English

Te verò appello sanctissimum F LUMEN , tibique futura prædico: torrenti sanguine plenus ad ripas usque erumpes, undæque divinæ non solum polluentur sanguine, sed totæ rumpentur, et viris multo major erit numerus sepultorum. Quid fles, O Asclepi?—T HE A SCLEPIAN Dialogue .

FIRST VOICE .

(From Germany.)

 Flash the sword!—and even as thunder
  Utter ye one living voice,—
 While the watching nations wonder,
  Hills of Fatherland, rejoice:

All day the world's mad mocking strife,
The venomed prick of probing knife,
The baleful, subtle leer of scorn
That rims the world from morn to morn,
While reptile-visions writhe and creep
Into the very arms of sleep
To quench the fitful burnished gleams:
A crucifixion in my dreams!

Hear their viol-voices ringing
Down the corridor of years,
As they lift their twilight faces
Through a mist of falling tears!

Let me not hate, although the bruising world decries my peace,
Gives me no quarter, hounds me while I sleep;
Would snuff the candles of my soul and sear my inmost dreamings.

Let me not hate, though girt by vipers, green and hissing through the dark;
I fain must love. God help me keep the altar-gleams that flicker wearily, anon,
On down the world's grim night!

Where is the perfect State
Early most blest and late,
Perfect and bright?
'Tis where no Palace stands
Trembling on shifting sands
Morning and night.
'Tis where the soil is free,
Where, far as eye may see,
Scattered o'er hill and lea,
Homesteads abound;
Where clean and broad and sweet
(Market, square, lane, and street,
Belted by leagues of wheat),
Cities are found.

Where is the perfect State
Early most blest and late,
Gentle and good?
'Tis where no lives are seen

Spirit of the great brow!
Fire hath thy City now:
She shakes the sad world with her troubled scream!
O spirit who loved best
This City of the West,
Hark! loud she shattered cries — great
Queen of thy great Dream,

But, as she passes by
To the earth's scornful cry,
What are those Shapes who walk behind so wan? —
Martyrs and prophets born
Out of her night and morn:
Have we forgot them yet? — these, the great friends of Man.

Back on the wrong line, that was all,
Back in the morning, dusky and drear,
Simple enough such a thing you may call,
But it cost us the life of Duncan Weir.

He was our mate for many a day;
Never a steadier man on the line,
First at his work on the iron way,
Whether the morning was stormy or fine.

Quiet, yet fond of a laugh and a joke,
Though at times he took other moods, and then
He would only look up for a five minutes' smoke,
Then take to the shovel and pick again.

To meet whatever comes with Faith rock-founded,
Upheld by it, to question not Thy Plan;
To know our dear ones, by Thy love surrounded,
Are near us now, to help us " play the man; "
To humbly walk with Him, as children, thronging
The Heav'nly spaces radiant with peace;
To realize the selfishness of longing
To have our burdens lifted first; to cease
Asking, with tears, the reason for your sending
Trials to us that are so hard to bear;
To grieve — yet not to live with Grief unending,

Comfort, O free and true!
Soon shall there rise for you
A City fairer far than all ye plan;
Built on a rock of strength,
It shall arise at length,
Stately and fair and vast, the City meet for Man!

Towering to yonder skies
Shall the fair City rise,
Dim in the dawning of a day more pure:
House, mart, and street, and square,
Yea, and a Fane for prayer —
Fair, and yet built by hands, strong, for it shall endure.

In the fair City then

So you have gone across the dimming line
Between this life, and that, into the sun!
The smile still on your face . . . . Old pal of mine.
God loves the man who laughs as you have done.
And we who knew you best, glance back again . .
The Old Guard's ranks are thinning — Steady, men!

The kindly heart that had no thought for strife;
The good you saw in all things, large or small;
The joy you took — and gave — throughout your life,
Have made this world some better, after all.