God gave to Afric's sons
A brow of sable dye,
And spread the country of their birth,
Beneath a burning sky.

To me he gave a form
Of fairer, whiter clay; —
But am I, therefore, in his sight,
Respected more than they?

The hue of deeds and thoughts,
He traces in his book;
'Tis the complexion of the heart ,
On which he deigns to look.

Not by the tinted cheek,

What spells an empty plate can weave!
How all his friends a poor man leave!
They loved you when you gold could give,
Now love with gold is fugitive.
Once it was " Sweety," " dearest Don,"
To-day another tune is on;
" I wonder why on earth he came:
Who is he, pray, and what's his name?"

There's a banner in our van,
And we follow as we can,
For at times we scarce can see it,
And at times it flutters high.
But however it be flown,
Still we know it as our own,
And we follow, ever follow,
Where we see the banner fly.

In the struggle and the strife,
In the weariness of life,
The banner-man may stumble,
He may falter in the fight.
But if one should fail or slip,
There are other hands to grip,
And it's forward, ever forward,
From the darkness to the light.

When she was but a baby girl I said, —
" She'll set us all ablaze, this tender maid."
They mocked my warning, but the time has come.
She is a woman — and I know my doom.
What shall I do? to court her is in vain:
To look is torment: not to look is pain.

If, after death, my singing may be heard
Within the land of Shelley and of Keats —
The land that shook at vast-souled Milton's word,
The land that every morn its Shakespeare greets
Smiling and proud — if this my land repeats
My lady's name, my song, when I am dead
Crowned am I then for ever — yea, the red
Sunset of death as life eternal falls
Beaming around me, summons in its walls
My spirit glad beyond all mortal measure
Then at the great sweet death-voice as it calls;
Yea, if one song my land shall love and treasure,

Ten Measures for Lysidicë,
One for Euphrantë take;
Let Bacchus in the wine bowl be
Where now our thirst we slake.

And is my love proportioned so
As we the measures pour
That to Euphrantë once I go,
To the other ten times more?

Nay, though Euphrantë be but one,
Ten cannot match her even,
Pale as before their monarch moon
The countless hosts of heaven.

Let thy heart no more be troubled,
Child of woe! when sinners rise;
Though their wealth be more than doubled,
View them not with envious eyes;
They shall wither,
As the grass decays and dies.

Trust the Lord, and do his pleasure,
Rest contented with his will;
Make thy God thy richest treasure,
All thy longing heart he'll fill;
On Jehovah
Roll thy cares, and trust him still.

Then will God, thy face adorning,
Crown thy head with heav'nly light,
Softer than the rays of morning, —

There is no death.—The death-deep awful gloom
We see and dread
Is not the real invincible fog-fume
Round the death-bed.

There is no death, no darkness. All is light.
The deepest gloom
Is not the murk impenetrable night
Around the tomb.

There is a deeper darkness than the dark
Where no stars beam:
A blackness where not one most faint star-spark
Can ever gleam.

Wrong-doing is death, and this alone is death.
Death is senThere
That we may shiver at his ice-cold breath
And, shuddering, fear:

You didn't know of Bendigo! Well, that knocks me out!
Who's your board school teacher? What's he been about?
Chock-a-block with fairy-tales — full of useless cram,
And never heard o' Bendigo, the pride of Nottingham!

Bendy's short for Bendigo. You should see him peel!
Half of him was whalebone, half of him was steel,
Fightin' weight eleven ten, five foot nine in height,
Always ready to oblige if you want a fight.

I could talk of Bendigo from here to kingdom come,
I guess before I ended you would wish your dad was dumb,

They recruited William Evans
From the ploughtail and the spade;
Ten years' service in the Devons
Left him smart as they are made.

Thirty or a trifle older,
Rather over six foot high,
Trim of waist and broad of shoulder,
Yellow-haired and blue of eye;

Short of speech and very solid,
Fixed in purpose as a rock,
Slow, deliberate, and stolid,
Of the real West-country stock.

He had never been to college,
Got his teaching in the corps,
You can pick up useful knowledge
'Twixt Saltash and Singapore.