Chapter C: H. Bretherton

Feb. 5, 1919.

The Seats of the Mighty

I think there can be nothing much more fair
Than owning some large mansion in the shires,
And living almost permanently there,
In constant touch with animals and squires;
Yet there is joy in peering through the gates
Or squinting from the summit of a wall
At other people's beautiful estates,
Wondering what they have to pay in rates
And coveting it all.

Yes, it is sweet to circle with one's spouse
Some antique Court, constructed by QUEEN ANNE,
Complete with oaks and tennis-courts and cows,
And many a nice respectful serving-man,
With dogs and donkeys and perhaps a swan,
And lovely ladies having _such_ a time,
And garden-parties always going on,
And ruins where the guide-book says KING JOHN
Did nearly every crime.

Yes, it is sweet; but what I want to know
Is why one has to prowl about outside;
Surely the Earl of Bodleton and Bow,
Surely Sir Egbert and his lovely bride
Should wait all eager in the entrance-way
To ask us in and take us through the grounds,
And give one food and worry one to stay,
Instead of simply keeping one at bay
With six or seven hounds.

Surely they realise one wants to see
The mullioned windows in the South-West wing,
The private trout-stream and the banyan-tree,
The lilac bedroom where they lodged the King;
Surely they know how Bolshevist we feel
Outside, where shrubberies obstruct the view,
Particularly as they scarce conceal
The Earl and household at a hearty meal
Under the old, old yew.

I do not grudge the owner of The Chase;
I do not loathe the tenant of The Lea;
I only want to walk about his place
And just imagine it belongs to me;
That is the kind of democratic sport
For keeping crime and Bolshevism low;
I don't imagine that the fiercest sort
Feel quite so anarchist at Hampton Court,
Where anyone may go.

But I dare say that many a man must take
Long looks of wonderment at Number Nine,
Laburnum Avenue, and vainly ache
To go inside a dwelling so divine;
And if indeed some Marquis knocks one day
And says, "I'm tired of standing in the street;
I want to see your mansion, if I may,"
I shall receive him in the nicest way
And show him round my "seat."

A. P. HERBERT.
Oct. 15, 1919.

"_Nimphidia_"

Blue Roses

Shepherd in delicate Dresden china,
Loitering ever the while you twine a
Garland of oddly azure roses,
All for a shepherdess passing fair;
Poor little shepherdess waiting there
All the time for your china posies,
Posies pale for her jet-black hair!

Doesn't she wait (oh the anxious glances!)
Flowers for one of your stately dances,
A crown to finish a dainty toilette,
(Haven't the harps just now begun,
Minuets 'neath a china sun?)--
Doesn't she dread that the dust may soil it,
When, oh _when_ will the boy be done?

Summer and winter and still you linger,
Laggard lover with lazy finger,
Never your little maid's wreath completing,
Still half-strung are its petalled showers;
Must she wait all her dancing hours,
Wait in spite of her shy entreating,
Wait for ever her azure flowers?

P. R. CHALMERS.
Aug. 30, 1911.

A House in a Wood

So 'tis your will to have a cell,
My Betsey, of your own and dwell
Here where the sun for ever shines
That glances off the holly spines--
A clearing where the trunks are few,
Here shall be built a house for you,
The little walls of beechen stakes
Wattled with twigs from hazel brakes,
Tiled with white oak-chips that lie round
The fallen giants on the ground;
Under your little feet shall be
A ground-work of wild strawberry
With gadding stem, a pleasant wort
Alike for carpet and dessert.
Here, Betsey, in the lucid shade
Come, let us twine a green stockade
With slender saplings all about,
And a small window to look out,
So that you may be "Not at Home"
If any mortal callers come.
Then shall arrive to make you mirth
The four wise peoples of the earth:
The thrifty ants who run around
To fill their store-rooms underground;
The rabbit-folk, a feeble race,
From out their rocky sleeping-place;
The grasshoppers who have no king,
Yet come in companies to sing;
The lizard slim who shyly stands
Swaying upon his slender hands--
I'll give them all your new address.
For me, my little anchoress,
I'll never stir the bracken by
Your house; the brown wood butterfly,
Passing you like the sunshine's fleck
That gilds the nape of your warm neck,
Shall still report me how you do
And bring me all the news of you,
And tell me (where I sit alone)
How gay you are, and how you're grown
A fox-glove's span in the soft weather.

* * * *

No? Then we'll wander home together.

