venomously;

What art thou, Love? whence are those charms?
—That thus thou bear'st an universal rule:
For thee the soldier quits his arms,
—The king turns slave, the wise man fool.

In vain we chase thee from the field,
—And with cool thoughts resist thy yoke:
Next tide of blood, alas! we yield,
—And all those high resolves are broke.

Can we e'er hope thou shouldst be true,
—Whom we have found so often base?
Cozened and cheated, still we view
—And fawn upon the treacherous face.

In vain our nature we accuse;
—And dote, because she says we must:

The subtlest strain a great musician weaves,
Cannot attain in rhythmic harmony
To music in his soul. May it not be
Celestial lyres send hints to him? He grieves
That half the sweetness of the song, he leaves
Unheard in the transition. Thus do we
Yearn to translate the wondrous majesty
Of some rare mood, when the rapt soul receives
A vision exquisite. Yet who can match
The sunset's iridescent hues? Who sing
The skylark's ecstasy so seraph-fine?
We struggle vainly, still we fain would catch
Such rifts amid life's shadows, for they bring

Whaur gowden whin adorns the hill,
An' hawthorn blossoms scent the vale,
Whaur, by the gurglin' mountain rill,
Grow bell sae blue an' primrose pale;
Yestreen I wandered a' my lane,
Doun by Glencorse and Woodhouselee,
And I'll be there this night again,
Glencorse's Shepherd Queen to see.
O blythe, blythe, an' merry is she,
Licht o' heart an' bricht o' ee;
But, Sandy, lad, ye've tint sweet Maud,
She's plichted heart an' hand to me.

I met her on a sunny knowe,
Her face shone like the glowing west,
And by her side a fleecy ewe,

At last our Fathers saw the Treaty sealed,
Victory unhelmed her broad, majestic brow,
The Sword became a Sickle in the field,
The war horse drew the plough.

There is a time when men shape for their Land
Its institutions ‘mid some tempests’ roar,
Just as the waves that thunder on the strand
Shape out and round the shore.

Then comes a day when institutions turn
And carve the men, or cast them into moulds;
One Era trembles while volcanoes burn,
Another Age beholds

The hardened lava changed to hills and leas,

Come to Calvary's holy mountain,
Sinners ruined by the fall;
Here's a pure and healing fountain
Flows to you, to me, to all,
In a full, perpetual tide,
Opened when our Saviour died.

Come in poverty and meanness,
Come defiled, without, within;
From infections and uncleanness,
From the leprosy of sin,
Wash your robes, and make them white:
Ye shall walk with God in light.

Come, in sorrow and contrition,
Wounded, impotent, and blind;
Here the guilty, free remission,
Here the troubled, peace may find;
Health this fountain will restore,

Let us in the early dawn,
Seek the mountain's awful brow,
When the shades of night are gone,
And calmly smiles the scene below;—
Let us wander carelessly
Through the silence-breathing wood,
And gaze where swiftly rushes by,
Whitened with foam, the troubled flood;—
Let us steal along the vale,
Where the bee is humming round,
And the velvet-pinioned gale
Whispers o'er the flowery ground.
Nymph of most enchanting power,
Let us roam the wild-wood through,
When at morn or evening's hour
Droop the leaves with pearly dew.

The wild geese, flying in the night, behold
Our sunken towns lie underneath a sea,
Which buoys them on its billows. Liberty
They have, but such as those frail barques of old
That crossed unsounded mains to search our wold.
To them the night unspeakable is free;
They have the moon and stars for company;
To them no foe but the remorseless cold,
And froth of polar currents darting past,
That have been nigh the world's-end lair of storms.
Enormous billows float their fragile forms.
Yes, those frail beings, tossing on the Vast

God wills no man a slave. The man most meek,
Who saw Him face to face on Horeb's peak,
Had slain a tyrant for a bondman's wrong,
And met his Lord with sinless soul and strong.
But when, years after, overfraught with care,
His feet once trod doubt's pathway to despair,
For that one treason lapse, the guiding hand
That led so far now barred the promised land.
God makes no man a slave, no doubter free;
Abiding faith alone wins liberty.

No angel led our Chieftain's steps aright;
No pilot cloud by day, no flame by night;