MRS. HELEN PARRY EDEN.
July 24, 1912.

A Song of Syrinx

Little lady, whom 'tis said
Pan tried very hard to please,
I expect before you fled
'Neath the wondering willow-trees,
Ran away from his caress
In the Doric wilderness,
That you'd led him on a lot,
Said you would, and then would not,--
No way that to treat a man,
Little lady loved of Pan!

I expect you'd dropped your eyes
(Eyes that held your stream's own hue,
Kingfishers and dragon-flies
Sparkling in their ripple blue),
And you'd tossed your tresses up,
Yellow as the cool king-cup,
And you'd dimpled at his vows
Underneath the willow boughs,
Ere you mocked him, ere you ran,
Little lady loved of Pan!

So they've turned you to a reed,
As the great Olympians could,
You've to bow, so they've decreed,
When old Pan comes through the wood,
You've to curtsey and to gleam
In the wind and in the stream
(Which are forms, I've heard folks say,
That the god adopts to-day),
And we watch you bear your ban,
Little lady loved of Pan!

For in pleasant spots you lie
Where the lazy river is,
Where the chasing whispers fly
Through the beds of bulrushes,
Where the big chub, golden dun,
Turns his sides to catch the sun,
Where one listens for the queer
Voices in the splashing weir,
Where I know that still you can
Weave a spell to charm a man,
Little lady loved of Pan!

P. R. CHALMERS.
Sept. 13, 1911.

Honey Meadow

Here, Betsey, where the sainfoin blows
Pink and the grass more thickly grows,
Where small brown bees are winging
To clamber up the stooping flowers,
We'll share the sweet and sunny hours
Made murmurous with their singing.

Dear, it requires no small address
In such a billowy floweriness
For you, so young, to sally;
Yet would you still out-stay the sun
And linger when his light was done
Along the haunted valley.

O small brown fingers, clutched to seize
The biggest blooms, don't spill the bees;
Imagine what contempt he
Would meet who ventured to arrive
Home, of an evening, at the hive
With both his pockets empty!

Moreover, if you steal their share,
The bees become too poor to spare
Their sweets nor part with any
Honey at tea-time; so for you
What were for them a cell too few
Would be a sell too many!

Or, what were worse for you and me,
They might admire the industry
So thoughtlessly paraded,
And, tired of their brown queen, maintain
That no one needed Betsey-Jane
As urgently as they did.

So would you taste in some far clime
The plunder of eternal thyme
And you would quite forget us,
Our cottage and these English trees,
When you were Queen of Honey Bees
At Hybla or Hymettus.

MRS. HELEN PARRY EDEN.
Sept. 18, 1912.

A Dream

And at night we'd find a town,
Flat-roofed, by a star-strewn sea,
Where the pirate crew came down
To a long-forgotten quay,
And we'd meet them in the gloaming,
Tarry pigtails, back from roaming,
With a pot of pirate ginger for the likes of her and me!

She was small and rather pale,
Grey-eyed, grey as smoke that weaves,
And we'd watch them stowing sail,
Forty most attractive thieves;
Propped against the porphyry column,
She was seven, sweet and solemn,
And she'd hair blue-black as swallows when they flit
beneath the eaves.

On the moonlit sands and bare,
Clamorous, jewelled in the dusk,
There would be an Eastern Fair,
We could smell the mules and musk,
We could see the cressets flaring,
And we'd run to buy a fairing
Where a black man blew a fanfare on a carven ivory tusk;

And we'd stop before the stall
Of a grave green-turbaned khan,
Gem or flower--he kept them all--
Persian cat or yataghan,
And I'd pay a golden guinea
And she'd fill her holland pinny
With white kittens and red roses and blue stones
from Turkestan!

* * * *

London streets have flowers anew,
London shops with gems are set;
When you've none to give them to,
What is pearl or violet?
Vain things both and emptinesses,
So they wait a dream-Princess's
Coming, if she's sweet and solemn with grey eyes
and hair of jet!

P. R. CHALMERS.
Jan. 24, 1912.

A Vagrant

The humble bee
No skep has he,
No twisted, straw-thatched dome,
A ferny crest
Provides his nest,
The mowing-grass his home.

The crook-beaked shrike
His back may spike
And pierce him with a thorn;
The humble bee
A tramp is he
And there is none to mourn.

O'er bank and brook,
In wooded nook,
He wanders at his whim,
Lives as he can,
Owes naught to man,
And man owes naught to him.

No hive receives
The sweets he gives,
No flowers for him are sown,
Yet wild and gay
He hums his way,
A nomad on his own.

MISS JESSIE POPE.
May 20, 1914.

"Treasure Island"

A lover breeze to the roses pleaded,
Failed and faltered, took heart and advanced;
Up over the peaches, unimpeded,
A great Red Admiral ducked and danced;
But the boy with the book saw not, nor heeded,
Reading entranced--entranced!

He read, nor knew that the fat bees bumbled;
He woke no whit to the tea-bell's touch,
The browny pigeons that wheeled and tumbled,
(For how should a pirate reck of such?).
He read, and the flaming flower-beds crumbled,
At tap of the sea-cook's crutch!

And lo, there leapt for him dolphins running
The peacock seas of the buccaneer,
Lone, savage reefs where the seals lay sunning,
The curve of canvas, the creak of gear;
For ever the Master's wondrous cunning
Lent him of wizard lear!

* * * *

But lost are the garden days of leisure,
Lost with their wide-eyed ten-year-old,
Yet if you'd move to a bygone measure,
Or shape your heart to an ancient mould,
Maroons and schooners and buried treasure
Wrought on a page of gold,--

Then take the book in the dingy binding,
Still the magic comes, bearded, great,
And swaggering files of sea-thieves winding
Back, with their ruffling cut-throat gait,
Reclaim an hour when we first went finding
Pieces of Eight--of Eight.

P. R. CHALMERS.
July 5, 1911.

Bazar

Dive in from the sunlight, smiting like a falchion,
Underneath the awnings to the sudden shade,
Saunter through the packed lane, many-voiced, colourful,
Rippling with the currents of the South and Eastern trade.

Here are Persian carpets, ivory and peach-bloom,
Tints to fill the heart of any child of man,
Here are copper rose-bowls, leopard-skins, emeralds,
Scarlet slippers curly-toed and beads from Kordofan.

Water-sellers pass with brazen saucers tinkling;
Hajjis in the doorways tell their amber beads;
Buy a lump of turquoise, a scimitar, a neckerchief
Worked with rose and saffron for a lovely lady's needs.

Here we pass the goldsmiths, copper, brass and silver-smiths,
All a-clang and jingle, all a-glint and gleam;
Here the silken webs hang, shimmering, delicate,
Soft-hued as an afterglow and melting as a dream.

Buy a little blue god brandishing a sceptre,
Buy a dove with coral feet and pearly breast,
Buy some ostrich feathers, silver shawls, perfume jars,
Buy a stick of incense for the shrine that you love best.

MISS MACKELLAR.
July 23, 1913.

A Fairy went A-Marketing

A fairy went a-marketing--
She bought a little fish;
She put it in a crystal bowl
Upon a golden dish;
All day she sat in wonderment
And watched its silver gleam.
And then she gently took it up
And slipped it in a stream.

A fairy went a-marketing--
She bought a coloured bird;
It sang the sweetest, shrillest song
That ever she had heard;
She sat beside its painted cage
And listened half the day,
And then she opened wide the door
And let it fly away.

A fairy went a-marketing--
She bought a winter gown
All stitched about with gossamer
And lined with thistledown;
She wore it all the afternoon
With prancing and delight,
Then gave it to a little frog
To keep him warm at night.

A fairy went a-marketing--
She bought a gentle mouse
To take her tiny messages,
To keep her tiny house;
All day she kept its busy feet
Pit-patting to and fro,
And then she kissed its silken ears,
Thanked it, and let it go.

MISS ROSE FYLEMAN.
Jan. 2, 1918.

Fairies in the Malverns

As I walked over Hollybush Hill
The sun was low and the winds were still,
And never a whispering branch I heard
Nor ever the tiniest call of a bird.

And when I came to the topmost height
Oh, but I saw such a wonderful sight,
All about on the hill-crest there
The fairies danced in the golden air.

Danced and frolicked with never a sound
In and out in a magical round;
Wide and wider the circle grew
Then suddenly melted into the blue.

* * * *

As I walked down into Eastnor Vale
The stars already were twinkling pale,
And over the spaces of dew-white grass
I saw a marvellous pageant pass.

Tiny riders on tiny steeds
Decked with blossoms and armed with reeds,
With gossamer banners floating far
And a radiant queen in an ivory car.

The beeches spread their petticoats wide
And curtseyed low upon either side;
The rabbits scurried across the glade
To peep at the glittering cavalcade.

Far and farther I saw them go
And vanish into the woods below;
Then over the shadowy woodland ways
I wandered home in a sweet amaze.

* * * *

But Malvern people need fear no ill
Since fairies bide in their country still.

MISS ROSE FYLEMAN.
Aug. 28, 1918.

Fairy Music

When the fiddlers play their tunes you may sometimes hear,
Very softly chiming in, magically clear,
Magically high and sweet, the tiny crystal notes
Of fairy voices bubbling free from tiny fairy throats.

When the birds at break of day chant their morning prayers
Or on sunny afternoons pipe ecstatic airs,
Comes an added rush of sound to the silver din--
Songs of fairy troubadours gaily joining in.

When athwart the drowsy fields summer twilight falls,
Through the tranquil air there float elfin madrigals;
And in wild November nights, on the winds astride,
Fairy hosts go rushing by, singing as they ride.

Every dream that mortals dream, sleeping or awake,
Every lovely fragile hope--these the fairies take,
Delicately fashion them and give them back again
In tender limpid melodies that charm the hearts of men.

MISS ROSE FYLEMAN.
Sept. 18, 1918.

Sometimes

Some days are fairy days. The minute that you wake
You have a magic feeling that you never could mistake;
You may not see the fairies, but you know they're all about,
And any single minute they might all come popping out;
You want to laugh, you want to sing, you want to dance and run,
Everything is different, everything is fun;
The sky is full of fairy clouds, the streets are fairy ways--
_Anything_ might happen on truly fairy days.

Some nights are fairy nights. Before you go to bed
You hear their darling music go chiming in your head;
You look into the garden and through the misty grey,
You see the trees all waiting in a breathless kind of way.
All the stars are smiling; they know that very soon
The fairies will come singing from the land behind the moon.
If only you could keep awake when Nurse puts out the light...
_Anything_ might happen on a truly fairy night.

MISS ROSE FYLEMAN.
June 16, 1920.

The Wild Swan

[Lament on a very rare bird who recently appeared in England, and was immediately shot.]

Over the sea (ye maids) a wild swan came;
(O maidens) it was but the other day;
Men saw him as he passed with earnest aim
To some sequestered spot down Norfolk way--
A thing whose like had not been seen for years:
_Lament, ye damsels, nor refuse your tears._

Serene, he winged his alabaster flight
Neath the full beams of the mistaken sun
O'er gazing crowds, till at th' unwonted sight
Some unexpected sportsman with a gun
Brought down the bird, all fluff, mid sounding cheers:
_Mourn, maidens, mourn, and wipe the thoughtful tears._

Well you may weep. No common bird was he.
Has it not long been known, the whole world wide,
A wild swan is a prince of faerie,
Who comes in such disguise to choose his bride
From those of humble lot and tame careers,
_Of whom I now require some punctual tears._

Wherefore, I say, let every scullion-wench
Grieve, nor the dairy-maid from sobs refrain;
The sad postmistress, too, should feel the wrench,
And the lone tweeny of her loss complain;
Let one--let all afflict the listening spheres:
_Deplore, ye maids, his fate with rueful tears._

It was for these he sought this teeming land,
High on the silvery wings of old romance;
One knows not where he had bestowed his hand,
But e'en the least had stood an equal chance
Of such fair triumph o'er her bitter peers
_And the sweet pleasure of their anguished tears._

O prince of faerie! O stately swan!
And ye, whose hopes are with the might-have-beens,
Curst be the wretch through whom those hopes have gone,
Who blew your magic swain to smithereens;
Let your full sorrows whelm his stricken ears;
_Lament, ye damsels, nor refuse your tears._

CAPT. KENDALL.
March 18, 1914.

The Strange Servant

Tall she is, and straight and slender,
With soft hair beneath a cap
Pent and pinned; within her lap
Weep her lily hands, for work too tender.

She's a fairy, through transgression
Doomed to doff her webby smock,
Doomed to rise at six o'clock,
Doomed to bear a mistress's repression.

Once she romped in fairy revels
Down the dim moon-dappled glades,
Rode on thrilling honey-raids,
Danced the glow-lamps out on lawny levels.

Ere her trouble she was tiny:
'Tis her doom to be so tall;
Thus her hair no more will fall
To her feet, all shimmering and sunshiny.

O her eyes--like pools at twilight,
Mournful, whence pale radiance peers!
O her voice, that throbs with tears
In the attic 'neath the staring skylight!

Daylong does she household labour,
Lights the fires and scrubs the floors,
Washes up and answers doors,
Ushers in the dread suburban neighbour.

Then at night she seeks her attic,
Parts her clothes with those pale hands,
Slips at last her shift, and stands
Moon-caressed, most yearningly ecstatic,

Arms out pleads her condonation--
Hapless one! she gains no grace;
They whom fairy laws abase
Serve the utter term of tribulation.

Yet (though far her happy wood is)
Oft her folk fly in at night,
Pour sweet pity on her plight,
Comfort her with gossipry and goodies.

W. W. BLAIR FISH.
Oct. 1, 1916.

To an Egyptian Boy

Child of the gorgeous East, whose ardent suns
Have kissed thy velvet skin to deeper lustre
And given thine almond eyes
A look more calm and wise
Than any we pale Westerners can muster,
Alas! my mean intelligence affords
No clue to grasp the meaning of the words
Which vehemently from thy larynx leap.
How is it that the liquid language runs?
"_Nai--soring--trîf--erwonbi--aster---ferish--îp._"

E'en so, methinks, did CLEOPATRA woo
Her vanquished victor, couched on scented roses
And PHARAOH from his throne
With more imperious tone
Addressed in some such terms rebellious Moses;
And esoteric priests in Theban shrines,
Their ritual conned from hieroglyphic signs,
Thus muttered incantations dark and deep
To Isis and Osiris, Thoth and Shu:
"_Nai--soring--trîf--erwonbi--aster---ferish--îp._"

In all my youthful studies why was this
Left out? What tutor shall I blame my folly on?
From Sekhet-Hetepu
Return to mortal view,
O shade of BRUGSCH or MARIETTE or CHAMPOLLION;
Expound the message latent in his speech
Or send a clearer medium, I beseech;
For lo! I listen till I almost weep
For anguish at the priceless gems I miss:
"_Nai--soring--trîf--erwonbi--aster--ferish--îp._"

To sundry greenish orbs arranged on trays--
Unripe, unluscious fruit--he draws attention.
My mind, till now so dark,
Receives a sudden spark
That glows and flames to perfect comprehension;
And I, whom no Rosetta Stone assists,
Become the peer of Egyptologists,
From whom exotic tongues no secrets keep;
For this is what the alien blighter says:
"Nice orang'; three for one piastre; very cheap."

H. W. BERRY.
Jan. 8, 1919.

_In Memoriam_

In Memoriam

Algernon Charles Swinburne

BORN 1837. DIED APRIL 10, 1909.

What of the night? For now his day is done,
And he, the herald of the red sunrise,
Leaves us in shadow even as when the sun
Sinks from the sombre skies.

High peer of SHELLEY, with the chosen few
He shared the secrets of Apollo's lyre,
Nor less from Dionysian altars drew
The god's authentic fire.

Last of our land's great singers, dowered at birth
With music's passion, swift and sweet and strong,
Who taught in heavenly numbers, new to earth,
The wizardry of song--

His spirit, fashioned after Freedom's mould,
Impatient of the bonds that mortals bear,
Achieves a franchise large and uncontrolled,
Rapt through the void of air.

"What of the night?" For him no night can be;
The night is ours, left songless and forlorn;
Yet o'er the darkness, where he wanders free,
Behold, a star is born!

SIR OWEN SEAMAN.
APRIL 21, 1909.

In Memoriam

George Meredith, O.M.

BORN 1828. DIED MAY 18, 1909

Masked in the beauty of the May-dawn's birth,
Death came and kissed the brow still nobly fair,
And hushed that heart of youth for which the earth
Still kept its morning air.

Long time initiate in her lovely lore,
Now is he one with Nature's woods and streams
Whereof, a Paradisal robe, he wore
The visionary gleams.

Among her solitudes he moved apart;
The mystery of her clouds and star-sown skies,
Touched by the fusing magic of his art,
Shone clear for other eyes.

When from his lips immortal music broke,
It was the myriad voice of vale and hill;
"The lark ascending" poured a song that woke
An echo sweeter still.

Yet most we mourn his loss as one who gave
The gift of laughter and the boon of tears,
Interpreter of life, its gay and grave,
Its human hopes and fears.

Seer of the soul of things, inspired to know
Man's heart and woman's, over all he threw
The spell of fancy's iridescent glow,
The sheen of sunlit dew.

And of the fellowship of that great Age
For whose return our eyes have waited long,
None left so rich a twofold heritage
Of high romance and song.

We knew him, fronted like the Olympian gods,
Large in his loyalty to land and friend,
Fearless to fight alone with Fortune's odds,
Fearless to face the end.

And he is dead. And at the parting sign
We speak, too late, the love he little guessed,
And bid him in the nation's heart for shrine
Take his eternal rest.

SIR OWEN SEAMAN.
May 26, 1909.

In Memoriam

William Booth

FOUNDER AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE
SALVATION ARMY.

BORN 1829. DIED AUGUST 20, 1912.

As theirs, the warrior knights of Christian fame,
Who for the Faith led on the battle line,
Who stormed the breach and swept through blood and flame
Under the Cross for sign,

Such was his life's crusade; and, as their death
Inspired in men a purpose pure of taint--
In some great cause to give their latest breath--
So died this soldier-saint.

Nay, his the nobler warfare, since his hands
Set free the thralls of misery and her brood--
Hunger and haunting shame and sin that brands--
And gave them hope renewed.

Bruised souls, and bodies broken by despair,
He healed their heartache and their wounds he dressed,
And drew them, so redeemed, his task to share,
Sworn to the same high quest.

Armed with the Spirit's wisdom for his sword,
His feet with tidings of salvation shod,
He knew no foes save only such as warred
Against the peace of God.

Scorned or acclaimed, he kept his harness bright,
Still, through the darkest hour, untaught to yield
And at the last, his face toward the light,
Fell on the victor's field.

No laurelled blazon rests above his bier,
Yet a great people bows its stricken head
Where he who fought without reproach or fear,
Soldier of Christ, lies dead.

SIR OWEN SEAMAN.
Aug. 28, 1912.

_The War_

Wireless

There sits a little demon
Above the Admiralty,
To take the news of seamen
Seafaring on the sea;
So all the folk aboard-ships
Five hundred miles away
Can pitch it to their Lordships
At any time of day.

The cruisers prowl observant;
Their crackling whispers go;
The demon says, "Your servant,"
And lets their Lordships know;
A fog's come down off Flanders?
A something showed off Wick?
The captains and commanders
Can speak their Lordships quick.

The demon sits a-waking;
Look up above Whitehall--
E'en now, mayhap, he's taking
The Greatest Word of all;
From smiling folk aboard-ships
He ticks it off the reel:--
"An' may it please your Lordships:
A Fleet's put out o' Kiel!"

P. R. CHALMERS.
Nov. 11, 1914.

Guns of Verdun

Guns of Verdun point to Metz
From the plated parapets;
Guns of Metz grin back again
O'er the fields of fair Lorraine.

Guns of Metz are long and grey
Growling through a summer day;
Guns of Verdun, grey and long,
Boom an echo of their song.

Guns of Metz to Verdun roar,
"Sisters, you shall foot the score";
Guns of Verdun say to Metz,
"Fear not, for we pay our debts."

Guns of Metz they grumble, "When?"
Guns of Verdun answer then,
"Sisters, when to guard Lorraine
Gunners lay you East again!"

P. R. CHALMERS.
Sept. 2, 1914.

The Woods of France

MIDSUMMER 1915.

Not this year will the hamadryads sing
The old-time songs of Arcady that ran
Down the Lycæan glades; the joyous ring
Of satyr dancers call away their clan;
Not this year follow on the ripened Spring
The Summer pipes of Pan.

Cometh a time--as times have come before--
When the loud legions rushing in array,
The flying bullet and the cannon roar,
Scatter the Forest Folk in pale dismay
To hie them far from their green dancing floor,
And wait a happier day.

Yet think not that your Forest Folk are dead;
To this old haunt, when friend has vanquished foe,
They will return anon with lightsome tread
And labour that this place they love and know,
All broken now and bruised, may raise its head
And still in beauty grow.

Wherefore they wait the coming of good time
In the green English woods down Henley way,
In meadows where the tall cathedrals chime,
Or watching from the white St. Margaret's Bay,
Or North among the heather hills that climb
Above the Tweed and Tay.

And you, our fighters in the woods of France,
Take heart and smite their enemy, the Hun,
Who knows not Arcady, by whom the dance
Of fauns is scattered, at whose deeds the sun
Hides in despair; strike boldly and perchance
The work will soon be done.

To you, so fighting, messengers will bring
The comfort of quiet places; in the din
Of battle you shall hear the murmuring
Of the home winds and waters; there will win
Through to your hearts the word, "Still Pan is king;
His Midsummer is in."